Changes

• Baby J is growing and changing so quickly. I find it hard to believe that in just over a week she will be nine months old. The time is certainly flying.
• Baby J is eating three meals a day now. She loves oatmeal and pretty much any baby food we feed her. She's getting so big too. Sometimes I wonder if we're feeding her too much food but she eats what we give her and we're certainly not force feeding her so I guess she's fine.
• The poop production from all the food is pretty out of control. I can't even believe how much this kid poops. A few months ago we were a little concerned because Baby J would go 3 or 4 days without pooping. Now she poops 3 or 4 times a day sometimes! It's out of control. And stinky. Thank god for the diaper sprayer I installed on our toilet.
• With all the food intake, the milk intake has definitely decreased. I have such mixed feelings about the end of breast feeding being in sight. I have always planned to only nurse Baby J for a year but seeing the end makes me sad.
  
• However Baby J has started to sort of bite at my nipples. It's not really biting so much as it is holding my nipple in her mouth and turning her head really quickly and taking my nipple with her. She took a pretty good chomp out of one breast around Thanksgiving and it felt like a bruise for almost a week. Whenever she starts playing with my nipples I just switch sides or stop feeding her but I think she thinks it's a game. Not a fun game, Baby J.
  
• Baby J is also starting to sleep longer at night. This week she's only been getting up once at night which is pretty amazing. Her diapers had been leaking quite a bit at night. I think I finally fixed that problem and it seems to be helping her sleep longer.
• I guess I feel a little bittersweet about the sleep too. I have been dying to sleep longer than 3 hours at a time but I'm scared she's all of a sudden going to be sleeping through the night and our quiet night time feedings will be over.
  
• Basically I'm dreading Baby J leaving babyhood. I'm going to be sad when she's not a baby anymore. She's already so different than she was when she was smaller. She won't really let us rock her to sleep for one thing.
  
• But I do love the Baby J we have now. She's smart, funny, and beautiful. She lights up when Hubby or I come in the room. She loves to be with us, dance with us, laugh with us, play with us. You can see her little mind working. When she decides she wants something she goes after it. It's remarkable and scary how fast she changes and learns new things.
• I think I'm doing much better with J's TSC diagnosis. Maybe I'm in denial, but I've just put it out of my mind as best I can. She is healthy and happy and there's no reason to be concerned right now so I'm trying not to be. We'll go see the geneticist around her first birthday and come up with a plan for regular maintenance and check ups then.
• Okay-I've been trying to get the freakin' costco photo uploader thing to work while typing this post and I can't get it to load. Anybody with a Mac had the same problem? I fixed the certificate thing but still can't get the damn thing to load. The world is conspiring against me to get out any sort of holiday card. And is it tacky to send out J's birth announcements with the holiday card? I have them and just haven't gotten them out the door...