The Reynolds Fam: April 2013

Happy 9 months Miss Harper!! A lot of people had warned me that months 8-12 are when babies really start becoming fun and I think that may be the truth. It seems like every couple days Harper has new tricks that she wants to show off and we crack up at her little personality!

March has been awesome, mostly because I am finished with med school and getting to be a stay at home mom for a few months!!! I finished up my last rotation on the 21st and have just been soaking up the days with baby girl :) I also had some serious life plan changes occur recently... most people probably already know but I'm sure there's quite a few that don't. I had long thought I'd be a pediatrician but after having Harper and a miserable, awful PICU rotation I knew I wasn't going to be doing that anymore... and loooong story short, I matched into psychiatry here at UK! I'll likely end up doing child psych but we shall see :) It's just about the most family friendly residency there is so I'm hoping that makes the next few years a little easier on this momma. We also got the great, great news that David matched into orthopaedic surgery at UK!! Match day was an awesome day for this family!!

More news on David and Carrie.... and baby Claire!!! Yayy! We had their gender reveal party in etown a couple weeks ago and popped a balloon filled with PINK confetti!!! For those that have seen the pictures, nobody knew what color confetti was in the balloon - and the reason it was a black balloon was b/c I was afraid you may be able to see the color of the confetti in any other color balloon. Carrie had an ultrasound done and brought an envelope with it over to our house. I then took the envelope and both pink and blue confetti to the party store and they filled up the balloon for us! We cut a cake to find out our baby's gender but I kind of liked the balloon popping just because everyone instantaneously knew at the same time. Andy and I are excited to have a niece and even more excited for Harper to have a built in best friend!! And if that wasn't exciting enough, they also signed a contract to build their first home across the street from us!!!! We are pumped about being able to have little girls growing up together and will love being so close :)

Back to Harper.... let's go through her acquired tricks from the month :) Most exciting, we have a crawler! After teasing us for months, she decided it was time to get on the move! Initially she was a little wobbly on the hardwood... reminded me of bambi on the frozen pond... but she has perfected her moves and is a busy little lady! She still does not stray too far from her momma and the trend of being a bit of a momma's girl has definitely continued this month. I think just in the past week or so she's gotten a little friendlier and if you just sit and play with her for a few minutes she'll warm up pretty quickly. She continues to give fives and loves waving hi and bye. The cutest thing is how friendly babies are with other babies. When we are out grocery shopping or running errands, it's hit or miss as to whether she will wave at adults but whenever she sees other kids she can't turn the waving off! She has also started giving "hugs" which consist of her laying her head on a person or whatever toy you ask her to hug :) She will say bye bye but we don't really know if she knows what that means. Oftentimes if I'm talking on my phone in the front and say see ya later Harper chimes in with byebye from the back! She also definitely know what up means and uses it when her momma isn't getting to her fast enough ;) She's finally figured out that being chased is a game. At first when I tried to "chase" her she would just turn around and crawl towards me so excited! haha

We went ahead and got a membership to the Y so that I could take her swimming at their indoor pool now while it's still cool out. She loooves swimming and splashing around in the water! She definitely has not mastered shutting her mouth though when she goes underwater and does not appreciate getting choked up;) We start mom/baby swim lessons next week so I'm hoping they will give me some more tips besides blowing on her face to get her comfortable underwater.

One of the harder things this month is her sitting up in her crib rather than laying down to fall asleep. We put her down awake now and half the time she pops up to sitting and either fusses or just babbles and looks around her room. I've found her standing up in her crib a few times so we're going to drop it down to the lowest setting tonight.

I took Harper to the mall a few days after she started crawling because it was freezing out and I wanted to let her play. Our mall has a little indoor playground area (yes, a total germ fest) but we both were getting cabin fever from being cooped up and I wanted to see what she'd do around other kids. Harper was by far the youngest - there was another 12 month old but mostly 18mo to 4 yo I'd say - and the older kids were obsessed with her. They wanted to pat her head and tried to get her to follow them around. After about 15 min of fun, a little girl came flying around the corner and trucked poor Harper :( She bawled and I immediately scooped her up and tried to comfort her... and then I felt like all the other moms were judging me for coddling my baby lol. I just felt so awful though! Harper does not really know roughhousing and poor thing was crying her little eyes out.

Harper has also learned what no means this month. Our house is pretty babyproofed so she can go most anywhere except by the fireplace. It seriously only took like 3 times of a stern "harper, no no, we don't play with that" for her to understand what it means. Her feelings get seriously hurt now if she hears no though. She will look at you and then start the most pitiful cry and sometimes lay her head down lol. But it does stop her in her tracks so I guess that's alright.

Harper was sick over Easter weekend so that put a little damper on the fun :( She had a fever for 5 days straight but finally got over whatever was bothering her! Andy, Dad, David and I all "ran" in a 1/2 marathon here in Lexington on the Saturday of easter weekend... it was awful but we got some pretty medals ;) When I got home Harper was cuddling with Mom and wasn't even excited to see me which means she was definitely not feeling well! She also had slept for a grand total of about 2.5 hours the night before with temps up to 103 :( Everyone was worn out!! On Easter morning, Harper got her cute little easter basket and we did make it to church but opted not to go to the family easter celebration :( She was still acting puny and cuddly which is not like this baby. When it was time to head back to Lexington she finally came alive so we spent a little time enjoying the beautiful day on the trampoline. Harper looooves the trampoline. She likes being bounced and she also likes picking up all the little sticks that have fallen on it. haha

She has added a lot of foods to her repertoire but her most favorite are probably bananas. Whenever she sees anyone eating a banana she pops her paci out and starts smacking her lips waiting for a bite!. The easter bunny brought her some banana puffs that she loves and cheerios are also a new favorite :)

I forgot my camera over easter so will have to update later to add the pictures from Easter. We also go for her 9 month dr appt next week so I'll add in those updates too :)