So Many Firsts

Yesterday, May 22, was a monumental day in Emma’s life. It started out like every other day with Emma waking up but it ended with Emma doing two new things for the first time. The first was we decided that we were going to feed her rice cereal. She has never eaten solids before so this was a big deal. We were really excited to do this and decided to do it after her afternoon nap. Speaking of which, her afternoon nap seems to have finally developed and she has been taking a long afternoon nap. Laetitia is the master at getting her to take them but we were able to get her to sleep for almost an hour and a half and that was pretty amazing. I digress… we got the highchair out of the garage and set it all up. When she woke up she was a bit groggy and we said let’s play with her for a bit to really get her up. We wanted to make sure that she was completely awake and aware of what was going on. So we decided that we should do some tummy time and instead of using the pillow to help prop her up we just laid a blanket on the floor and put her down. Her head was so high it was FANTASTIC. Jamey got down with her and they were both in the same pose. I took some really cute pictures. Anyway, all of a sudden Emma rolled over!!! She had never done that before and both Jamey and I started screaming for joy and dancing around. We don’t really know if Emma was all that surprised at what she did because we were so busy dancing around and singing her praises she was just watching us. We put her back on her tummy and guess what… she did it again! And again! We are so proud of our little girl. Now we have to watch her more carefully and strap her in on the changing table because who knows when she will roll again. She only rolled onto her right side – we will have to show her how to roll onto her left. We then showed her how to roll from her back to her tummy – but she only goes sideways. That will take some time.

It was now time for Emma to eat rice cereal. We got everything ready – her sippy cup was filled with water, the rice cereal was warm to her liking (hopefully), her spoon was clean and her bib was on – and we put her in her highchair. She looked so cute in her highchair. Such a big girl! We then got the camera and video camera ready – we sat down next to her and we fed her the cereal. She really liked it! She was eating it up and smiling. She was getting so excited with each spoonful and kept opening her mouth when the spoon came near. As we you know, she loves putting everything in her mouth so we aren’t 100% sure that she opened her mouth so she could eat the cereal – she may have opened her mouth so she could eat the spoon.  Either way, she really enjoyed it and didn’t make any crazy faces or push the food out of her mouth.

It seemed like she was just drinking my milk from a spoon but we know that we mixed a tablespoon of cereal and three and a half tablespoons of breastmilk… if we didn’t know it we would have thought she was just eating my milk. We didn’t taste it but the taste had to have been different. I will say that this entire experience made a mess – there was a ton of food all over her bib and her shirt. The cereal is so soupy it is hard not to get it everywhere. I know that we mixed in a tablespoon of cereal to three and a half tablespoons of breastmilk but it seemed like she drinking my milk off a spoon. It will definitely be interesting to see how she reacts to a thicker consistency. We plan to make it a bit thicker tomorrow and that will be another test to see if she likes it. Emma also was drinking water out of her sippy cup. We aren’t sure how much she actually drank – if any – but she did enjoy holding her cup and bringing it to her mouth. We are going to measure how much water we put in it tomorrow to see if she is actually drinking any. But we kind of think she was more chewing the spout than sucking on it.

It was a really exciting day for us as parents. Words can’t describe or do justice to the feelings we have. We are so proud of her and of all the things she does. It melts our hearts when we think what a wonderful baby we have. We are so lucky we get to watch her grow into a happy, beautiful little girl.

It was phenomenal to see her roll over – we are still shaking our heads in disbelief because we weren’t expecting it and I think the neighbors could hear us screaming in excitement. To think that it was just about a month ago when we called tummy time “tummy torture,” and now she holds her head up high and rolls over – it brings tears of joy to our eyes! I just can’t believe how fast she is growing and how time is flying by. I want time to stop or slow down so I can hold on to these moments of her as a baby but I also can’t wait for her grow up and talk and say mommy and daddy.

I swear life is absolutely amazing… it was just five months ago when she came into this world – a helpless little girl who didn’t do anything but sleep, eat and cry; and now she is grabbing toys (hair, paper, plates, anything she can get her hands on), smiling, laughing, cooing/babbling, sitting up practically all on her own, standing up with assistance and eating solids. Wow!!! she is just so amazing to watch – I think we both could be happy just starring at her all day long.