This is one happy girl at the beach. My sister Allison took this picture and I just had to post it!!

The beach

We enjoyed Emerald Isle all of last week with my entire immediate family and one cousin, her fiancé & two daughters. My sister Elizabeth, her husband Chris and her two girls Abigail & Jessica came down from Michigan and it was also the first time they had met Meredith, so it was awesome. The first day we were there my mom got a fish hook stuck in her leg while she was out in the water with my niece….yikes! Ironically, there was a UNC surgeon in the house next to us and he was able to assist her (even more ironic was that he marched for 4 years in the Cavaliers, which is an incredible drum corps for those of you who didn’t know me in my drum corps days!) She was ok and ended up with a tetanus shot and a nasty cut on her leg and her fingers. Of course we wouldn’t have wanted it to happen at all, but at least it got her instead of my 5-year-old niece!! So, that was a heck of a way to start out the week and thankfully, mom quickly recovered.

We surprised Hillary & Joey with a little bridal shower, celebrated Elizabeth & Chris’s 7th anniversary, my 30th birthday (ouch!) and just had a great time overall. Meredith really crawled for the first time….I think she was after a flip flop to chew on…yum. She did really well with all of the kiddos around. They all loved her and wanted to give all kinds of hugs and kisses. Meredith was totally enthralled with my two-year-old niece Jessie. It may have been because she was the closest to her size, but it also could be because she is just a flash zipping by at any given time. Meredith would just watch her run around and she would smile and laugh. She just seemed to have a great time taking it all in and never seemed irritated when there were 4 little girls in her face! We didn’t get her in the actual ocean at all this time, but there was a baby pool at the house that we brought down to the beach and filled with some ocean water and she had a blast splashing around in that. We also brought her pack and play down to the beach and put it under the tent and she played and napped in that so I could actually get some sun time! There was no chance of just laying her on a blanket this time since she would have been all over the place. She is pretty quick when she is on a mission!

We are back to the grind this week. Chris has had teacher workdays this week and will have kids starting tomorrow. Meredith has been back to the babysitter next door, who we discovered will be moving soon. We have been on the hunt for a new sitter and even found someone, but it just didn’t feel right. I’m not sure what we are going to do, but we need to figure something out soon. A true daycare may need to be what we go with, but they are so expensive and the whole thing just makes me insane when I think about it. Wish I would hit the lotto so I could just stay home with her…wishful thinking.
I will try to post some pictures soon. Got lots of good ones at the beach.

Acrobatics

I think my daughter may be an acrobat one day..... it has become an olympic event to change the child's diaper! She doesn't seem to understand that I really can't change it while she is trying to flip over and squirm the entire time. I just had to laugh last night because she had her own agenda which involved getting herself over onto her tummy on the changing table without one care about her silly diaper.
Chris took her for her 6 month pictures yesterday and they turned out pretty well. Not quite as great as her 4 month ones, but what picture of her isn't cute??!!
We are off to the beach on Saturday and can't wait!! Meredith will finally get to meet her Aunt Elizabeth, Uncle Chris and cousins Abby & Jessie!! Yeah!

The stats are in...

We went for Meredith's 6 month check up yesterday and she weighs 18.5 lbs and is 27" long! She falls right in the 90th percentile for pretty much everything. She also had 2 more shots, which were heartbreaking when she got them (I didn't cry this time!!), but overall went much better than her 4 month shots as far as her being fussy afterwards. She slept for most of the afternoon, probably partially due to the Tylenol, but we didn't even have to give her a second dose like last time. The doctor was pleased with her growth and said she is a very healthy little girl! He also said to go full steam ahead on the solid foods 3 times a day, so got a bit more direction from him on how much and all that jazz and went to BJs last night to stock up on food. I keep saying that I want to try to make some, but that would require some free time....maybe once her palate is a little more adjusted to food I can give it a try. We added squash last night and she liked it a lot, although most of it came back up.....very colorful.
Oh, her favorite part at the pediatrician was the crinkly paper that is on the exam table. She had the best time pulling and ripping it and of course, putting it in her mouth....still no teeth.

6 months!

I've been wanting to post some pictures, but since our harddrive crashed I haven't been able to upload any for awhile. Hopefully I will have new pics soon!
It's hard to believe, but Meredith is already 6 months old! She is such a funny little person now! She has developed such a cute little personality and is getting to be such a big girl! In the past week, she has really started sitting up a lot more....with help of course, but she can balance for a few seconds on her own without any support. She really is getting the army crawl down and can pop up onto all fours really fast now! She still hasn't figured out how to move one of her hands forward to truly crawl, but she rocks back and forth and eventually ends up on her belly and pushes off with her feet to scoot forward.
Her first food was peas and that went much better the second time around than the first and then we moved to green beans, which she seemed to like pretty well. Since it has been a week with just the green vegetables, I decided to try a fruit this morning. She seemed to be a bit startled by the applesauce at first since it is so sweet and different from the veggies, but she quickly decided that she liked it and was almost holding her mouth open for more, which has never happened before!
I also put her in the excersaucer this morning and she loved it and played for a good 30-40 minutes in it before she got tired and went down for a nap. I think she is really liking to be more upright lately. I'm wondering how much longer she will put up with her carseat, which is the typical Graco infant one that clicks into the base in the car. It is really reclined and I think she is getting ill when she has to spend any amount of time in it and she tries to pull herself up to a more sitting position, which obviously doesn't go well since she is strapped in! I'm thinking we will be moving to a bigger carseat soon...not to mention that her feet are starting to hang over the edge of the little one!
Chris has been out of town since Thursday. He is out in Arizona visiting his best friend, Randy. They have been playing golf every day and having a good time. I must admit that I'm proud of myself because I think I've done a good job with Meredith all by myself! I don't know how single parents do it day in and day out though. I wore myself out just taking her all the way over to my mom's two days in a row, plus working and doing anything else!
Yesterday we went over to Hillary & Joey's place they will be living in after the wedding to help with some cleaning and painting. It is a cute old bungalow over in Durham. It needs some TLC, but I think it will be a really good starter place for them!
Well, this post is long enough and I should get some other stuff done while Mer is sleeping! She took over a 2 hour long nap yesterday, so maybe she'll do the same today!
Not looking forward to her 6 month pediatrician appointment tomorrow....more shots :(