I love living in a place that hosts such a cool event. It is basically a traveling festival that happens every few months in hot spots in Philly. The city’s best food trucks come out, and there is beer and live music as well. We went last year and loved it. It was one of my favorite date nights ever, and getting soaked in a downpour at the end of the night just added to the fun.

We will be attending this Thursday, Raffi in tow. It is past his bedtime (the event is from 7-11 PM) but I’m hoping he falls asleep in the stroller as we walk around and enjoy the madness.

Here are the details:
When: Thursday May 24th, 7-11 PM
Location: Northern Liberties on 2nd st between Fairmount and George (2nd and Poplar)
Who: The city’s best food trucks and restaurants as well as beer and live music

See you there!

PS- No one asked me to share this event. I am just really excited about it and want you to join us there!

My nonna turns 90 today. It is hard to believe that she is 90 because she doesn’t look a day over 75. She has hardly any wrinkles which she attributes to her very simple regimen of water and a good massage with Nivea cold cream. She can remember anything she wants, which I attribute to her daily jigsaw puzzles. She is an inspiration to me as is auntie, who works hard in everything she does, never complaining for a minute. We went to RI this weekend and celebrated nonna’s big 90 with a fancy dinner, 90 + 1 candles on her special sugar free cake, and lots of time with Raffi.

It was a really special weekend for many reasons. My cousin Rawan celebrated a birthday. My cousin A received her undergrad degree and my cousin Baz received his master’s. What a weekend!

I used to miss Rhode Island a lot more than I do now. I no longer miss the familiarity of having a favorite restaurant or riding the same streets I’ve known for 20+ years. I only miss my family. If I could pick up my house AND my city of Philadelphia and plop it in the center of Cranston, RI I would be happy forever and ever. It’s hard to be away when you’re so close to everyone and hate missing out. Even as a kid I wanted to know everything going on and be with everyone all the time. While it’s hard to be far, I feel thankful to have such a great husband who will let us visit any time, even if it means a hellish drive.

I usually don’t talk about my New Year’s resolutions with anyone, but now that we are almost halfway through the year I feel like sharing. My goal is to complain less and to be a more thoughtful and considerate friend. When I was pregnant I hated every minute of it and it was hard to make it through each day, never mind be a good friend. I missed a lot of important events, and while it was out of my control I knew I wanted 2012 to be different. So far I’m doing ok with both resolutions. My brain just doesn’t function in the way some of my other friends’ do. I never think to schedule in a phone call; I call when I have a free minute and miss my friend. I also hate complainers – life is good! – so I really want to complain less. I’m working on my goals every day, and hopefully I will end 2012 in a far better place than 2011 when I was queen of complaining and not the best of friends.

Menu planning through my Babycenter challenge had fantastic results. We are spending less at the market and I’m eating better. I’m also losing weight again which feels good. We bought the BOB Revolution jogging stroller from REI this weekend (15% off, thanks to a tip from a Twitter friend) and I already had two runs with it. Even though the runs were sad compared to how I used to run, it felt amazing. I am so happy to be back out there, even if I’m a turtle and can’t run for too long. I did 30 straight minute with no walking breaks on Friday with Trig’s encouragement, and I felt like celebrating. I love that running sweat.

Even though this post had no point, it feels good to get some thoughts off my chest. Expect more posts like this.

The kid wanted nothing to do with me during his shoot. He just kept playing with his toys and crawling around trying desperately to find every death trap. If there’s a wire in the room he has spotted it and is already on his way over to it. If there’s the tiniest bit of paper you bet it’s already in his mouth. I keep a clean house, but now it’s time to seriously babyproof and also make sure not a piece of dust remains on the floor for consumption. I don’t even understand how it works. How do I keep him away from wires when we need stuff to be plugged in so we can do things? We need a magical wire cover thing that is about 1,000 feet long to cover all the wire in the house. For now I am tucking wires here and there. When Trig went to grab Raffi earlier the sound machine was off. You’re probably thinking that we just accidentally forgot to put it on or something, but nope, we just have a crazy child. He reached his hand through the crib slats and down to the plug and unplugged it. Not sure how to resolve that one, aside from moving the sound machine to the other side of the room plugged into a different outlet.

He’s been sitting in his crib yelling at his monkey lovey for 25 minutes now and still isn’t asleep. He isn’t crying but he isn’t asleep. He keeps putting his head down and then sitting up to try and pull himself up to stand.

(Oh, whoops, there he goes. He’s standing now. OK, he’s back down again and yelling at Mr. Monkey again)

Anyway, it’s weird that when I know he’s in his crib and not asleep I can’t work. I try, but instead I just obsessively stare at the monitor every 42 seconds to see if he is asleep yet. The minute he’s asleep I relax and focus and get all of the things on my list done, but until then I’m a slave to the video monitor.

Off to pretend to work until he’s asleep.

ETA: 35 minutes later he’s asleep!

Nest is offering RhodeyGirl readers tickets at $15/family -  1/2 the price! Click here for the discounted registration. Nest is also offering 3 readers a free ticket to attend!

Here’s how to enter:
1. Leave a comment here sharing why you want to attend.
2. Tweet about the giveaway. Be sure to @rhodeygirltests and include this link: http://bit.ly/JrMn5h
3. Share the giveaway on Facebook and then come back to leave me a comment letting me know you did so. Be sure to include this link: http://bit.ly/JrMn5h

The giveaway will end Friday at noon EST and I will announce the winners shortly thereafter.  More information about the event is available here.

NestPhilly
1301 Locust Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
215.545.6378

Disclosure: I have partnered with Nest in 2012 to share our experience there and any exciting happenings they have going on. Raffi is in the spring crawlers’ club and is having a great time crawling over his little buddies and eating toys.

Everything has changed.

Here are 15 things to share about months 6 & 7:

1. Raffi’s mobile. He’s a crawling machine! He only does a few slow passes on his hands and knees before flopping to his belly and scurrying away. I think he gets frustrated that he can’t move as fast on his hands and knees so he goes back to his classic army crawl. He took his first real crawl at 6.75 months (army crawl across the room slowly) and has been unstoppable since.

2. Two teeth popped through 4 days after his first crawl. I had just been saying that he was still our gummy little baby, and the very same day I saw two little white dots in his mouth. To be honest, it was the first time I cried over Raffi growing up. One minute they are tiny infants who barely stay awake, and all of a sudden you turn around and they are crawling with little dagger teeth while babbling to their toys.

3. In that very same 4 day stretch where Raffi first crawled and then got his first teeth, he also really, truly slept through the night. His longest stretch up until this night was 11.25 hours, but one night he slept 11.5 hours straight. Since then Raffi sleeps at least 8 hours but usually more like 10-11. Sometimes he wakes up, eats, and goes back to sleep. Other days he doesn’t wake up until after 5:45 AM and we just keep him up until his first nap. I actually prefer when he wakes up around 5 to eat and go back to sleep because he will sleep until 7, and 7 is a lot easier to see on the clock.

4. Raffi is still nursing around 7 times a day. Here is an example of what a day looks like:

6:45 AM Wake up
7:00 AM Nurse
8:00 AM Breakfast.
9 AM Nurse
9:15 AM naptime routine
9:30 AM-11:00 AM Nap
11:45 PM Nurse
2 PM Nurse
2:15 PM Naptime routine
2:30 PM – 3:45 PM Nap
4:00 PM Nurse
5:00 PM Dinner
5:45 PM  walk/play outside
6:30 PM  bathtime
6:45 PM Nurse then snuggles
7:00 PM-5:00 AM Sleep
5 AM Nurse
5:30 AM-6:45 AM Finish overnight sleep

He is probably ready to drop one feeding since he eats very little at 1 of the 7 feedings, but it’s a different one every day. The first (7 AM), second (9 AM), and seventh (5 AM) feedings are the ones where he eats the most.

5. Raffi only cries at night when he’s hungry. I never ever leave him when he is crying in the middle of the night, and he always goes right back to sleep after taking in a full feeding. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, and now and again when I check him on the monitor he is awake talking to himself and rolling around playing with his monkey toy. I sometimes watch until he falls back asleep because it is fascinating to me that he can do that at his age. He always goes back to sleep and that makes me a proud mom.

6. Separation anxiety has begun for him (I already had it weeks ago). If I put him down across the room and he needs me or misses me, he speedily crawls over and tugs on my socks while whining until I pick him up. He doesn’t panic when other people hold him or spend time with him, but if I’m in a room he looks for me to check in every now and again to know I’m there. I absolutely love it, although I can see how it can become a problem. He does the same thing with Trig now. This weekend Trig put Raffi down in his play area and walked into the kitchen and Raffi crawled over and plopped himself in between Trig’s legs, not moving until he was picked up. It was adorable.

7. Raffi has a first word. He says “ahBAH!” We have no idea what it means, but it means something to him. When he is talking with his stuffed animals he says it as part of a conversation. It’s obviously not an actual first word, but I think it’s cool that he has his own little language right now that means something to him.

8. Not only is Raffi a crawling machine, but he can now pull himself up to stand. I flipped over a bin and put a toy on top to see if he would do it, and he grabbed on and stood right up. His facial expression displayed that he knew he did something cool, so after he plopped down he immediately tried to get back up again and succeeded.

9. Solids aren’t going so well. I decided to pull back a bit since I was getting stressed and mealtime was not fun. I have decided not to do baby led weaning and we are focusing more on finger foods with the occasional puree. I stopped worrying that if he didn’t eat enough solids he wouldn’t sleep through the night and started focusing on the fun parts of solids. I thank some of the comments in this post for their advice to just take it easy.

10. Life is really great right now. This is a fun age. As some of you might remember, the first 4 months were really hard for me. Things have continually improved since then, and I am so happy and thankful.

11. We still lay in bed and look at Raffi photos and videos every night. I look forward to when Raffi sleeps as a little break, but as soon as he’s asleep I miss him.

12. I rarely put Raffi down asleep. If he is really pooped and in need of extra snuggles I will attempt to nurse him until he falls asleep (or hold him in my arms). However, about 90% of the time I put him down awake and he cries to let off some steam before he falls asleep. It’s hard to listen to, but I’ve come to accept that it is his way of winding down and I need to respect that. You can read more in this post.

13. Raffi suddenly refused a bottle and had me panicked for a few days. However, we have now introduced normal cups with a straw and he will drink out of that when I’m away. He even drank 2.5 oz with me while at the park. I am relieved. He also loves water and if I have a glass or water bottle in sight I have to be prepared to have one for Raffi too. I let him take sips whenever he wants. Sometimes he laps the water like a kitty cat and other times he drinks it like a big boy.

14. Socks never stay on his feet anymore. The minute he’s in his stroller or car seat he grabs his socks and pulls them off. Luckily summer is around the corner.

15. The kid is scared of grass. See here.

Random facts:
6 month weight and height: 15.5 oz (10-25%) and 90% for height
Favorite non toy toys: his socks, my iPhone, the remote control, any water bottle (my Thermos one or any plastic one), metal spoons, bread
Must haves at 6 months: soft book, links, Sophie the giraffe, Baby Grooves instrument set
Must haves at 7 months: gates, alphabet links, blocks, crawl & go snail, John Deere corn teether, EduShape balls, anything with a face, Baby Grooves instrument set
Wears: Size 3 diapers (about to bust out though), 6-9 month onesies, 6-9 or 9-12 month sweatshirts and pants
Loves: being held, crawling all over the house, pulling open the kitchen drawers to see what’s inside, eating everything, making raspberries, listening to music, people who smile, pulling on my hair
Hates: purees, sitting in his highchair for more than 2 minutes, getting his diaper changed, car rides
Bad mommy award of the month: the time I gave Raffi a plastic water bottle during a car ride so he’d stop crying. When we got home and I went to take him out I noticed the wrapper was missing. The whole wrapper was in his mouth! I didn’t think he was already strong enough to rip it off.

Here are lots of pics from the last two months (click to enlarge)

My homemade sauce recipe was created in conjunction with Lipman Produce and my lovely nonna. Nonna taught me how to make her sauce, and then I made mine based on her tips. You can check out the full recipe here.

I am so happy to be back in the kitchen, creating meals and trying new recipes. The dinner challenge I’m hosting on Babycenter has helped tremendously with that. Each week I force myself to make one new dish, and the kitchen is fun again. So far I’ve made:

Cooking Light’s crab cakes (originally found on Yogurt & Berries): I used a yellow pepper instead and didn’t make a sauce. They were incredible, but since I bought jumbo lump crab meat the dish really hurt our weekly grocery budget. It will have to be saved for special nights.

Mashed potatoes: Believe it or not I’ve never made them. I boiled red bliss potatoes and then peeled them while hot and mashed them with a bit of 1% milk and some salted butter. They were really good.

Giada’s orzo with smokey vinaigrette: I made this with some of the Lipman cherry berries (similar to a grape tomato). It came together so fast and had such a distinct smoky flavor. We loved it, and in fact Raffi did too.

Breaded cashew chicken: This was inspired by a photo of Jessica’s pecan crusted chicken. I just crushed some cashews and mixed them with bread crumbs and salt and tossed them in a big Ziploc bag with the chicken. Then I baked them until done. I can’t wait to make this again, and it was a great use of leftover roasted cashews. They added a really fun crunch.

Giada’s mini meatballs: I used no oil, homemade bread crumbs instead of cereal, added 1 garlic clove and used 1 lb of beef. I made the meatballs really small, like swedish meatball size, and used shredded parmigiano instead of romano. I have made these 3 or 4 times already. They freeze really well and are great to have for a last minute dinner over pasta and sauce.

I can’t wait until Raffi is old enough to “help”. For now he just crawls over to me and tugs on my socks or opens the bottom drawer to take out the potato masher and eat it. He’s such a silly boy. Tomorrow I’m sharing all of the incredible things he’s done over the last two months.

What dishes have you made lately? I’m so excited that nicer weather is here so we can use our grill more often. Any favorite grill recipes?

I taped him from the other room so I could see what he does when I’m not around.

Here he is on the move!

Here was the inspiration board:

And here’s how it looks right now:

We still have a few finishing touches to buy and do:
- Hang the mobile. We bought this gorgeous mobile but we need to borrow a really big ladder from someone in order to hang it.
- Buy a new laundry hamper. The one we are using now is from our old house and it doesn’t match at all. It’s also really bulky.
- Buy new sheets and changing pad covers. I only have 2 sets of each since I was waiting to do his new room before buying a few sets. I haven’t found anything I love yet and am welcoming any ideas.
- Buy something for toy storage. We are borrowing my mother in law’s wicker basket right now, but I need to give it back since Raffi keeps trying to eat it. I’m looking for something safer so I don’t need to worry about splinters ha!

What I love the most:
I really love his curtains because they are funky and bright and can grow with him for several years. I’m also really happy about how the paintings above his crib turned out. They are exactly as I imagined them to be.

Sources:

Melissa & Doug stuffed giraffe
Walmart Parklane crib
Lil mo whimsy sky blue kids rug
Yellow & white chipper curtain panels with blackout panels with matching small pillow from Etsy seller PillowConfections
Bright world map print from Etsy seller Englishmuffinshop  and frame (from Michael’s and then I painted it)
Personalized hanging owls from Etsy seller MaisieMooNZ
Orange lamp was an old one I repurposed for his room and spray painted orange
Painting above the dresser was a fun doodle done by my husband
PBKids collector’s shelves in white
Yellow giraffe pillow cover 18×18 inches from Etsy seller Modernality2 (Retail $19.95)
Owl pillow was a gift from my sister in law
Crate & Barrel mimic cube in lemongrass
3Sprouts Peacock storage box from casa.com
Flensted balloon mobile 5 from casa.com
3 paintings above the crib were inspired by the rug and painted by my husband and I

I never did a 6 month update for him because not much changed from his 5 month one. It was a slow month and a good one. He grew out of his 6 month clothes and that was that. No actual big milestones were on the horizon. I stopped holding my breath waiting for the next big moment and just fell into a slow rhythm.

Of course as soon as I did that everything changed.

We started solids and are doing a combination of baby led weaning and spoon feeding. That is a whole story in itself, but basically he won’t let me feed him so he has to feed himself even from the spoon. Food is in his hair, behind his ears, and up his nose after every meal. I know he is eating a good amount now because he is suddenly sleeping through the night, like, every single night. Everyone says it has nothing to do with solids, but for us it is too much of a coincidence. He started consuming some food and can now go 10-11 straight hours every night. Morning now starts at 5:45 or 6:30 AM, but everyone is happy and rested.

Other big changes in the last week? He’s mobile as of yesterday. He does a combination of this sad slithering pull with a belly flop and the occasional lunge. I consider it crawling but it’s not yet a traditional crawl. I guess while I was perfecting my snake crawl he was too. If the rate of improvement from yesterday to today is any indicator, he’ll be crawling crawling within a week. It is exciting but also sad and makes me teary. I put all his toys on the other side of his mat this afternoon, and he got to them in under a minute. He can also get into the crawl position from sitting, and back into a sitting position from crawling. In fact when I woke up this morning and looked at him on the monitor he was sitting up with his hands over the crib. I had to lower his crib right away, and shed yet another tear doing that (and am crying again as I proofread this).

It’s crazy to already be at the stage where we need to childproof and think of meals to feed him and actually sleep at night. I am thrilled that he is doing so well and is happy, but it’s also bittersweet. How does the time go so fast? I feel like it was just yesterday that I held him in my arms for the very first time and kept asking the nurses if he was ok and if I was holding him right. He was a little tiny glow worm tucked into my arms locking his big brown eyes with mine. How is he already this big boy who reaches for me when I’m near and giggles when I tickle his feet and crawls?

Back on February 3rd, over 2 months ago, I decided to start counting calories again. While it’s always worked for me in the past, it isn’t working this time. Because I’m still breastfeeding I need to be careful with reducing my calorie intake too much. It wasn’t working for me or for Raffi. He started nursing around the clock again, and the scale didn’t budge. I was eating 2,200 calories a day at one point, and it wasn’t enough to maintain my supply. 2,200 calories a day! Isn’t that a lot, or is my perception off?

However, I am not writing about failure because I’m finally losing weight. I’m not counting calories, and I’m not exercising that much. I go to Lithe to take a class about once a week (since that’s all the time and money I can spend on that right now). I also walk about 3 miles every other day pushing the stroller around doing errands or going to Nest. For my diet I am measuring out my portions of dense foods I eat at home (like walnuts or peanut butter) and just being more conscious of what I eat. I have something sweet but semi-healthy after lunch every day, and I eat a sweet treat every other night. I know I still need more vegetables and fruit in my diet, but I’m getting there.

Here is an example of what I eat in a day:
Breakfast: 2/3 serving oats with 1/3 banana (I make 2 servings at a time with water, sea salt, cinnamon, and a banana and then reheat it with a bit of water during the week), splash of milk, 10 grams of walnuts (which is basically like nothing), and 1 tablespoon of peanut butter
Lunch: Sandwich on Italian bread with 2 oz grilled chicken breast, 1/2 large mozzarella ball, roasted red pepper. 1 serving kettle chips or a big handful of carrot slices
Snack: Stonyfield whole milk yogurt (plain or french vanilla) or Fage whole Greek yogurt with a few strawberries, walnuts and 1 teaspoon chocolate chips
Dinner: something healthy, whatever is on that week’s menu plus salad

I started a dinner challenge on The Babycenter Blog (recent posts here) where I am challenging myself to try one new recipe each week. I hope that will get me out of the dinner food rut. I also noticed I eat less when the food is really tasty and interesting. I would be very thin if I had holiday food around all the time.

Also, if you noticed, I’m eating whole milk yogurts. They taste a lot better (SO insanely creamy and smooth, much less tang too) and a little bit satisfies me a lot longer than a huge bowl of lowfat yogurt. I eat about 2 oz every afternoon now instead of 6 oz of lowfat yogurt. I enjoy it more and I feel good eating it. I made the switch about 2 weeks ago.

I finally fit in my favorite pair of jeans again, and I’m happy about that. I now have two pairs that fit. I have several other pairs of pants that don’t fit, but I am confident they will eventually. Two months ago none fit. I see other people around me who drop all of their weight (and then some, in some cases) in just a few months. That is not me and I am comfortable with that, although I will admit I am jealous. I was not comfortable with being stuck at the same weight and body shape for months, but I finally moved beyond that plateau.

Counting calories for just a couple of weeks reminded me not to eat mindlessly. Last night I was bored and a teeny bit hungry and ate 6 Triscuits on the couch while watching TV. Trig was out and I didn’t feel like working or cleaning. I ate them even though I don’t even like Triscuits that much and a glass of water would have done the trick. I stopped myself and put the box away and realized that was the first mindless snack I had eaten since the beginning of February. I consider that a success since mindless snacking can be an issue for all of us.

Weight lost since February 3rd: 1.5 lbs.
Inches lost around biggest part of my waist: 2! (still have 3+ to lose to get back to my old shape)

Those numbers look painfully small, especially as my goal was 6-10 lbs. I feel a significant difference though. My body shape is finally starting to return, and I look normal (although overweight for me) rather than slightly pregnant. Of course I could work harder, eat better, exercise more. Instead I’m trying to find the easy balance that will allow losing weight to be the background piece of my life instead of taking my every energy. I will get there. My next goal is to lose the rest of that 6-10 lbs. 4-8 lbs left!

There’s my update. I hope that by 9 months I will shout from the rooftops that everything fits and I feel 100% like myself again.

Note: The photo above from Easter is really flattering. I’m using it as motivation so that I look like that in all my photos in a few months.