Out with the Old

Over the last few weeks we've said goodbye to a few things such as her gym (she enjoyed it for 8 1/2 months), mobile (she enjoyed looking at it for 7 1/2 months), and her black patent shoes which don't fit any more (size 1). I looked at shoes yesterday, but I didn't know what size to get her. I was going to get her white patent shoes or white sandals since spring is ALMOST here. So she only wore her tights (no shoes) to church this morning.

I also said goodbye to a lot of my hair yesterday. It felt so weird when I shampooed this morning. It felt like there wasn't any hair back there, LOL! It's still a shock to me every time I look in a mirror. I am not sure yet what I think of it yet. I did get a lot of positive feedback at church though which helped. One lady in choir took one look at me and said, "I love it!" which really encouraged me.

 

Next on my to do list is to start packing for our trip Wednesday morning! I am looking forward to spending time with Wendy as well as her dh (Drayton), Adam (2) and Susie (almost 5). I'm sure I'll be painting Susie's fingernails, and we will probably go to the science museum where they have a family membership. I also look forward to hearing Susie read. She can read at the 4th grade reading level! If you want to see a recent clip of her sight reading a book at that level, click here; or if you want to see a clip of her reading an easier book with great expression (Bear Snores On), click here. I think Nadia will enjoy having her cousin read to her!

THE Step

The last couple of weeks one of Nadia's favorite things to do is play by the step in between our kitchen and family room. Sometimes she climbs up the step to get to her toybox, but most of the time she just likes to hang out on the family room side of the step.

Another favorite activity is to ride on my shoulders. If she's really upset and nothing else will calm her down, that will do the trick and turn her tears to smiles. I learned a lesson though on Friday that after she's been fed is NOT the time to do that as she spit up quite a bit and most of it landed in my hair. Gross!

Today I was at Walmart for over 2 hours as it took 2 hours for them to change my oil and rotate my tires. While they were working on the car I got a haircut. Boy did I get a haircut. She cut it WAY shorter than I wanted her to. Well maybe I'll like it, but if not hair does grow back, it will take less time to blowdry, and Nadia won't have as much to grab ahold of. So I guess there will be some perks to the shorter hairdo. I guess a 4th benefit is I should be able to go longer until I get it cut again!

Nadia keeps waking up earlier and earlier, and it's not usually at the same time as a train so I am not going by that theory any more. Any suggestions? I don't get her as soon as she wakes up, but even the time I go get her keeps inching up earlier and earlier. I've tried putting her to bed later, but it seems no matter what time I put her to bed - she wakes up prior to 6am. I was hoping to push her wake up time to 7:30am, but right now I'd settle for 6:30 instead of 5:40!

We leave for Chicago on Wednesday morning. I want to start packing tomorrow as I teach on Mondays and Tuesdays. Any tips for traveling with an almost 9 month old? Thankfully the flight is only about 2 1/2 hours, and since we're headed to my sister who has 2 children (and is due to give birth to her 3rd in about one month) she already has strollers, a high chair, car seats, etc. So I should be able to pack pretty light which will be good since I'll be going to the airport myself. I am planning to carry Nadia in the Snugli, and I'm just going to take one suitcase to check-in plus one carry on. Do they let you take a bottle on the airplane or do I need to bring formula powder and an empty bottle to fill up with water and mix on the plane? The trip to Antigua in May will be longer (thankfully also a non-stop flight), but there will be 4 adults traveling with her that time rather than just me.

Yesterday I made some corn for Nadia so now I have four different veggies frozen in cubes in bags in our freezer - peas, carrots, green beans, and corn. She liked the corn. Every week I buy one large tub of either plain yogurt or cottage cheese for her. She eats quite a bit these days! She also loves bananas. Paul and I share some of ours with her when we're eating one. She also eats a lot of puffs, zwieback toast, rice cereal, oatmeal, and unsweetened appleasauce.

Crawling!

Well although she's been mobile for several weeks, it wasn't until yesterday that I felt I could say she is crawling - the "typical" crawl with arms fully extended. Yesterday was the first time I saw her travel forward many times throughout the day. She figured out she needed to lift her hands. :-) Paul hasn't seen it yet, but hopefully he will soon. I've already seen her crawling again today. I'll try to get a video of her crawling in the near future. She still LOVES to stand. I have decided until she gets out of this phase where it seems ALL she wants to do is stand, we are only going to have a couple of baths a week. Bathtime just isn't fun right now since she wants to stand up, and I won't let her stand in the tub.  Today I have a faculty meeting and also an appt with an advisee. Donna will be watching Nadia.

Four Rules

So far there are four things that Nadia hears the word "no" in reference to. Three of them we've been working on for several weeks - not touching Daddy's glasses, not putting her fingers in her mouth when Mommy is feeding her, and not grabbing on to the bars of her gym (she can grab the toys, but if she grabs the bars they collapse and she falls backwards). The new rule is no standing in the tub. I am not sure if she comprehends the word "no" or not yet. Either she doesn't get it yet, or she's pretty stubborn as last night I had to say seemingly 50 million times no standing in the tub. I had to keep putting her back into a sitting or lying down position. This new rule is certainly the one I have said with the sternest voice and face. It's one thing to fall in the living room, but I don't want her falling in the bathtub!

I have decided upon a new rule for Mommy. No taking Nadia shopping until after her 3rd nap (or 2nd nap when she gets down to 2 a day). This doesn't include going to the grocery store since it's only 5 minutes away. As long as I take her there right after she's been fed (she's fed right after she gets up from bed), I can make it there and back without her falling asleep in the car. However any other shopping destination it seems she falls asleep in the car, and even if she sleeps for 5 minutes, her nap schedule is completely messed up. I've tried just taking her straight to her crib, giving her some milk and then taking her to bed, etc. and nothing works. Many tears become involved in nap time which is not normal these days at all. Today she slept about 7 minutes on the way home from the mall. When we got home she was OUT. I closed the garage door, opened her car door, and still she was sleeping. However getting her out of the car seat woke her up, and it took forever to get her back down. I tried letting her play, but she just cried then too. She was really, really tired but was fighting the nap. So I have decided until she is down to one afternoon nap a day, my shopping trips will only be after her last nap. It's just not worth it to goof up her schedule.

Progression

The first 5+ months every time I went to get Nadia from her crib she was lying on her back. Then she switched to sleeping on her belly, and that's the position I'd find her in at the end of a nap. Then she liked to get up on her hands and knees, and I'd find her in the crawling position in bed. Next she learned how to go from her belly to a sitting position. Sometimes I still find her in a sitting position, the sitting picture was taken when I went in to get her after her first nap today. The latest trick is to pull herself up to a standing position. When I went in to her room at 6:40 this am, she was standing fully erect at the end of her crib (the side closest to her red piano).

Standing is by far her favorite activity these days! The downside to all of the standing and cruising is that she's fallen down more than before. It's very hard for Paul to see her fall. Of course I don't like seeing her fall either, but I know it's part of the learning process. Thankfully she hasn't bruised herself yet. She can stand for longer and longer periods of time without holding onto anything. The last photo was taken yesterday. She always seems so excited when she sees all her toys in her toybox!

Yesterday I asked if this time I could be on Menopur instead of Repronex. I had asked 2 years ago, and I can't recall why they gave me an Rx for Repronex, but after experiencing the burning sensation that is common with Repronex, I planned to ask again for Menopur, and she said now they recommend that even though it's a little more expensive due to not as many side effects (which is why I wanted it in 2007). I wish I had Menopur the first time, but I am glad I can have it the 2nd time. My copay is the same either way so it doesn't cost me more.

I have always used hCG to trigger (I've had 9 trigger shots total), and that's still what they prefer to use. However it seems that some doctors are giving women a dose of hCG 6 times higher than what is used in fertility treatments as a weight loss treatment. So there has been a shortage of hCG which means sometimes they use Ovidrel instead. Ovidrel isn't new either, and a "perk" of that one is that it's a subq injection whereas hCG is an intramuscular injection. So that be another change in terms of meds this time around although if the pharmacy has hCG in stock I'll still be given a Rx for that. We didn't discuss dosages with the RE yet, but I am assuming they'll have me do the same as last time which was 150iu of Follistim and 75iu of Menopur each day during the stimming phase.

The last two days were rather hectic between dentist and doctor appointments and teaching. I am glad that today I'm staying home with the exception of choir rehearsal this evening which means I can get caught up on grading today during her naps. I was so tired last night that I went to bed at 8:30pm. Staying home today is also good for Nadia as she only had one nap in her crib yesterday which meant she was very fussy for Paul last night. I think I figured out why her body went forward an hour. She often first wakes up about 5:50am which happens to be when a loud train comes through in the morning. I think the train wakes her up. Thankfully she went back to sleep for a little and then chattered for awhile and didn't get fussy until 6:40, which is when I went to get her. People told me that eventually we'd not even be aware of the sounds from the train. Well we've lived here almost 6 months, and I am still very aware of it, and I think Nadia is also since I have noticed that sometimes when she wakes up in the morning or at naptime is exactly at the same time a noisy train is going by.

Two months from today we'll be in Antigua. I can't wait!!! Also, two months from now I should be in the pupo (pregnant until proven otherwise) stage as the embryo transfer will hopefully be completed one of the first few days of May.

Plan of Action

I can't wait until Nadia can talk in a way that I will actually have a clue what she is saying (aside from "hi." "dada," and "daddy" which is the extent of her expressive vocabulary at 8 months old). My sister posted on Facebook yesterday that when their babysitter offered Adam (who turned 2 years old in February) soup for lunch, he told the babysitter, "Mommy told me I can have a quesadilla." No, she had not mentioned quesadillas yesterday, LOL. I would love to know what is going on in Nadia's mind when she's jabbering on and on and on although I am certain she's not talking about quesadillas. She might be talking about the pizza we let her have a little of on Sunday night though which she loved. :-)

Nadia was a trouper this morning. We arrived at the hospital about 8:40 and left about 11:10, and she was a happy little girl even though she only slept 10 minutes of our 30 minute trip there. Everyone was soooo happy to see her. Several (including Dr. A) held her for extended periods of time. We found out that the nurse had scheduled a "class" just for us today. That was very kind of her. Thankfully it lasted less than 30 minutes. Then we had our HIV and Hepatitis b/w, and then I had my appt with Dr. A. He did a pap smear, cultures, and SHG. It was a million times better than 2 years ago. It's funny but last night (before I read the comments from Tamera and Amie) I said to Paul that maybe my cervix isn't so tight any more now that it was 10 cm dilated for several hours. They had me drink 20 ounces of water so I could do the mock transfer, but then after I drank the water they said the fellow (as in a doctor doing a fellowship -both of their "fellows" are female) wasn't actually available. So I'll be doing that at a future appointment, but I'm not nervous about it any more. :-) Then Paul had his appt, and then after we met with the nurse to map out the schedule, we were done.

I was hoping to leave with the Lupron, but they want me to do a day 3 FSH test. I am not concerned about it even though I'm almost 37 since less than 2 years ago they retrieved 28 eggs. I've always had the problem of leaning toward stimulating TOO easily, and the the FSH test is to make sure you can be stimulated. Also, my lining is REALLY thick. Dr. A said I haven't had AF since I gave birth so this next one will be really heavy. So they want me to have 2 AF's before I start stimming. I had thought that might be the case, and you might recall from a previous post I toyed with starting the bcp sooner so that I'd have one before this appt, but I ended up not doing that. So anyhow I am to continue the bcp through 3/20. Then I am to call when AF comes and have b/w (E2 and FSH) by day 3 and then resume the bcp after I have the b/w. We're hoping that happens March 24-25. I looked on my chart, and the past few years I've been on bcp 5 times in prep for a fertility cycle. The last two times that was with Lupron. Of those 5 times, two times AF showed 4 days after my last bcp and 3 times five days after the last bcp. March 24 would be 4 days. Of course we're not 100% sure what will happen since it will be my first PPAF, but hopefully my body will cooperate. I'd appreciate prayers regarding that. I really want AF by March 25!!!! If that happens then I'll probably

• start the Lupron on April 6,
• take the last bcp on April 9,
• have my baseline u/s and b/w April 16,
• start the Follistim and Menopur on April 17,
• have the hCG shot on April 27,
• have the retrieval on April 29 (my last final exam is April 28 so that's perfect for me),
• and May 2 or 4th have the embryo transfer.

We fly to Antigua on May 9 so as you can see this plan won't work if AF is really late (although we do have a little wiggle room).

Nadia fell asleep before we even left the parking lot and slept the whole way home (including a stop at Dunkin Donuts where Paul and I got breakfast bagels for lunch as we used to have them every Sunday but haven't had them in months). Unfortunately that was enough to goof her 2nd nap up. So it's now 1:23pm and she's slept 40 minutes total whereas by now she's usually slept 2-3 hours. Hopefully her next nap (the only one that will be taken in her crib) will be a long one. One of the nurses said to me - does she every cry? Well yes she does, but I have to say she's come a long way. She was an angel the 2+ hours we were at the doctor's office today - even without a morning nap! Good job, Nadia! Hopefully at this time next year she'll have a sister or brother. :-)

When Nadia goes down for a nap, I need to grade the midterm exams that my students took last night (mostly essay questions so it takes awhile to grade). I only graded a few last night before heading to bed. I am one of those profs who tries to get grades posted ASAP. I know I appreciated that when I was a student, so I try to grade things as quickly as possible. I am not giving a midterm in the other course (the one I teach tonight). Paul didn't go to PSU yesterday or today, but he'll be there all day the next 3 days. As for her internal clock, she definitely jumped forward an hour. I think I just need to throw in the towel and accept that she'll go to bed around 7pm and get up around 6:30am. Last night she slept from 7:15pm to 6:30am. Compared to all those months of not getting much sleep, it's not such a big deal to start our day a little earlier than I'd choose.

CLEP Test?

This is a really expensive day for us medically as I paid $528 at the dentist and also paid $8,200 for the ivf. Well if I want to look at the bright side, at least some of these expenses will be tax deductible since we'll exceed the percent that isn't tax deductible this year. The reason I paid the ivf bill today is because our appts were moved from Thursday to tomorrow. Paul found out last week that he needs to attend a meeting this Thursday. So I had called and asked if Paul's appts could be moved to some other morning this week. I figured my appts couldn't be moved as when I called in January to set these appts up she said they only do them on Thursdays. Well they must have changed that policy as the nurse called this morning and said all our appts could be switched to Tuesday. The good news is that means Paul won't miss his research group meeting on Thursday. His advisor has been out of the country for a couple of months so he didn't think it would be good to miss this meeting.

The bad news is that I found out we have to sit through the class again. Ugh. We sat through this in June 2007, and I learned only one thing then - the fact that they cancel a cycle if there are less than 4 follicles, and they won't do a fresh transfer (FET only) if you have 30 or more. I am not expecting to learn anything tomorrow. She said if it's been more than a year since you had the lecture, you have to do it again (husband AND wife). I wanted to say - ask me any question, and if I can't answer then we need the class. Isn't there a CLEP test, LOL? I am trying to work on my attitude. I keep telling myself it's just one hour, but for some reason it's REALLY annoying me. Well Nadia will be with us so that will make it much more pleasant. :-)

I'd appreciate prayers for tomorrow morning. I found the SHG (saline ultrasound) to be more painful than the HSG (dye test of the fallopian tubes) even though it's supposed to be the other way around, but the really excruciating part was when they measured out the uterus (mock transfer). I could hardly bear the pain even though the actual transfers didn't hurt. It was more intense pain than the pain during labor, but of course it only lasted a few minutes compared to 19 hours of labor. :-) The doctor said mine was more painful than usual because #1 my cervix is tighter than "normal" (I was told that with my first IUI in 2004) and #2 my uterus is titled a little to the left so he said having to put the catheter at a sharp angle made it more painful. I am going to take an Advil prior to the appt to see if that helps. At least I am expecting it to be painful this time. It was a shock to me last time. I started the bcp a few days ago so I guess we are officially back in ivf mode. It will all be worth it if we see two lines on the hpt in 2 months! Last time we were there for 4 hours and 15 minutes. I'm hoping we're not there that long tomorrow as that will be a long time for Miss Nadia!!!

Yesterday Paul's parents and our niece, Brandi came up to visit for a couple of hours. Of course the reason they came to visit was not Paul or I. :-) Today's photo was taken right before we left for church yesterday morning. She was sleeping, but the flash woke her up, which was fine as I was about to wake her up anyhow. Yesterday was a two nap day, and both naps were about an hour long. Due to not sleeping as much during the day, I was unable to keep her up until 7:30-8:00pm as planned. She went to bed about 6:45pm which was her usual bedtime prior to the time change, and she woke up at 6:35. So even though I didn't want her to - she switched to the new time, LOL!!! I can't believe it. My plan for a couple of months had been to keep her body on the same schedule and shift the time she went to bed and got up by one hour when the clocks went forward. Well for some bizarre reason, on the same day the clocks went forward, so did her internal clock. Go figure! The good news is she slept almost 12 hours last night whereas she usually only sleeps 11. I'm still going to try to shift her bedtime and wakeup time, but pretty soon I'll probably give up and accept the fact that she's a morning person and likes to get up between 6:00-6:30am. :-)

Spring Forward!

Normally I am NOT a fan of switching our clocks. I have always had a strong internal clock, and I don't like having it messed with! Paul is always a BIG fan of the time change in the fall, but he's never liked springing forward an hour. Well this time I have been REALLY excited about the time change, and I've actually been glad it's happening earlier than it used to in the past. I am not planning on adjusting Nadia's body clock at all so I thought it should be a cinch for her. Her routine lately is to go to bed about 7pm and get up at 6:30am. She usually first wakes up between 5:50-6:10am and usually she will coo (and maybe fuss a little) until 6:20-6:30 when I go get her. It seems 11 hours of sleep is all she needs at night although other babies seem to sleep 12 hours at night. So the new plan will be for her to go down at 8pm and get up around 7:30am. YAY!!! The only downside of this plan is that it means that she'll be awake an extra hour during the times Paul watches her on Monday and Tuesday nights when I'm at class, and it also means he'll need to watch her for one hour on Wednesday nights when I'm at choir. An upside will be that it means she'll still be awake when Paul gets home on Thursday nights. In the past she's often been in bed before he got home. The biggest positive though is that she won't be waking up at 5:50am. I am still more of a morning person than a night owl, but I admit I don't like getting up AS early as I did in the past. I think 7am sounds like a lovely time for me to get up each morning. Of course while we're in Chicago I am sure she'll be functioning back on the earlier schedule due to the time zone difference, but that will just be for a few days.

Well I wrote most of this post a couple of days ago. Now I have to add that my plan didn't work this morning! I put her to bed only a few minutes early last night (6:30pm which is 7:30 the new time) and yet she woke up at 6:15 (5:15 the old time). I was frustrated!! I didn't go get her until 7am which was still 30 minutes earlier than normal according to the old time. Obviously she doesn't know the clocks changed. I guess it's just a bizarre circumstance that she woke up earlier than normal today when I wasn't trying to change her body clock at all. She didn't nap well yesterday (her three naps totalled 2 hours which is at least 1 hour less than usual) so she must be one tired little girl! I am tired also as I didn't sleep well last night. Paul forgot that our RE appts are on Thursday, and he scheduled a meeting at PSU for 10:30 on Thursday. I am going to try to move his appt up as early as possible that morning so he can still make part of the meeting, but it means I'll probably be alone for my appt. I found the test to be excruciating back in June 2007 and am really dreading it even more now that I know I won't be able to squeeze Paul's hand.

Lately her first nap has been starting at 8:30am so that will shift to 9:30am. The time of her 2nd nap has been more variable because the length of her first nap is sometimes as short as 45 minutes to as long as 2 hours. So the 2nd nap starts sometime between 11:30-12:30 which would become 12:30-1:30. She hasn't completely given up the 3rd nap yet. If her first or second nap is 2 hours long then she doesn't have a third nap. If she has a third nap then it usually starts sometime between 3:00-4:00. I have wondered about the 3rd nap. Weissbluth says to stop that by 9 months old, but he always takes due date into consideration so that would mean she could still have it until almost 10 months old. I have been wrestling with whether to just keep going with the flow and deciding whether or not she has a 3rd nap on a daily basis based on the length of her first two naps OR if I should just have her go cold turkey and say only two naps from now on. When it was time to give up the 4th nap, she really did that 100% on her own. She just started refusing to take the 4th nap as she does now with the 3rd nap if her other naps have been long. So I thought the same might happen with the 3rd nap at some point. Any thoughts?

Nadia had fun going down the slide again yesterday (another gorgeous day!). Here's a really short (5 second) video of her going down the slide.

Cruising!

I made mashed potatoes with Nadia in mind, but it turns out she likes TGI Friday's mashed potatoes WAY more than Mommy's. Mine were spit out of her mouth - she'd rather have green beans, LOL! Eventually I got her to eat mine, especially when I mixed some other foods in, but I was surprised as she loved them at the restaurant and also loved them one time when I gave her some instant ones. I guess mine were too bland. She definitely wants to eat whatever Mommy is eating. Too bad I don't like brussel sprouts and broccoli.

This week I've started giving her a few bites here and there of my food - grilled cheese sandwich, pasta, etc. I'm amazed how well she does with eating "big people food" even with only 2 teeth. For several weeks I've given her a few tastes now and then of my ice cream sandwich when I'm eating one (only give her the vanilla ice cream part of it). She now recognizes it from the outside and makes sure she's right close to Mommy when Mommy is eating one. She flaps her arms and looks at me eagerly. I feel like a mother bird, LOL. I know she shouldn't be eating foods with sugar yet, but trust me I give just a few tiny dabs of it. I eat 99% of the sandwich myself. She seems to be a girl after my own heart though as she LOVES ice cream! Of course 99.9% of the time she eats healthy foods like cottage cheese, yogurt (plain), unsweetened applesauce, oatmeal, rice cereal, carrots, green beans, and peas. The veggies are ones I made and froze. It works out so nicely to just microwave a cube or two at a time. The next baby food I plan to make is corn. I think she's old enough now to have some corn. I don't think it will be too long until I start cutting up some table foods for her now that I know she likes pasta, rye bread, and biscuits.

Three of Nadia's favorite activities are riding on my shoulders, exploring her toy box, and going down the slide in our backyard. Yesterday was a beautiful day with temps in the 60's - YAHOO! Nadia can now cruise along the toy box. Sometimes she holds on with both hands, sometimes with just one hand, and for brief seconds here and there she stands without holding onto anything. She also has figured out how to crawl up the one step from the family room to the kitchen. :-) We had lowered the mattress in her crib a few weeks ago, but now it's time to lower the one in the pack & play also as this morning I watched her pull herself up to a standing position and walk (cruise) around all the sides of her pack n' play. The second or third time I took a short video although she pulled herself up before I hit the record button. It's not the most exciting video, but I know at least Grandma will want to see her new ability - cruising!

The flow on the Nuby is too fast. The Nuk is the winner for the time being; hopefully eventually she'll be able to use the Nuby and the other 2 sippy cups we own, but for now we'll stick with the Nuk. We have some medium flow nipples for her bottles although we've still been using the slow flow ones. I think we'll also switch to medium flow on the nipples to get her used to a faster flow.

She was THE one

Yesterday I was looking at my RE clinic's stats for 2007 as reported on the SART website (that group releases stats more quickly than the CDC does). In 2007 for women age 35-37, they did 14 fresh cycles. Three of those didn't make it to retrieval, and a fourth made it to retrieval but not transfer. There were 10 fresh transfers for that age group. I was one of those 10 as on August 4, 2007 I had 3 embies transferred back to me. Of those 10 transfers (25 total embryos), 6 resulted in a live birth (8 babies total). I was obviously one of the 4 that did not. For that same age group they did 6 FETs (which included a total of 10 embryos). Here's the amazing stat. Nadia was the only one that made it. Wow. I already knew she was a living, breathing miracle, but this just reminded me again. She was the only frozen embryo transfer for women my age that was a success for that clinic that year (1/10). Thank you, Lord for creating and sustaining her little life!!! Altogether (including all age groups as well as donated embyros) they did 27 FETs in 2007 and Nadia was one of the 9 live births. So altogether 1/3 of the FETs worked which is a pretty good stat, but the non-donor success rate for ages 35-37 was only 1/6. The encouraging thing though when I look at these stats is that I am still in the 35-37 age group, and the fresh transfer success rate was 60% which is pretty amazing. I hope and pray when I look at the 2009 success rates for this clinic that I'll be holding one of the fresh transfer successes in my arms!!!


Yesterday Nadia had success with 2 new sippy cups I got her! The first was a Nuk "learner cup" by Gerber, and the second was a "No-Spill cup" by Nuby. The spouts are the same shape as a traditional sippy cup, but they are much softer - more like a bottle nipple. Nadia drank 4 ounces of formula in the Nuk one (with my assistance). She picked it up while I was feeding her dinner which pleased me, but so far she still needs me to help her. I put some apple juice (watered down) in the Nuby, and I know she had success as she didn't like the apple juice, LOL! I was surprised as she loves applesauce. Hopefully in time she'll like the juice also. I was thinking maybe I should try it warmed up. Maybe it was the temperature (cold) she was objecting to rather than the taste. I also got her a new toy that attaches to the highchair. I had seen it at Donna's house, and Nadia seemed to like it. I don't let her play with other toys while eating because otherwise it's too tempting for her to put them in her mouth (which is a no-no). This toy is perfect because she can play with it but doesn't try to put it in her mouth.

She wore a size 4 diaper last night, and you all were right. It worked! It was HUGE on her (reminded me of how Steve Urkel used to wear his pants on that tv show years ago), but her clothes stayed dry last night. So that will be our plan for awhile - use size 3 during the day and size 4 at night.