We kicked off week thirty one with a trip to the Secret Gardens at Lavender Bay. We are trying to do one family activity discovering Sydney once a week before we make our move to QLD. It was finally overcast with a cool breeze but Kenzie was having none of it.
I feel like Leap 6 has started early as I’ve seen some behavioural changes in Kenzie lately and she has become extremely clingy.
So far, here is her tally:
Nappy Changes: 50
Sleep: 95 hours
Feeds: 100
This week I felt like absolute crap and think a cold may be coming along. I have been making citrus and honey tea to help ease my throat and clear my nose and am hoping and praying Kenzie doesn’t get sick. I don’t know how parents cope when they are sick but can’t get any bed rest. Kudos to every parent out there for being able to balance everything. We’ve been blessed with a beautifully well-behaved girl who has been deemed “an easy baby” but there is no way I’ll let this cold affect me this week. Ramon has been extremely hands-on this week and it’s helped me so much as I try to get better and try to tackle this hacking situation we’ve had with our websites and emails once and for all. It’s affected our sites for the past few weeks ao I’ve decided to start from scratch, recreate all the sites (including this one) and move to a new host! I’d had enough and so far it’s been money well spent.
We also got more devastating news where our family dog, Delius was officially diagnosed with cancer; Transitional Cell Carcinoma to be exact. He is a fighter and a very happy dog and we are going to make him feel as comfortable as we possibly can make him during this time. Unfortunately, the vet has advised against surgery because of where the tumour has been positioned. Our aim is to shrink the tumour with medication and hopefully this will ease his discomfort.
Kenzie has been very vocal this week and she’s in her “Stranger Danger” phase where she refuses to be looked at or be at arms length of people who are unfamiliar to her. It’s very disheartening to see how she reacts to seeing her godparents when they come visit but apparently it’s all a part of her development. I’ve been told this phase can last months and we’re hoping with a bit more exposure to different people and environments, it’ll help her assess her surroundings and judgements of people in her company. We had friends over who wanted to hold her (even if it was just for a little cuddle) and she wasn’t having any of it! She refused and was so scared and clung to us, holding on for dear life.
This week, Kenzie has mastered her walker and is able to steer it where she wants it to go. She is so fast at walking, I will turn around and she has gone from one side of the room to another! She does “cheat” a bit and uses the walker to glide between steps. I can only imagine how quickly she’ll run around on her own soon.
Kenzie is a dancer! She absolutely loves “Baby Shark” by Pink Fong and Badanamu Pop songs and dances by bouncing up and down and smiling her big beautiful smile. Ramon and I would dance in front of her, even without any music or singing and she will dance right along side us.
Kenzie has developed a very strong set of limbs! She easily pulls herself up on anything she can grab hold of. Whether it be on the bed and holding onto the frame, using the slats in her crib, using the cushions on the couch, using my clothes (and hair), she’ll pull herself up. She has gained so much confidence this week, she is able to stand for 5 whole seconds on her own and doesn’t get scared. In fact, she is now only using one hand to support herself up and switches between hands! She also doesn’t get scared anymore where I pull away my hands as she has learned to sit down instead of falling.
We think Kenzie wants to crawl! She has been getting into crawling stance from sitting position and leaning forward to reach for items. She gets so frustrated when she can’t reach the items and tries to lift herself up to crawl but ends up spinning around in a circle (like she’s the bottle in spin the bottle) and then gets frustrated some more. Practice makes perfect so we’ll definitely be working more and more on her crawling next week. Baby lead development has been great learning for us as it helps us not push her too far or too early and understand why it’s a very popular way of raising a child.
She has officially moved into the 8kg weight range. We decided to be creative and used a luggage bag scale to weigh her while she was wearing her Jolly Jumper harness. She’s our beautiful little chubster Michelin baby.
Changing her nappy has become a mission on it’s own as Kenzie rolls and squirms. This week alone, we changed her nappy at the wrong times (twice) and she ended up peeing on the bed. We thought it would get easier and it doesn’t, you only get used to it and you become more organised and well prepared to add to the already tough job of being a parent. You gain so much respect for what your parents go through when they raised you and it makes you look back and wonder why you put them through so much hell.
Next week she is EIGHT MONTHS (32 weeks) old and it’s amazing how much she has grown and developed so far. We are so excited and nervous for what’s to come. She puts a smile on our face each and everyday.