Happy 6 Months Hailey!

 OH MY GOODNESS! Where has the time gone?! My baby is 6 months old, half a year already!                                    This wonderful little girl as you guys know brings me so much joy!
                                                    Hailey is 16 lbs 5 oz and 27 1/2 inches tall
                                                      She loves sweet potatoes and avocados
                                                Enjoys watching the Floogals and the Chica Show
                                                Giggles and smiles at fart noises(only my kid haha)
                                                Loves to roll around, sitting up, and to throw her toys
                                                         Enjoys knocking down her blocks
                                                    Allergic to all veggies in the squash family
                                                                Has 2 teeth popping up
                                                            Likes to give slobbery kisses

                                                     

Sensory Fun for Miss.Hailey!

Hailey is at the really fun age where you can do a lot of sensory activities! Of course I have been on Pinterest.com to find all of these wonderful activities you can do it at home with your baby to promote stimulation! I thought I would share some of the activities Hailey and I have been doing and how well the experience has been! 

SENSORY BOTTLES

I had a lot of fun making these sensory bottles for Hailey! I have more bottles not pictured here! Hailey especially loves her "Ocean In a Bottle"- made with vegetable oil, water, blue food coloring, and shells! These bottles are easy to throw into the diaper bag and they provide a great distraction for your baby when you are in the waiting room at the doctor's, restaurants, really anywhere! The sensory bottles are also easy to make! I am a craft ninja, so I had many of the supplies needed to make them. I used various colors of glitter, confetti stars and shells, and bedazzle jewels. The actual bottles were leftover favors from my baby shower; they are very small and easy for a baby to hold! I have seen bottles you can make with themes to them, such as "Minions", monsters, buttons, "Night Sky", etc. A helpful bit of advice to those thinking about doing this craft: GLUE THE LIDS DOWN! This way the water, glitter, buttons, etc do not leak or come out of the bottle :)  Such cool ideas and they give mama some crafts to do! Very worth the little bit of time it takes to make them! Sensory bottles are a sucessful sensory activity! 

   RIBBON WAND 

This craft idea was spur of the moment and I decided to do this when I realized I had a ton of various colored ribbons in my craft supply. I was lucky when I found the wooden stick! I think this craft only took me 10 minutes at the most to make involving cutting the ribbons and tying them onto the stick! Hailey likes to watch the different designs the ribbons make when you move the wand and she enjoys trying to grab the ribbons in her hands. This activity is great with helping hand coordination skills and keeps baby occupied for at least 10 minutes. Ribbons can also stimulate using touch. Hailey giggles when you run the ribbons over her arms or legs. I know this ribbon wand seems like it was meant for cats, but babies love it too! :D 

RAINBOW SPAGHETTI NOODLES

As you can see from Hailey's face, she loved this activity! I don't think she quite knew what to make of the noodles at first! I wish I had gotten a picture of her after she played with the colorful noodles! She had them everywhere and was giggling so hard! To do this activity you need: spaghetti noodles, water, oil, food coloring, a pan or a plastic container. I found this idea on Pinterest. The only thing I would do differently is not coat the noodles after they are cooked in oil. I get that the oil makes the noodles more slimy, but I didn't want to give Hailey any acne from the oil being on her soft baby skin. I would add the oil to the water when the noodles are cooking. After the noodles are done cooking, add various colors of food coloring to your drained noodles. LET THE NOODLES DRY FOR A LONG TIME AFTER COOKED. I say this to avoid having your child's hands, arms, legs, etc turn into a rainbow. Now, watch your kid enjoying touching something new, slimy, and weird! 

      THE BEAN BIN 

The Bean Bin activity was recommended to me by a friend and Hailey really enjoyed it!I chose to do a variety of the beans because I felt the colors would also be stimulating!  She loved putting her hands and feet in the beans, throwing the beans, and watching the beans fall out of the measuring cup. When she is older, she may enjoy "digging" in the beans and scooping up the beans by herself! The only issue I had with this activity was making sure Hailey did not place any of the beans in her mouth! She is all about her mouth right now! She has not discovered that she a nose or ears yet, thank God! I like that this activity you can save and do again and that it was not an expensive activity to do! I bought three bags of beans from Food Lion for $1.39 each. I already had the cake pan and the measuring cup at home! If you are not sold on this activity yet, here is a video of Hailey enjoying it! 

RAINBOW ICE

Hailey was very surprised by this sensory activity! We did it so that she could feel both warm and cold at the same time! The cold water excited her! This a great activity to do for a few minutes (you don't want little baby fingers and hands to get too cold!) No the colored water did not dye her hands! If she was to touch the ice cube, there could be some potential for dyeing of little fingers! To do this activity you need: a few ice cube trays, food coloring, a pan or plastic container, and water. I dyed water in a few separate bowls and placed a different color of the food coloring in each bowl. Then poured each different color into the different compartments of the ice cube tray! Once the water is frozen and has become ice, you can do your sensory activity! I actually really wanted to do this activity outside on a warm and sunny day, but we had a week full of rain so I opted to do it in the kitchen instead! Very easy and enjoyable for both mom and baby!
                            Here are a few videos of Hailey doing this sensory activity!

Me and Hailey will be doing some more sensory activities soon and we will share them with you all! Sorry about not posting for awhile, we have been very busy lately! I promise I will update more :D 

A Dad's 1st Father's Day!

HAPPY FIRST FATHER's DAY to my husband Joe and Hailey's daddy! What a very special occasion! Hailey got her daddy a new fishing pole and made him a picture using her hand and foot to make a fishing pole and fish! We are both so very lucky to have such a wonderful man in our lives who takes care of us and loves us so much! We celebrated an early father's day with Grandpa, Grandma Terry, and Aunt Louise at our house. Daddy has been perfecting his grilling skills! It was a good time for all!

Give a Little Kindness!

       This morning I had a man walk up to me at Food Lion, I was making a quick run to pick up diapers. Normally, I would feel alarmed at a stranger especially one who is a man walking up to me when it is just me and my baby, but I was in a very public place and this man had a kind and warm smile on his face. He said, "Your baby has a beautiful smile, she must get that from you."
        I did not get the feeling that he was hitting on me, just merely paying me a compliment. I smiled, thanked the man, and told him to have a wonderful day. As I stood in line to pay for the diapers and Diet Coke that I had in my cart, I kept smiling. When it came to be my turn to check out, the first thing the cashier said to me was, "Hello, it seems like you are having a good morning!"
       Truth be told , I was not having a good morning at all. Hailey wouldn't go to sleep until 12:30 AM last night, I was not caught up on my school work, and I was upset with my husband (I don't need to go into details). I felt so low about myself and felt like I had no control over my world.
                 
 To the man that took a moment of his time to pay me a compliment this morning,
           
              Thank you. I don't think you know how much your kind words mean to me and how much I needed them today. I don't know if you sensed that I wasn't having a good morning or if you are just the type of person that is compassionate towards others. To me, it seems as if you are both an observant and compassionate person. You brightened up my day. Now instead of being sad, I will think up upon your kindness and will smile. You gave me a gift of confidence and happiness and that is worth more than a 1,000 words,
                                                                                               Sincerely,
                                                                           The Mom with the Adorable Baby

It takes but a single moment to help someone, to make their day better, and to change their outlook on life in that moment to be positive. You never know who really needs that show of kindness and confidence boost.

                     
"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."- Aesop 

Feeding your Baby Unhealthy Food at a Young Age

Warning: This post may contain heated thoughts. Please do not attack me with vicious comments. They will be deleted and I will ask that you do not frequent my blog in the future. Remember EVERYONE is entitled to their opinion, I am sharing mine and I ask for only constructive feedback that can contribute to an educational discussion.

          I don't participate in a lot of online discussions unless they are positive, but I contributed to one on Facebook today where a status was open to several people's opinions on the subject matter of baby fat shaming and it involved a mother giving her 3 month old baby whipped cream. I am FB friends with both people: the person who posted the original status that could be taken as baby fat shaming and with the person who posted a status that was about the original status (hope you are not confused!) My comment involved agreeing that a baby should not be fat shamed, no obesity should be mentioned when it comes to babies anyway! A chunky baby is a happy healthy baby, we want babies to eat!! BUT that no 3-4 month old should be fed whipped cream, that is a lot of sugar and most babies are not even able to eat solid foods at that age. Babies the majority of the time start out with oatmeal and solid foods that are approved by a pediatrician. Babies need a lot of nutrients to grow and whipped cream is unnecessary.

             Anyway, of course I got attacked by several people, a few that were moms and a few that weren't, all stating that I was judging that mom to be a horrible mom and from there it went from one ridiculous comment after the next jumping to topics that I did not even bring up with my original comment. Let me tell you, people can be REALLY mean. I reacted in defense and may not have been so nice myself because it felt like the comments became personal attacks and you add the "ganged up on" effect. well things get ugly. This is exactly the reason why I normally do not join these conversations, no matter how innocent a comment may be, there is a chance you will be attacked by others. Instead of everyone focusing on the more important issue of baby fat shaming, my comment was more focused on. 

            Was I judging that mom? MAYBE, without meaning too! Did I think she was a horrible mom? NO. Truth be told, I felt that the mom could be uneducated. Maybe she hadn't gone to her child's next pediatrician check up for the 3 month mark yet? She could have been given information from a family member that stated the child could eat solids at 3 months old. Perhaps all she was thinking, "I think maybe he/or she would like whipped cream!" We don't know! All I stated were facts that any pediatrician and any nurse would have replied to the fact that a mother fed her very young baby whipped cream. "Most", not all...(let me be clear) moms would probably choose not to feed their baby whipped cream at such a young age. Did the whipped cream kill the baby? No, but people were bringing up comments to that extreme. Thank god that mom wasn't giving her baby soda or even alcohol! Now that would be something to REALLY worry about! 

          Putting it this way, may help people understand my frame of thinking; would you feed your baby something that you find unhealthy for yourself?  My answer is no. I make all of Hailey's food fresh, I am lucky that I get a chance to do this for my baby; this is also a personal choice. I know most moms use baby food from the store, that's okay as long as your baby is getting the nutrients they need to be healthy!

         BABIES CANNOT CHOOSE WHAT THEY EAT AND WHAT GOES INTO THEIR BODIES. As parents or guardians, we decide what our babies eat. We are responsible in making sure they have good food choices and have what they need to be healthy. I was told by my pediatrician a baby's stomach is about as big as their little fist. That is not very big, I would rather fill that tiny little organ up with green beans rather than chocolate, whipped cream, coffee, etc. 

       Now when Hailey is the appropriate age, I cannot wait for her to try whipped cream and chocolate! I know she is going to love it. Keyword: APPROPRIATE AGE. It will be fun to see her enjoy trying these new tastes. I am sure that mom was thinking the same thing about her 3 month old baby. 

          AGAIN this post is not about fat shaming a baby, I would never do that. A bigger baby is a sign that it is healthy. Babies need more fat to use as energy for all that they do and are learning. This post is about giving a baby unhealthy food at a too young age, that is all. 

First Time Pool Adventures!

    Me, Joe, and Hailey at our neighborhood pool

Hailey loving the water!

We had many different trials with water, Hailey sometimes likes bath time and the majority of the time not. Joe and I were worried that she wouldn't like the pool at all and that we would be carrying a screaming baby out of the pool with judgemental eyes observing us from all around. Luckily, this was not the case! As you can see, Hailey loved her first ever pool experience, it was a success! We will be going to the pool once or twice a week now that we know she enjoys it. To tell you the truth I am not a water person, but Hailey made being in the pool fun!