Happy New Years!  Sorry for the lack of attention to my little blog but I’ve been busy enjoying the last of the holiday season, wiping noses, feeding aggressively, and what not.

Steve was this many yesterday:

I hope everyone had an exciting New Years Eve.  I was in bed at 10:00 after a wild and crazy glass of wine with dinner.

My mom was in town for a few days.  Sabrina enjoyed climbing all over Abuela despite the fact that she has an awful sounding cold (Sabrina not Abuela).  I neglected to take any photos of them together.  Sigh.  Sabrina has been having loads of fun with her toys from Christmas – it seems she was lacking enough things that light up and make too much noise age appropriate toys.  We cleaned out the toys she has outgrown (Amy? That damned Pooh car gets a vacation until Tessa can enjoy it.  I will find a way to pay you back for that.  Does Emily need a drum set?)  She loves to play her kids MP3 player (I don’t even an MP3 player) at full volume while playing with at least 2 other singing toys at the same time.  Mommy should have received Advil in her stocking this year.

As for Tessa, she continues to be a much happier baby since starting on the Zantac.

But at her doctor appoint this week, we discovered she only gained 4 ounces this month (wish I could say the same) which means she fell from the 9th to the 3rd %tile in weight.  My 5 month old still hasn’t quite reached 12 lbs.  The doctor laid out an “aggressive eating plan” for her.  Basically, it is my job to shove food into her during each minute of the day that she is awake.  She is supposed to eat cereal twice a day and nurse 5 times a day with each nursing session followed by a bottle.  The poor girl can’t possibly consume all of this food but she is certainly eating more than she had been.  I feel horrible that I have been apparently starving the child but she never complained so I didn’t know.  Sabrina learned to eat from a spoon from her foster mom.  I had no idea how difficult it would be to begin feeding Tessa cereal.  If even a quarter of it ends up in her tummy, I am doing well.  And she needs hosed down after each bowl of cereal.  Any tips on getting her to eat it instead of expelling it back at me?