Baby Food

We have started Samara on solids.  She's had rice cereal, butternut squash, carrots, pears, apples, peas and broccoli.  She obviously likes the fruit more but still ate the vegetables too.  Hopefully she won't be a picky eater like her Mother.  I've been having fun using the baby bullet.  I'm going to enjoy making her food.

Broccoli

Carrots

Ready to store!

Growing

4 months

5 months

6 months

Sleeping Woes

Until recently Samara had been giving me at least a 4 hour stretch in the evening.  Over the past couple of weeks she has reverted back to waking every 2 hours to eat.  I attribute that to a growth spurt and/or teething.  While annoying I was coping, however in the past two days she has now become very hard to put down just to go to sleep.  I used to be able to put her in her crib while she was awake and she would play and then cry a little but once the pacifier was in her mouth most times would fall asleep.  Now she wails like crazy.  Today I tried to let her cry it out this morning, but 45 minutes later I gave up and picked her up and she fell asleep within 10 minutes.  At her lunch time nap I gently rocked her and she was out in 3 minutes and slept for 1 1/2 hours (usually she only sleeps for 30 min.).  This afternoon she has gone for yet another nap.  Again I decided to rock her a little bit and she was out in 5 minutes.  My question is what is more important, for her to get some sleep, or that she falls asleep on her own?  For now I'm going with it's more important for her to get her sleep.  Some days she wasn't even sleeping again in the afternoon and would be up for a 5 hour stretch before bedtime.  I'm curious if these naps will help her sleep better tonight.  I hope so, because the lack of sleep is catching up to me and I'm beginning to feel slightly crazy.  I also don't think it's good for me to drive while I'm sleep deprived.

Samara and Friends

Ready to Travel

Samara got her passport photo taken on Monday.  It was quite an experience.  How do you tell a baby not to smile, close her mouth and look straight into the camera.  We managed to get one that worked though.

Samara's new friend

I have so many toys that are my own I sometimes forget that I can now share them with my daughter.  Today we had fun with Elmo.  If you are on Facebook you may have already seen this video, so this is for those of you who aren't on Facebook.

Social Sleeper

This week I was out and about quite a bit with Samara.  I sometimes worry that it will deter her from her naps but in actual fact it encourages her naps and nice long ones.  At Movies for Mommies she slept through the movie (almost 2 hours), Friday Raju and I went for a walk and lunch at the Distillery, she slept for 3 hours, yesterday Di and I went to L'il Bean n' Green and she slept for 2.5-3 hours as well.  That seems to be the trick.  At home she likes to sleep in 30 minute sessions.  Maybe it's not loud enough for her and I need to make more noise :)
Regardless, I'm just happy that she has been so good and I've been able to enjoy my outings without her fussing too much.  I hope that I'm not jinxing myself by saying that.
Here are some recent pictures of her.