Six.

Six.

I have a six year old.

The past year has been a blur with Cassidy in "big girl" school, pregnancy, birth of a preemie, buying a new house, moving, and selling our old house.

Somehow, during all that, my baby started first grade, turned six, lost her first tooth, and made the honor roll with straight A's.  She's growing up ... 

too fast.

We had her birthday party at our new house, and Cassidy and Jeff went bigger and better with the birthday bounce house ... as big as possible for our yard and complete with a water slide.

 

 

 

We had a fantastic turnout with 18 first graders and a couple of their siblings.  The weather held out with only a short burst of rain, and the thunder holding off until we were ready to have cake.  The downpour started shortly after everyone left!

 

Cassidy lost her first tooth in september, just after her birthday.  The toothfairy brought her $1 and an Elsa Dress. (Apparently the tooth fairy is very generous on the first tooth, or so Cassidy explained to us after her friends lost teeth.)

Cassidy's adjusted well to first grade.  She's got 1-2 hours of homework each night (yes, you read that right).  Nana picks her up monday - thursday and gets her going on homework after school so our evenings aren't so rushed. (I don't know how we'd do it without Nana!)  She's got spelling, vocabulary, and Math tests each week, with the occasional reading test thrown in too.

And she's excelling.  Cassidy earned all A's and all S's (satisfactory) on her first report card.  She got awards for the honor roll, perfect attendance, and a "mustang award" for always doing her best.

She's also a fantastic big sister.  She loves to entertain Chloe with crazy dances, songs, giggles, tickles, and anything else needed to get a smile.

 

 

 

Cassidy is amazing.  She is smart, friendly, outgoing, funny, independent, caring, and a complete joy to be around (most of the time!) 

 

I am so, so proud of her.

So proud to be her Mama.

 

 

My big six year old.

 

Building Immunity

Chloe made it one week into daycare before her immune system began the torturous process of making antibodies.  The congestion and nasty diapers started the Sunday after her first week.  After a week of this, we started major spit ups after coughing and gagging on mucus.  The trip to the pediatrician concluded, "yep, she's got a virus.  It'll run it's course in 1-2 weeks."

We were back to normal for about four days with only a little congestion when she had several major spit ups overnight.  After her spitting up on a regular basis for the past two weeks, I didn't think anything of it.... until the next morning when daycare called 45 minutes after I dropped her off and said she had thrown up all over her bed.

So we faced her first stomach virus this past Friday.  We did a lot of laundry, mopped a lot of floors, wiped down the house with Clorox wipes, washed hands in scalding hot water, and gave Baxter a bath...yes, he got puked on too.  Another trip to the pediatrician when the diarrhea started Saturday morning told us we were doing everything right, she wasn't dehydrated, and she should be on the mend soon.  After a few more rounds of throwing up after eating, we decreased the amount we let her eat at once to let her irritated stomach recover.  The diarrhea didn't last long once we got the throwing up to stop and she was pretty much recovered by Sunday ... when Nana started throwing up.

Fun times on Mommy's birthday!  But at least we aren't evacuated for a hurricane!!!
 

Four Months

Chloe's now 4 months old.  She's still breastfeeding well and growing fast!  Her weigh in at her checkup put her at 11 pounds 11 ounces, which puts her up a little on her preemie growth curve at around 50%.  But more exciting is that she's now on the normal growth chart for weight at 5%!!!  She's measuring 22.5 inches which is right in line with her growth curve for height, but doesn't make the normal chart yet... Not surprising.  

She handled her four month vaccinations like a champ with a good loud cry and quickly settled down afterwards.  For the next day or two she was extra sleepy, but we didn't need the Tylenol this time around.  She may have run a low grade fever the following day, but it wasn't bad enough for me to even check her temperature.  

Chloe had a trial day at her daycare last Monday for about 4 hours and did fine.  Today she is there for her first full day and my heart broke a little when (okay, a lot) when I left her there.  Whether it's because I'm exclusively breast feeding this time around, been home for a bit longer with her, or because she was so premature, it was much more difficult to leave her today than I remember it being with Cassidy.

 

We are starting to see longer sleep times now.  We've been bouncing from eating every 3 hours each night to a 4-5 hour stretch here and there.  Last night we set a new record!  Chloe slept from 8:30pm until 4:20am, nursed, and then went right back to sleep from 4:45am until 7:45am!!!!!!!  Yippee!!! Hopefully she will do it again!

 

She also napped in her crib for about an hour yesterday morning.  Until now, she's been sleeping like a newborn with cat naps throughout the day in between short periods of alertness and eating.  I'd like to see her on a schedule with a morning and afternoon nap in her crib.  Her daycare is supportive for whatever we'd like to do, so we will just have to wait and see how that works out...

 

Naps on the weekends are tough though.  We are on the go so much, doing things with Cassidy, that naps often happen in the car seat, stroller, or carrier against mommy.