We're back, and bla bla bla.

That is Emi's word of the week. Some days she isn't very talky. Others, she free associates with "ma," "da," "na," "aah," and "pffft." Occasionally, she strings them together, once producing what sounded to all of us like a perfect "McDonald's." But the funniest is when she gets a case of the bla blas, and starts saying "bla bla bla ... bla bla," etc. For instance, Tuck was crying a bit in the car (overdue for a nap) and what I heard up front was the following:

Tuck: "Snff ... boo hoo hoo hoo ..."
Emi: "Bla bla BLA!"
Tuck: "Waanh ... snff ..."
Emi: "Bla bla! Bla bla."

And so on. It sounded for all the world like she was rolling her eyes, bored with his crying.

In addition to these verbal feats, Emi seems to have finally decided that food is okay.

In August we switched her to formula for the second time, with bad results. The OT from Children's Hospital's feeding clinic told us that babies who reflux up formula get more sore throats and coughs, possibly because formula is thicker and sweeter and lacks natural antibodies. And it certainly seemed like Emi was getting a lot of sore throats (her voice gets hoarse and squeaky and throat looks red), which cause her to have trouble swallowing. The gagging, whether on liquid or solid food, leads to choking and vomiting, which is NO fun for anyone. The whole thing set her back a ways on eating solid food.

So she is now back on "half & half," half formula and half mother's milk, as the lactation people call it. And that mix seems to work just fine for her. I am really tired of pumping by now, but it is no improvement in my quality of life to give up pumping only to gain a very miserable baby who is having trouble even eating.

With that change, and some fun foods suggested by the OT, plus of course the passage of time, she is suddenly doing much better with solid food. Today she actually yelled because I was feeding Tuck a new food (mashed acorn squash) and taking too long to get her her first bite of it. That was so exciting!

Here are the things that Emi has eaten in the past three days: yogurt, peaches, pears, rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potato puffs, Kix cereal, two graham cookies, winter squash, acorn squash, a Ritz type cracker, and thin apple slices.

The cracker and the apple slices were at a high tea that our former doula, Maryellen, treated us to. I dressed Emi up in a cute frilly dress and bonnet for the occasion. However, I don't think she is going to be a sitting-around-at-tea kind of girl. She was bored bored BORED BLA BLA BLA! OK, so she is only 8 months old. But she basically wanted to play bouncy games and get walked around and look at the pet doves the tea shop keeps.

I suspect Tuck might have enjoyed just sitting and smiling at all the ladies a bit more. However, he stayed home for a "boys' day" with his dad. They went to the park to play on the swings and then napped for two hours. It sounds nice.