4 month checkup

Sorry this is late, I forgot to post last week after Brooke's doctor appointment on 9/23.

She weighed in at 14 pounds 5 ounces (75th percentile). The doctor also found an ear infection, so we're treating her with antiobiotics for 10 days twice daily. We finally figured out a technique that helps her keep at least some of it down. If I stick my finger in my mouth for her to suck on and then put the medicine dropper further back into the side of her mouth I can slowly dispense it so that she hardly notices it and she'll swallow most of it down. The worse part of it for her is that it's refrigerated and she's not used to having anything cold. Especially first thing in the morning!

The doctor is really pushing us to get her to sleep longer at night. It's not like I want her waking up at 2am every morning to eat, but I feel if she is getting up to eat then I don't really want to deprive her of food. Since I'm still nursing, it's hard to know exactly how much she's eating so if she's still hungry in the middle of the night, I want her to be able to eat. Hopefully once she gets the hang of solids that might fill her up more and help her make it longer. Paige started sleeping through the night around 8 weeks old. But she we were also supplementing her with formula which takes longer to digest so that may have helped. Hopefully soon Brooke will start sleeping longer. In the meantime, don't mind the dark circles under our eyes.

Carnegie Museum of Natural History

A few weeks ago when Grampy and Grammy were in town we went to the dinosaur museum. Paige is still interested in dinosaurs, but I was afraid she might be a little afraid of the huge displays they have. But she wasn't...at all. She did confirm a few times that they weren't real though. The museum has an awesome exhibit for the dinosaurs and they have tons of other things to see, but we spent quite a bit of time just in the dinosaur part. They even had this nice kids area where the kids could dig for dinosaur bones.

First food

Yesterday was Brooke's 4 month birthday. Hard to believe she's 4 months old already. To celebrate her birthday, we gave her a taste of rice cereal. She didn't hate it, she really didn't know what to think of it. I put it in her mouth and she would just kind of stare at me not knowing what to do. Finally she swallowed some of it down and drooled some of it out. I definitely think she's ready, but just needs a little more practice.

Paige really surprised us yesterday as well. We had pork tenderloin and cheesy rice with broccoli for dinner. And she ate both! We always offer her what we're eating and usually she'll give it a try, but then sometimes we end up making something else for her or she'll eat a bigger bedtime snack if she didn't eat much for dinner.

Product Review - For the Kids CD

We got this CD awhile ago, but as of the last few months Paige has REALLY gotten into it.

Her favorite songs are "La La La La Lemon" by Barenaked Ladies, "Rainbow Connection" by Sarah McLachlan and "I've Got To Be Clean" by Guster. All of the songs are really enjoyable, even for us because they are by artists that we already enjoy listening too. Sometimes I find myself listening to the CD even when she's not in the car and singing along to it.

Just about every time we're in the car she'll ask for the La La La song. The CD player doesn't work in the CRV, so she'll usually be disappointed if we take that car on a road trip and will tell us that La La La, Rainbow song and Got to be Clean are in the green car. I should download them to my phone to have them available because she likes them that much! And I love that she's showing such an interest in music!

I'm putting this CD on Paige's Christmas list. It's a whole album of just Barenaked Ladies kids songs.

WSJ

Check out this article in the Wall Street Journal today! 

In case you didn't notice, Justin was published in the Wall Street Journal! That's a small little piece to a long post that he did on his baseball blog awhile back. The original piece analyzed factors such as ticket prices, food, parking, beer, etc and how they related to team performance to measure which teams offered the best overall value to their fans (hopefully I described that right, sorry Justin). But WSJ and others were really fascinated by the beer piece of it, so that's what they published. Hopefully now that they know who he is he'll get picked up more often and in other places too. Congrats Justin!

Fundraising!

Just a reminder: Deadline is Friday, 9/25/09 if you are interested in any magazines.

On Paige's 4th day of Preschool we were sent home with her first fundraiser!

This one is pretty easy though. There's no minimum requirement that we have to sell and we can get credit for online sales too. It's for magazines. We get credit for new orders and subscription renewals if you already subscribe to something and want to add on another year. Here's the important part:

Go to www.qsp.com and use this online code so her school gets credit: 425003358. Then make sure you enter Paige's name (MER1) so that she can get credit towards the prizes.

40% of the magazine purchases go directly to the school, so they can make a pretty nice profit if a lot of people participate.

Thanks so much to anyone that wants to participate, but don't feel like you have to. I'm sure there will be plenty of other opportunities that we'll hit you up with over the next 20 years!

PLEASE NOTE: In order for Paige to get credit for the sales made online, please enter QSP ID: MER1 during checkout.

New Layout

I had to change the layout of the blog because the old theme wasn't wide enough to display landscape pictures properly. I'll miss my PBJ sandwich, but I think I can probably make some more updates to this template when I have some time and it'll be nicer in the long run.