Finally.

I feel like I may jinx it if I say it too loud, but Matilda is finally sleeping through the night, woooo! For the past couple of weeks she has been going to bed about 8:00 and waking up about 6:30...it is HEAVEN. I think only twice in two weeks has she woken up during the night for her pacifier. That I can deal with. :)

I went with Franma and Mattie to Mother Goose time at the library last week and it was too cute. Mom has been telling me how much Matilda loves it- she likes playing with the other kids just as much as the songs and stories. She really doesn't sit still like the other kids- she wants to play the whole time!

She is really trying to walk now. She can stand totally on her own and has taken a step here and there, but she gets scared and sits down unless someone is holding her hand. She could totally do it if it weren't for fear...walking is scary!

She is still eating up a storm. I am starting to have to make a lot more food on Sundays because she blows through it so quickly. Apples and mangoes mixed are her new fav.

She LOVES the beach. She could play in the sand for hours- she thinks it's the funniest thing ever. She also loves the water. She hasn't gotten totally in in a while since it's been chilly, but puts her toes in and wants to sit down in it. She isn't scared at all...she'll be surfing with Dad in no time. 

We have been packing to move to our new house for the past few days and Mattie loves it! All the boxes and packing material...she thinks it's the coolest stuff to play with.

Here are a few of the latest and greatest pics:

Mattie at the park with Aunt Tink and Morgan:

 

My little cool kid- she loves her sunglasses:

At Mother Goose time with Mom and Franma:

Packing for the move, Mattie was helping :)

The next set of pics will be in the new house...we close on Friday- can't wait.

xoxoxo

The busiest of babies

I know, I know, it's been too long (AGAIN). Time just flies when you have a 7 month old (8 mo on Tuesday) and a full time job...jeeze!

Matilda Rae is, simply put, a little angel. She is happy almost every second of the day and all she wants to do is go and play and explore. She has been standing up and walking holding on to the coffee table or couch for about a month now, but this morning she let go and took one little wobbly step all on her own. It was just too cute! The look on her face was as shocked as mine. She is still not even close to sleeping through the night, but she is skipping her night time feeding most nights now. She just wakes up once or twice and needs her pacifier and a pat on the back to get back to sleep. Jenn- I am so jealous of little Claire's 12 hour snoozes!

Here are some cute pics of miss Mattie over the last 6 weeks or so...

On the swings, her fav:

At the beach with Daddy:

Our little surfer girl:

Bed head and sleepy face like her Daddy (6:30 AM):

Big girl in Daddy's new truck:

With Mommy heading to Poe's for dinner (first bow in her hair!):

Little fatso happy in her highchair because she just ate:

Eddie and I say every day how incredibly lucky we are. We have a truly perfect baby. She goes everywhere with us without any problems and all of our friends (even D who hates babies!) love Matilda. She has started going to the library with Franma on Tuesday's for Mother Goose time and she just loves it! They read and sing and Matilda is enthralled. Franma says she holds her hands and walks around and steals the other kids her age pacifiers. She's just so giant (20 lbs and 30" now!), so she's the bully in the 7 mo old crowd...lol. Franma said she gets along better with the one year olds because they are able to play with her.

She is eating 3 meals and 3-4 (5 oz) milk feedings a day now and man can she eat. For breakfast she has oatmeal cereal with bananas and prunes most days and for lunch and dinner it's a wide variety of options. Her new fav is edamame, but corn and carrots are a close second. She also loves apples and pears mixed- that's usually her dessert. I make all her food for the week on Sundays and usually she sits in the kitchen in her highchair and helps me cook. :)

She also wants to try all of our food now. I let her try hummus the other day and she loved it! She also loves to gnaw on pizza crust- Mellow Mushroom is her preference (and Mom's). 

Can't believe she will be 8 months old in a few days...I better start planning her one year birthday! Hahah!

My 6 month old who thinks she's 12 months old.

Little Matilda Rae was 6 months old as of 12/28 and we went to her 6 month doctor's visit on 1/5. She is officially off the charts (above 95 percentile) for her height at 28" and at the 85 percentile for weight at 18 lbs. She is way ahead of the game being able to pull up and walk holding on to the rail of the crib or edge of the coffee table. She sits up, crawls insanely fast and is eating 2-3 meals a day of solid foods that Mom and Franma make. She loves everything she's tried including sweet potato, avocado, carrots, banana, blueberries, spinach, asparagus, squash, prunes, apple, pear and peaches. She hasn't really slowed down the breast milk drinking much, just added the food. She still has about 5 oz of breast milk every 4 hours or so either from me or a bottle and she is great at switching between the two...no issues there. She also has two teeth that make her look even more adorable- if that is even possible!

Over the weekend we were given a high chair from her Aunt Kelly and she loved eating in it and playing in it. We sat her with some toys and she played happily for about an hour. She loves throwing things on the floor now and the highchair is a perfect place to do that from.

Here are a few pics from this past weekend. It was so beautiful out that we spent lots of time outside:

We took a bike ride and went to the park on the way home to swing:

 Sunday morning Dad made breakfast and he and Mattie danced in the kitchen:

 Lots of good playoff football was on this weekend. Mattie LOVES watching football and assumed her position on the couch for a good 30 minutes straight:

 We went for a walk on the beach to collect shells. Mattie loves the ocean and is so content in her stroller on the beach:

 Mattie won't let me take a pic of her teeth without grabbing my phone! So here is the best one I could get...with her finger on the phone of course. :)

Matilda is so eager and ready to learn and do more. It's so much fun to watch it all happen, but it's happening SO fast! I really think she'll walk in the next few months at this rate...insane.

Eddie and I say every day how lucky we are...we really hit the jackpot with this little lady. :)

More soon...xoxo

world's worst blogger...world's best baby

Well, I may officially win the title of world's worst mommy blogger. Five months with NO posts? You'd think I moved to Florida, started a new job and have a new baby or something....er, um, yep, that's exactly my excuse!

But, new year, new blog.

As I said, the Berrang family has started a new chapter in our little adventure called life. Namely, we have moved to Atlantic Beach, FL and I have started a new job at an ad agency in San Marco called Burdette Ketchum. We could not be more thrilled with our move...especially when Matt and Al tell us about the frigid New York winter every morning and it's usually about 70 outside our front door...

Eddie is still working for the same company and is traveling back and forth to NYC a few times a month for meetings and such. Otherwise, he is working out of an office that is 7 min door-to-door by skateboard- pretty rad.

We are so lucky that my Mom (Franma) is able to keep Mattie during the day for us. She is teaching her everything from reading to music to math and Matilda absolutely loves it! She is so happy and loved and we could not be more thrilled with the arrangement.

So much has happened in the past five months that I couldn't even attempt to recap it all here, but I will give you some photographic proof of our amazing little girl's growth. She is now eating solid foods, has two bottom front teeth (as of 4 days ago), is crawling like a champ and is pulling up all on her own on anything she can. I swear she is going to walk in a month at this rate! She is truly the light of our lives and we are SO lucky that she is such a good little baby. She is not sleeping though the night yet though, so I am still on the every 4 hour waking to feed schedule...a small price to pay for her amazingness! Here are a few pics from the past few months...

Loving her new beach home:

 Gator baby, with Mom at Bronson's parents BBQ:

 First bite of food, sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving:

 Christmas candy bandit at D's parents party:

 Happy girl on the beach on a walk with Mom:

 Christmas Eve nap with Dad:

 Christmas Eve book reading with Dad:

 Christmas morning on her older cousin's Powerwheel:

 Christmas morning, loving the wrapping paper and bows:

 Christmas morning bath in Dede's sink:

 Her six month birthday, in a highchair like a big girl:

 My little hipster baby, clothes courtesy of her cool aunt Meg in NYC:

 Happy New Year! She almost made it until midnight...Franma took her home at 11:30 :)

 First family bike ride this past weekend:

Needless to say she is growing up so fast. It feels like yesterday that we brought her home and now we can't imagine life without her. 

I'm going to try my best to keep up with the blog a little better. Now that Eddie got me an iPhone I have been taking pics like crazy (as you can tell most of the ones I posted are new), so it should be easier to document this little angel's busy life. 

Now off to pump- that is not the most fun thing about being a breastfeeding Mom, pumping twice a day at work...such is life! 

xoxoxo

Busy baby!

The last few weeks Matilda has been a busy little lady. Two weekends ago we went to Maryland to visit Eddie's family and last weekend we went to Montauk to introduce her to the rest of Eddie's family. She did so well in the car both times- it was great. Both drives were between 3-4 hours and she slept most of the way there and back on both trips...what a pleasure she is to travel with, hope it stays that way. :)

Here are some cute pics of our little bean the past couple of weeks- she has grown SO much- well over 10 lbs now.

Sleeping on Daddy's lap in her outfit from Aunt D:

 At home on Mommy's lap- excited about her Montauk onesie from Aunt Tracy E:

 In Maryland at Dede's in the bouncy seat:

  Sleeping on Daddy's lap with her new puppy Daddy bought her:

 In her little tie dye outfit that cousins Julian and Morgan made for her:

 Happy baby looking at Uncle Bjorn's black and white pic of Kauai on our wall- she loves it!:

 First Bath:

 Sleeping on the couch at home:

  With Daddy at Uncle Chucks pool:

 Laying out at Uncle Chucks pool:

 Laying out at Uncle Chucks pool:

 With her cousins Chas and Caitlyn in Montauk:

 Beach in Montauk with Daddy:



Mattie's first family outing :)

Over the weekend, I finally felt good enough to venture out of the house, so Eddie, Aunt D and I took the little lady on her first real adventure!

First, we (of course) stopped at Epsteins to say hi to Shane and Sean, then we picked up sandwiches and headed to the East River park. It was a bit tough on me (about two miles round trip), but Matilda did great! It felt so good to be out of the house and in the fresh air...I was getting stir crazy.

Then, after we went home and rested for a bit, we took Mattie out to dinner with the 3 of us. Pala was packed, so we went to Mole, which was so fun. It was quite loud in the restaurant, but Mattie was in her car seat and slept through the whole dinner. :) She was a total little angel!

It was so fun getting out and about with her. I can't wait until I am more mobile and can take her out on my own during the week. Right now I can't lift anything heavier than the baby, so the stroller and car seat are off limits. Three more weeks and I'll be taking her everywhere. Can't wait!

Doctors, doctors and more doctors!

Matilda has done so well the last (almost) three weeks and Eddie and I are getting used to less sleep and lots of diapers!

Since we left the hospital 2 weeks ago we have had lots of visits to doctors for the new little Berrang girl. First, two days after we left the hospital, we had to take Mattie in to be checked for jaundice. She was borderline when we went home, so we needed to be sure she wasn't having any issues. It was July 4 weekend, so the doc at the hospital said we'd likely have to take her to the ER to be checked, but we were so excited when our new pediatrician offered to come in on a Sunday of a holiday weekend to check her. So we took her out when she was 5 days old, in a thunderstorm, to be checked for jaundice...she was totally fine of course. :)

Then, on her one week birthday, we had her first newborn visit. They weighed her and were amazed that she had already gained 6.5 oz. Most babies lose a bit of weight after birth, but not our little porker! She was 7 lb. 12.5 oz one week after birth.

During this doctors visit we also asked about the bump above Mattie's right eye. It was there when she was born and we weren't sure if she bumped it or if it was an issue. The doctor said it is a dermoid cyst and not anything to worry about. She referred us to a dermatologist to confirm her suspicion and decide on what should be done for it.

So, at two weeks old, we took Mattie to the dermatologist. He was really great- confirmed it is a cyst and told us the three possibilities: the cyst will go away on it's own, as she grows, it will be so small that nothing will need to be done, or it will need to be removed when she is a bit older. He assured us that it's very common and nothing to be concerned about, which made us feel much better! So we're just waiting to see how things pan out with that. He did recommend that we take her to a pediatric eye doc to be sure it's not impeding her vision at all, so we're going to do that soon.

We are so thrilled that she is happy, healthy and growing like a weed!! We are very lucky and remind ourselves of that every day....