More firsts!

Piper is growing and changing so quickly that I need to be sure to be documenting her firsts! She's had three more (at least) in the last week and a half that I wanted to be sure to note. Last Sunday (October 18), she went on her first hike - Prospect Mountain in Lake George. The last time we did that hike was last November with Katie and Sara and I guess you could say Piper was there too (I was pregnant), but this time she was a lot more alert. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. When we walk around the neighborhood, she stays awake in the Baby Bjorn for a max of 10 minutes, but when we were hiking, she stayed awake pretty much the entire time (almost two hours!). Reid carried her, which was great because my balance seems to still be a bit questionable at times, and she seemed to love it. Here are a couple of pics from the hike ...

Then fast forward to Friday (October 23) ... Piper and I took a field trip to Toys R Us and bought her an exersaucer. She has great head control and is definitely into exploring everything so we thought an exersaucer would be a fun toy for her to learn and grow on. I will say that this thing is enormous and we've lost more of our living room to baby gear now, but she loves it! There's really only one area that she seems to be really into now - it's a globe that makes music and then a crocodile that says words too - and just like with other things that she's into, the drool starts FLOWING when she gets into her exersaucer. It's so fun to watch her learn ... really this is one of the best parts of being a parent. It's just amazing!

So then last night, we broke out the rice cereal for the first time ... she's not quite four months, which is what the official recommendations are, but again, she's rock solid with her head and lately, she's seemed extra hungry. She was sleeping through the night, for about a week and a half, and then last Friday night, she started waking up in the middle of the night again. And it wasn't just that, she was also chowing like an animal in the late afternoon/evening in addition to that extra night feeding. Never going two hours in between feedings ... she just seemed hungry, like she wasn't getting enough milk. So after three nights of her waking up earlier and earlier after her bottle feeding (Sunday was 1:15am - she hasn't done that in weeks), we decided to break out the rice cereal to try to get a few more calories in her. My mom had warned me that it was going to be a messy process, and it definitely was, but she loves baths anyway and it was bath night so we just threw her in the tub afterwards.

So after we fed Piper the cereal and gave her a bath, she had her nightly bottle. Now I don't know if it was the fuller tummy to start with, the nice warm bath water, or what, but she passed out part way through the bottle. And by pass out, I mean rock solid sleeping. So we picked her up, put her down in her crib and said goodnight. Well that was great for a half hour, and then she woke up and was CRANKY. So cranky and fussy that Reid and I were actually worried that she maybe had a stomachache or something. After 20 minutes or so of screaming, I noticed something interesting, though. The screaming only happened in her nursery ... hmmm ... was it possible that she was playing us and didn't want to go to bed? Our conclusion was absolutely because she was perfectly content anywhere else in the house. Nice try little peanut! So we put her back down and let her fuss for a bit and she passed out again. This time until 3:20. Now 3:20 is definitely not through the night, but it's better than the night before and we'll see what happens tonight :-)

And I don't know if the pictures are doing her justice, but she is huge! So long. She's growing out of her 6 month clothes that snap because they're getting to be too short. Such a big girl now! And also an awake girl. I hear her up from a short nap so I'm out ...