The Pierogie Babies v.8

In the last month her vocabulary has totally exploded. She's talking about things that we've never talked about before, talks to herself constantly and now sings songs. One thing I've noticed about her in comparison to some of the other kids in her age group is that she spends a lot of time describing the world around her versus making statements or requests. She has very much become a girly girl; the other day I saw her standing by the front door wearing a hat, her Hello Kitty Purse, a bracelet and had her princess shoes (little play shoes with a bit of a heel) on. She announced "Time to go to the store, mama!"

Since visiting our local Touch A Truck event and meeting a few real live princesses, she has gone into full princess mode and loves our Friday night family movie nights and always insists on a princess movie. When given the choice, she chooses Belle as her favorite princess, but her favorite movie is The Princess and the Frog. Elmo has slowly fallen out of favor and she prefers to watch an episode of Super Why in the morning while I take a shower and get ready for the day. Because of that, she's learned phoenetics much faster than I expected and is starting to connect letters on the screen with what sound they make. We are working on asking politely ("can I please" versus "Penny wants") and she has a few chores that she helps with (putting away tupperware out of the dishwasher, throwing dirty clothes in the hamper).

Her imagination is also going at full force. She has a couple baby dolls that she dances around with (waltz style) and feeds them. She has started to pretend making food and eating it. She also started swim lessons with her daddy!

Hilarious things Penny says (which I think I might start writing as a new series):

• She poked at my post partum muffin top and said "mama, this is HUGE!"
• "Mama crab pants" (what Penny meant to say) "Mama crap pants" (what Penny really said)
• Penny: it's mama's birthday!B: not today. Do you know who's birthday is next? Mia's! We're going to Mia's cowgirl party soon.P: (wide eyes) No!B: yep!P: PENNY'S BIRTHDAY NEXT!B: no, Mia's birthday is next. Then Jack and Pammy's.P: Noooo!! Penny birthday!B: you're being a little irrational. well, your birthday is in 9 months but it'll be soon.P: I-rash-nal...cake.B: yes, we can have some irrational cake too. 
• Your eggs are deeee-wish-us, mama! I must be huuuuuuungry!

Rolls go on for days. And days. She's now very happy and comfortable laying on the floor and hanging out in the play gym, or on a towel in the backyard looking up at our maple tree's leaves. For her 4 month weigh in she was 15 lbs 2 oz.

She recently got her own amber necklace, straight from Poland, and probably in the knick of time because I took a look at her gums and I can see those little two bottom teeth making their journey northward. I haven't seen a lot of signs of teething just yet, but I'm happy that we got her started around the same time that we did for Penny.

She's now a roller and goes from back to tummy with ease. Crinkly toys blow her mind and she loooves this bird that I hang from her car seat. She's also working on blowing raspberries, which is absolutely adorable.

Penny singing the "Ruby Roo" song:

Yogurt Teething "Popsicles"

This past weekend Penny's molars began their debut :( I can only feel one bump right now, but the poor girl is definitely uncomfortable!

Some moments are definitely worse than others (and I am so very thankful for her amber necklace, which has navigated us through some rough waters) so I started thinking up alternatives to simply medicating to help Penny get some relief. Washcloths soaked in juice and water have been old standbys for many moms, so I thought.. why not yogurt?

You will need:
A wash cloth
Yogurt of choice (we used Pomegranate Greek Gods yogurt)

You will do:
1. Fold the wash cloth into quarters and then diagonally to create a "point"
2. Dip the point into a cup of yogurt. It takes a few times to evenly coat and soak up the yogurt.
3. Place in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
 4. Enjoy!

It's short lived, but a healthy treat (even when your baby isn't teething!).

Do you not just crack up when you see the sour look on her face? She's started doing that when her palate hasn't quite adjusted to what she's tasting.

Can you think of any alternatives to water, juice or yogurt?

Teef

It's a little late coming, but it's sort of hard to try to photograph and/or video inside an infant's mouth without her pulling the lens into her mouth ;)

About a month ago, I was letting Penny try some of my homemade applesauce from my finger and felt something in her mouth that I hadn't felt before.. something sharp! Whaaat? I quickly checked again, because I initially thought it might be some toast crumbs from my snack a few moments before. Lo and behold, there really were some little teeth buds just broken through.

The discovery was immediately followed by some mama snuggles and the inauguration of her new terry teether.

The weird thing was that there wasn't any indication that she was teething - she wasn't fussy or drooly over the last few weeks. I guess I'll be giving that amber necklace she's been wearing a lot more credit...

Since the eruption of these two bottom teeth, there hasn't been any indication of more teeth coming through. But I'll definitely be more prepared this time around!

Amber

I've decided that Penelope is one of those chronic teethers. She had her first episodes of teething pain back in July (at four months old), but we knew that she was nowhere near pushing those chompers out.  At almost 8 months old, she has finally sprouted her first pearlies (post to come soon!). A few months ago, my parents visited our family in Poland and the main item I asked for them to bring back was a teething amber necklace for Penny.

Although I have personally grown up with amber all around me, when I became a part of the Natural Parenting community I read about many parents using amber during a baby's teething phase to help ease the pain naturally. I began to wonder how does a stone help with that?

Well for starters, amber is petrified resin, not a stone. It warms to the touch fairly quickly and is comfortable to wear for babies, which might be a part of the reason why they don't mind wearing it so much. Amber has been used as a medicinal property for as long as history has been recorded. Peoples from around the world have used amber in various ways, all to cure ailments of the body.

I personally have grown up around amber because of my Polish heritage. Baltic amber is lauded to be the best in the world and the Poles use a lot of amber in their jewelry and art. My mother's house has several gorgeous vases which present Polish amber wrapped in curvaceous silver. Her jewelry chest also features amber of varying colors and designs, from the common knotted rope to large stones in broaches (yes, she has broaches) and rings.


Amber presents itself in different colors based on several factors, including what kind of resin it is made from, degree of oxidation, inclusions inside and how it has weathered over the few million years. Different shades of amber depict their healing power and therefore quality. If you're not looking to use amber medicinally, then you've got a broad range of amber colors to choose from - ranging from yellow to sage green, to even black. Most commonly it is light or dark brown in color, clear to fully opaque. It can have flecks of organic material (read: fossils!) inside.

Part of the amber color range -  source

One of my favorite birthday gifts from Adam is a little necklace with a droplet of honey amber, which looks like milky honey. It has a little honey bee and flower charm. My niece, Pammy, who is five, once asked me "Auntie B, why is there a bee on your necklace?" She's so damn cute.

Although there are several hundred different variations of amber cataloged in the world, Baltic amber is considered to be the most valuable.  Baltic amber is sought after the most for medicinal use due to its high concentration of succinic acid. Our bodies naturally produce succinic acid in the Krebs Cycle (I'm not even going to pretend to completely understand how the Krebs Cycle works, or attempt to explain it - read about it here.) which is a part of our metabolism. However, the little bit of succinic acid that we produce is automatically used for daily function. Adding a little bit of extra succinic acid into our systems has been linked to many health benefits, such as pain relief. The FDA has approved succinic acid in foods as an additive or supplement, preservatives, cosmetics, you name it. However, second to producing succinic acid ourselves, absorbing it via amber is the most natural way to get additional succinic acid.

Like I mentioned before, Penny had a few unhappy episodes prior to wearing the necklace full time.  Overall she is a happy and very easy going baby, so when she cries or fusses I know that there is something really bothering her. With the amber necklace, she has shown almost no signs of discomfort related to teething.  Adam and I were sort of reserved about it, figured "hey, if it works it works!" But lately, now that Penny is in full teething mode - I am a 100% believer.  There have been two times where at the end of the day, I look back and think "wow, she was really fussy today.." and realize that her amber necklace wasn't put on after bath time the night before. I really can't say that it's coincidence.

What do you think, does wearing amber really make teething better? 

Does/did your baby wear amber?