December in Review

Sorry for the lack of blogs the last 2 months. We thought we would start the new year out with a new post reviewing the busy month of December. In early December, Allison took her first plane ride to North Carolina to visit her Grand-daddy, Mimi and Uncle Sam (Kim's dad, step-mom and half brother). This was the first time for her to see her Mimi and Uncle Sam so it was an exciting trip. Allison did very well on the plane for an 11 month old. She loved to play with the shades on the windows - opening and closing them a million times. We had a great time in Raleigh visiting with our family. We celebrated Matt's birthday while we were there by eating at The Angus Barn. It's supposedly a pretty famous restaurant in the area. In fact, the night that we ate there, the head chef was on Iron Chef America and won! We thought that was pretty neat since we are fans of the show. We also celebrated Christmas with them while we were together. Mimi made a delicious Christmas dinner in which we all had to wear reindeer antlers while we ate (the antlers also played music). Everyone had a great time - even Allison as you can see.

We visited the rest of our family in Searcy over the Christmas holidays. It was good to visit with all of our family, but it is so much more exhausting with a baby. Both of our parents live just a few blocks away from each other, so we end up trying to be at both places for all events. This means that we usually end up eating 5 meals a day for most holidays. And as all of you non-parents will learn, nap time is an essential part of both baby's and mommy's day and it's very hard to schedule naps when you have so many people wanting to play with Allison. But we are glad that everyone enjoys her so much.

She didn't really seem too interested in opening the presents, but she would try to help you tear the paper a little or pull the tissue paper out of the bag. Some of her favorite gifts were her Sesame Street "Baby's First Purse" that included her own lip stick, keys, cell phone, and coin purse, her blow-up ball pit (thanks to this toy, Allison has added the word "ball" to her vocabulary), her Leap Frog Fridge Farm, and her newborn Cabbage Patch doll (named Vanessa Sylvia - Sylvia is her NaNa's name, and you can guess who the gift was from). When she opened up her Cabbage Patch, which came with a bottle and a car seat for the doll, Kim asked Allison to give the baby the bottle - thinking that the request was a little too advanced for her yet - but to everyone's amazement, she did it and has done it every time we've asked her to. Granted, sometimes she is banging the bottle into the baby's face, but she is learning to pretend play, which is a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of Allison opening presents that I thought you may enjoy:

For anyone who still reads this, I will be updating the blog frequently this week. I have lots to catch up on, so please stay tuned...

Allison's first Halloween

Allison celebrated her first Halloween as a ladybug. She had fun crawling on the rug at her aunt and uncle's house and even went Trick-or-Treating next door. She had a good time even though she didn't get any candy.

our little pumpkin

Each year it is a Cleveland family tradition to attend the annual pumpkin festival at Gillam Farms in Judsonia. Matt's uncle owns the farm and his two cousins run it. So last weekend Allison attended her first pumpkin festival. We had fun eating the good food, riding the hayride, fellowshipping with family, and just enjoying the beauty of the farm.

good news, everyone!

born in the usa

Allison celebrates the 4th of July wiht her Mamaw.

it's summertime...

On July 3rd, Allison went swimming for the first time. She wore her new swim suit, but it was a little too snug. She really enjoyed kicking and splashing in the water. And she had fun being pushed around in her new raft. Hopefully there will be many more swimming experiences to come this summer.

food glorious food

Allison is now eating solid foods. After reading up on all the current sugggestions on starting your baby on solid foods, we realized their are so many rules to follow. They're really not rules - just guidelines. But since we are first time parents who really don't know what in the world we are doing, we decided that it would be best to follow them. Rule #1: First comes cereal. She started a couple weeks ago with the oh-so-boring rice cereal. She seemed to take after her parents and is a natural born eater. She also tried out some oatmeal. We think that she may like it more than the rice cereal. Rule #2: Once you introduce a food you need to give it to the baby 3-5 days to make sure that your child doesn't have an allergic reaction. So once we had rice cereal and oatmeal for a couple of days we moved on to vegetables. How exciting! Rule #3: The book that our pediatrician gave us, had a guideline for the order to introduce vegetables. It is as follows - carrots, squash, green beans, beets, peas, spinach, and then sweet potatoes. So far we have had the first three. Allison has liked them all. But since she has had vegetables, she hasn't liked the cereals very much. So now we have to mix her vegetables into her cereal. Oatmeal and green beans doesn't sound so appetizing to me but she sure thinks it is. After we have tried all the vegetables, we get to move on to fruit (Rule #4) and then meat (Rule #5). Some of you may find all of this a tad boring, but we think it's quite interesting.

Allison's four month update

This week Allison went for her four month study at Arkansas Children's Hospital. She had an ultrasound, had her weight and length measured, had her body mass index measured in the "Pea Pod," and had another visit to the brain lab. Allison now weighs 13 lbs and 6 ozs and is 24 inches long.

Before going into the "Pea Pod," the nurse puts a gangsta cap on Allison. She looks very tough.

Then, Allison is loaded into the pod like a torpedo to have her body mass measured.

And last, Allison's visit to the brain lab was not as traumatic an experience it has been in the past. Although tears were shed, she did very well and finished quickly. And we got more free diapers!

rockin' and rollin'

Allison has a couple of new hobbies.

She likes to hold her toes...

...and as of this week she likes to roll over.

all dressed up

This is Allison in her Easter dress. A'int she sweet.

happy 1/4 birthday!

Allison is already three months old! Okay- so we are a week late in posting the blog about it, but give us a break - we are new parents you know. But she is getting so big. Here are her new "stats" that we received when we went for her 3 month visit to Arkansas Children's for the nutrition study (which I will try to blog about later):

Weight - 12lb 11oz (50-75 percentile)
Length - 22-1/2 in (25-50 percentile)

She is getting bigger everyday and discovering new things. She has become very vocal, making all kinds of shrills and coos. She is also making this gasping noise. We both thought that their was something wrong with her, but we decided that she was only experimenting with her voice. She has learned to swat at objects that are dangled in front of her and sometimes she will grab a hold of them. She hasn't quite mastered the skill of rolling over but she is well on her way. She can roll to both sides but she never turns over (see picture below). She doesn't like it too much on her stomach so we are thinking that it may be awhile before she rolls all the way over. Her head control is very good - she can sit up with support. She can bring her hands together and will play with her hands. She has even started to suck her thumb (see picture above).



The last 3 months have in some ways seemed like the longest 3 months of our lives (which they probably have been since we have had the least amount of sleep in the last 3 months than we ever have), but in other ways it seems like the last 3 months have flown by. We feel like we can breathe a sigh of relief now since she isn't a newborn anymore and is out of that "critical" stage. We can somewhat relax and enjoy having a beautiful, healthy baby. It is so much fun to watch all of her "tricks" and watch her discover the little things in life (like bringing your hands together) - things that we never knew we had to learn.

bathtime fun

Allison really enjoys taking a bath. She seems to really like the warm water and she acts as if she could stay in her bath forever and be perfectly happy. Lately she has even begun to splash around in the water by kicking her legs. We are pleased that bath time is not a struggle but is actually a fun time for all of us.

look how big i am!

Allison had her 2 month check up on Monday. This included her immunizations. She did very well considering she was receiving 3 shots. She only cried while they were giving her the shot and stopped as soon as she was picked up. But she has definitely grown over the past month:

Weight - 11 lb. 4oz. (50-75%)
Length - 21 3/4 in. (25-50%)
Head - 15 in. (25-50%)

We are also participating in a research study with Arkansas Children's Hospital. It is comparing breastfed versus formula fed versus soy formula fed babies. They track the babies growth and development as well as their nutrition until they are six years old. We had our first visit on Monday. We have to go once a month until she is a year old and then, once a year until she is six.

The first visit went pretty well. First, we had a consultation to make sure that we understood everything that we were getting ourselves into, and after that, they asked me a lot of questions about what I eat, and I had to give a detailed description about what I had eaten for the last 24 hours. Then they took all of Allison's measurements.

Next, they have a machine that measures her body composition (it's very high tech) - they call it the "pea pod" (see photo above). She went into this little clear tube that has warm air blowing through it for 2 minutes. She seemed to enjoy the warm air and was calm the whole time.

The last thing that she had to do was the brain lab. In the brain lab, she wore a cap that had lots of sensors on it that measures her brain waves, and then they introduce different stimuli to her to see if she is understanding them. I knew about this going into the study but never thought that the cap would be so scary looking (see artistic rendering below). Allison did not like it at all, and the hardest thing was that she has to be quiet and somewhat still (but not asleep) for each test.

It's kind of a lot to go through every month, but the greatest part of the study is that we get free diapers for a year, so we are happy to help out with the study.

old friends

Aren't they cute?

sleeping beauty

Allison went to sleep Wednesday night at 10 pm. We woke up to her becoming restless (this is what she does before the full fledge cry), and while we were trying to decide who was going to get up with her, we realized it was getting to be light outside. We looked at the clock and it was 6 am. 8 hours! Allison had slept for 8 whole hours. It was fantastic to get a full night of uninterrupted sleep. While we know that this is not yet going to happen every night (last night she only slept 5 hours), this gives us hope that more restful nights are to come!

update

Well we made it through the first month with Allison. We can't believe it's been a month since she was born, but then sometimes it has seemed like a year. She was not the happiest of babies for the first month. She was rarely happy during her waking hours – always grunting, fussing, turning red, kicking her legs and flailing her arms, etc. We thought perhaps she had colic or reflux or some kind of stomach problems. Her 1 month check-up was on Monday, and we had made my list of questions about these problems for the doctor. He quickly dismissed all of them with the response of, “Babies cry.” While this somewhat made us feel like idiots (of course we knew that), We are thankful that Allison is okay. Here are a few stats from her appointment:

Weight – 9lbs. 9oz.
Height – 20 5/8”
Head – 14 5/8”

But we are glad to announce that Allison has been a completely different baby this week. No more fussiness and grunting. She has even been sleeping in her bassinet on her back (she previously slept in her car seat). While she used to not let us put her down very much during the day, this week she has been playing on her Baby Einstein play mat for long stretches every day with no fussiness. She even slept 6 hours straight one night! So, hopefully this is a sign of good things to come from baby Allison.

more photos

We can hardly believe that Allison Grace is almost a month old already! She has already changed so much from those first pictures we took just a few short weeks ago.

Last week we took some great naked baby photos of Allison in some natural light. If you would like to see more from this series, you can view them on our Yahoo! Photos Page by clicking on Allison Grace Photo Shoot. There is also a link on the right hand side of this page under "more photos" called "family photos" that will take you to the same page. We will keep the Yahoo! page updated with Allison's most recent photos, so if you're ever wondering what Allison looks like at any given point in her young life, they will be available there for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

for all you picture fiends

allison's first week

One week ago today, Allison Grace made her first appearance in the world of light. It's been fast in that it doesn't seem like it was a week ago, but the nights were definitely long. We were discharged from the hospital on Saturday afternoon only to be re-admitted on Monday due to a bit of jaundice and dehydration. Allison was placed under an ultraviolet light and fed as often as possible. After her jaundice faded and she was rehydrated, we were able to return home on Wednesday. We are so thankful for our beautiful, healthy little baby girl! And we are looking forward to the many years of growing to come.

she's arrived!

Allison Grace Cleveland was born January 12, 2006 at 12:06 PM.

She weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces and was 19 inches long.