FALLing in Love with Autumn

This fall has been so fun and very busy around the Reinberg household. We have throughly enjoyed Eleanor's first Halloween and Thanksgiving and have loved spending time with our families.

We spent Halloween with our dear friends, the Vaniceks at my parents' house and earlier that day with the Blackwells at their "Boo Brunch" Eleanor was a pumpkin, the same thing her Daddy was his first Halloween (you know how we love tradition in the Reinberg fam) and Andy was Linus (with his big pumpkin). We enjoyed chili with the Vaniceks and the Gentrys (Simon and Nadia and little Nyah) and the babies rotated throwing fits (thank goodness never all three crying at once). Needless to say with the doorbell ringing and screaming babies it was not a quiet night to say the least but it was still fun!

Eleanor is 6 MONTHS OLD!

I can't believe it has already been half a year since our sweet Eleanor joined us! I look at the pictures from her birth and she was just this tiny little infant. NOW she is a PERSON with such a fun and well kind of distinct personality. Eleanor, you are cracking me up every day as you continue to remind me of myself. You got Daddy's looks but you are me to a T! Let me just give a few examples...

Did you know your mommy has been, on many occasions, called "Sally" from "When Harry Met Sally"? Well I have and what that means is I know what I want and I will let everyone know as well. You have begun to show that quality as I have introduced you to solids. So far, you have had sweet potato, rice porridge (food processed brown rice), and avocado. You aren't a super big fan of avocado but you LOVE sweet potato. I have tried to incoprorate rice into every meal and you tolerate it. Because you take 2tbs. of porridge for every tbs. of food, it takes a little longer to feed you the rice and therefore is why I try to give you as many bites of solely rice before also giving you sweet potatoes. For the first couple you are glad to get something in your mouth but by the second or third bites the "Sally" comes out in you. You have been known to act like you are gagging, coughing, anything you can do to be a dramatic diva and let me know that you want sweet potatoes, you even through a fit sometimes. BUT once you see me dip the spoon also into the sweet potato bowl, you are fine! Oh boy, your daddy and I might have a challenge ahead of us! He says "she eats what she gets and doesn't get a say"...BUT I know how DREADFUL it is when you ordered a cheeseburger with no cheese and it comes out making you want to gag and even wiping it off still leaves traces of cheese. I have been there and wanted to gag as well. I know how it is so I think I will be more sympathetic but hopefully some of your dad's resistance to inconvenience anyone and therefore take what is put before you will rub off on you!

More breakthroughs for you this month have included sitting up all on your own! You love it! Daddy took the legs off your play table and you love to sit up and bang on it. You can push and pull and pick up everything on the table! It keeps you super busy! We usually put the boppy around you so that you will have a cush if you fall but rarely do you ever fall anymore unless it is on purpose to roll onto your stomach to play.

You also love the picture book (squisy "Sassy" black and white book you can put pictures of people in). You love to chew on it and look at the pictures of your family. You also have been teething so much more. You will sit and chew on a toy for more than 5 min. at a time. My favorite thing you have learned to do this month is become SO MUCH more vocal! You have two "words" you say daily. We can't decide if you say them at random or with purpose yet but they are bahh bahh bahh and mmmah! So mommy is hoping you will soon say Momma for your first word! There is a good chance!

I think we might have had your reflux under control. A few days after you turned 5 months old, you had a flare up. We aren't sure what casued it and mommy even took out eggs, peanuts, corn, soy, and dairy from her diet to see what happened. She has slowly been introducing back but hasn't done soy yet. We think that might be the proble, though we really aren't sure. Bottom line, we seem to have it under control with the prevacid you so enjoy slurping up each night and by getting some solids in your tummy to maybe soak up the lactose and stomach acid and keep it from coming up. You rarely spit up as much as you used to (entire feedings at a time). Hopefully when we go in a few weeks to have your weight checked, you will have gained. When you went in for your 6 month checkup you had only gained an oz. in a month which landed you in the 28th precentile and scared mommy, daddy, and your Dr., Beline. We think you have gained some weight now though since you have been keeping your foods down!

You have endured another road trip south in your 6th month. You went to College Station for Mommy's KTB reuinion and to visit Grammy and Grandpa and your uncles. You did great on the way down. We left at 6am when it was still dark and you slept until about 8:30/9. At that point we stopped in in Centerville to feed you and then you did NOT want to get back in your car seat. You cried the whole hour to College Station. On the way home you slept for a little while (from Houston...we went to visit Baby Reese Wentrcek on the way home from CS) until about Buffalo. We got you out to play on your first playground at the Dairy Queen so you could stretch your legs and eat. You cried the whole hour home from Buffalo as well! Today, you and mommy are going to see Aunt MEA in San Marcos and do some Christmas shopping. Hopefully you will cooperate in the car and the traffic won't be too bad!

Lastly, you have definitely become preferential in who you let hold you. Even sometimes when Daddy is holding you and Mommy is in the room, you have been known to throw a fit until Mommy holds you. You did however possibly mistake Aunt MEA for mommy as when she was visiting and put you down while you both were playing with Marmi, and left the room you cried until she came back. Usually you don't cry when you are alone with Marmi at all! Visiting your grandparents in College Station, thought rushed, was a treat but kind of a different scene and took some time for you to warm up to. You hadn't seen them in almost 3 months so you definitely didn't recognize them nor did they recognize you. You weren't as smiley as usual around them but I think that was becasue you were trying to figure them out. Hopefully, now that Daddy's football is over, you will be able to see your College Station grandparents more often and hopefully they will then get to know your super fun and happy personality better.

Recap on your 6 month breakthroughs:

- reflux hopefully under control

- Started solids (sweet potato/rice porridge/avocado)

- getting clingy and picky on who holds you - you KNOW your surroundings now

- sleeping from 8pm - 6:30/7am

- taking two 2 hours naps a day (from 8ish - 11ish and from 4ish - 6ish) and then a couple smaller naps in between

- Bbbahh and MMahh are your "words" that you repetitively say

We love you sweet angel love and can't believe how you amaze us with your sweet smiles, cud

Babytique - HUGE SALE! If you have a baby READ THIS!

So I was invited to attend a test market for this new online baby registry that was just starting up when I was pregnant with Eleanor. They have quite a few unique products PLUS many of the popular brands you see at Buy Buy Baby/Babies R Us. They are moving offices and for that reason are having a HUGE sale coming up. Everything in their store is 40% off!!! On December4th it is al 50% off!

Here is the actual add verbiage below. ALSO if you would like to register with them, put me as a reference. They are great to register with becasue it is all online. Your gift givers don't have to go to a store and like I said, they have a lot of what the popular baby stores have plus more unique and fun merchandise. GREAT for gift giving! Check it out!

mybabytique.com, home of the “not finding out” registry experience is having an end of the year holiday moving sale!
Beginning November 22 through the end of the year, shop 40% off all in-showroom merchandise.
Lots of your favorite boutique brands including BeBe Au Lait, Hooter Hiders, Baby Soy, Caden Lane, Aden & Anais and MORE!
Store located at 3100 Monticello Avenue Suite 120 (open 9 to 5pm)
December 4th—enjoy 50% off
Sneak Preview at www.mybabytique.com
Keep the Change donations benefiting Generation Heroes. www.heroesforchildren.org

UGGHHHH

So I still don't have a perfectly functioning computer which means I can't get my pictures properly uploaded to a computer (that isn't my work one) and onto blogger so until then, my posts will be boring and pictureless. I have been waiting since beginning of Oct. to fix my laptop and it just hasn't happened so I have saved my posts waiting to add pictures to them before publishing. SO now my OCD is taking over and I can't have written posts that aren't published sitting for that long. SO, they are published below...I will write more/add pictures when the sweet little pink dell gets its act together! :)

Eleanor's first day of solids!

Eleanor ate her first solid food, sweet potatoes, today! It was so exciting! She has been so fussy lately and it made me wonder if she maybe just really was starving! I know baby food isn't meant to replace but just be an addition to her normal feedings but thought maybe it was time to try. Not to mention that she was constantly grabbing for our food and wanting to drink out of our cups/Andy's beer bottles. Well, she was ready as she didn't even flinch at the taste of it and had no problem with swallowing her food!



I made sure to do my research and had everything set up like the book and my dear friend Stefani Blackwell (she is my guinea pig since her son, Canon, was born a few weeks before Eleanor) said to. E had already tried out her high chair before so we knew she would like it. She was def. hungry but of course not starved (I started feeding her a little before her actual feeding time), I made sure to smile and touch the spoon to her lower lip/tounge before sticking it in and had some water on hand for her to sip if she got parched :) Probably not an issue with sweet potatoes but I had it anyway. I baked a sweet potato and then scooped the insides into my mini cuisinart food processor. I blended it until it was basically really silky smooth mashed potatoes and then took a teaspoon full and stirred it with some breast milk to a liquidy consistency. She LOVED it and was grabbing for the bowl whenever I would get up to check the camera! You can see the rest in the video below...whenever I set it up...

Eleanor is 5 Months

Eleanor was 5 MONTHS OLD yesterday! Where has the time gone!? I can't believe it has already been that long since the exciting and specal time that Eleanor joined our family! She is growing so much and is doing so many new things, here are just a few:

- She cut her first tooth already! I think she is working on another...

- She no longer sleeps on the wedge with her sleep positioner and does not get to be cuddled in her newborn napper anymore. When her feet were hanging off I decided she had pretty much outgrown it and needed to learn to sleep flat on her back like a big girl.

- When she sleeps, we lay her on her back (in the best swaddle we can before she kicks her legs out) and she usually ends up on her stomach or side. For a while, ANYTIME she would roll to her stomach no matter the hour of night and would scream for us to roll her over. She has just recently learned that all she has to do is turn her head to the side and it is quite comfy to sleep on your tummy. She still prefers her back or side though.

- Ellie's two favorite things she does to put herself to sleep are turning her head from side to side with her bun bun or other lovie rubbed against her face AND SLAMMING her heels down into the bed. She lifts her legs up almost 90 degrees and SLAMS them down on the bed. At first we thought it was in protest or because she was mad but then we realized that no, it is just a part of her sleep routine. It reminds me of when I would do a flip turn in the pool and slam my heels down on the gutter accidentally. It hurt but she doesn't seem to be bothered by it. I guess she has tougher heels than her mom!

- Eleanor is really starting to try to scoot! She will sit up on her arms on her tummy and will sway back and forth trying to move! It is hilarious but also scary that she will be mobile before we know it! It is also crazy that she can push her chest so far up off the ground. It seems like just yesterday that she could barely hold her head up enough to turn it! Life and growing from a little cell to an adult really is a miracle! I don't know how anyone could explain a person's origin from anyone but God, Our Creator!

- E still loves her bun bun, her pacis, and to read at night before bed. She also loves her big bun bun and is starting to play with it more.

- Another thing Eleanor loves is her bath. She has graduated from the sling and now reclines on the slanted part with her butt up against the plastic hump her legs drape over. When I first saw this I didnt understand how it would work or be comfortable but she really loves it! She has started kicking and splashing and sucking on her washcloth...I remember doing the same thing and liking the feel of the bath water on my teeth...sounds weird I know but I remember doing it!

- She is really starting to know people and notice what is going on more often. SO many times now I will be reading to her and she will tip her head back and her big sweet eyes will smile at me. If you are holding her she is all over the place wanting to look. She has also started grabbing! She holds onto hair, necklaces, and has grabbed my glasses completely off my face on more than one occasion!

- E loves to help cook! She sits in her bumbo and bangs wooden spoons, easuring cup/spoons and throws them having a blast!

- Eleanor's head control is awesome! Last night I was bathing her and held her over the sink to rinse her head and wouldn't you know she held her head up so the water wouldn't go in her face. It was crazy! She is also starting to sit up on her one for a min. or so and then when she reaches for something usually topples over.

- E still has cradle cap and some definite dry skin behind her ears but I started using the Eucerin Aquaphor ointment and shampoo and it has really been working I think!

- Eleanor is eating 7 oz. of milk at each feeding and eats every 4 - 5 hours. When I feed her I doubt she is getting the 7 oz. so we usually go to every 4 hours. She naps great - usually two hour blocks in the morning and afternoon.



Baby girl, your big smile and many "words" you utter out warm my heart! I love to see you focusing so hard on what you have to say and can't wait until they are words we both understand someday but don't grow up too fast! I can't believe you will be half a year old in a month! Daddy and I love you SOOOOO MUCH!

Does the Tooth Fairy ONLY Come When You LOSE a Tooth?

Eleanor had her first tooth come in on Saturday, Oct. 9th. She was 4 months and 3 weeks old. We knew she had been working on it for a while but it finally broke the surface and showed its hard white enamel on Saturday! She was in quite a bit of pain and had the following symptoms:
- low grade fever
- needy (moreso than usual...) only wanted me, wanted to be held 24/7 and put her head on my shoulder/snuggled a lot more than usual (which was super sweet)
- wasn't sleeping well - woke up ever hour at night at one point in the process
- playing with her tounge on her gums a LOT
- very fussy
- drooling a lot

We just held her a lot and gave her baby tylenol, .6 ml every 4 hours. We tried the orajel a couple of times but it is really difficult to get on her actual gums becasue her toungue kept interfering so I decided to quit. I was also worried she would swallow it and it would mess up her swalloing reflux by numbing her throat. I didn't see it doing much to help anyway...

SO E has already bitten me once...we will see how much longer the breastfeeding goes if that continues but I definitely want to keep it going as long as possible! It is now the 13th and she seems to be doing much better so at least now we know the bad symptoms don't last too long! :) Our little girl is growing WAY too quickly!