Nina had her first taste of solid food (aside for a fingerful of carrot I gave her a few weeks ago) on Tuesday. We gave her this meal in her new red plastic IKEA highchair. She loves being in the highchair, feeling like part of the family at mealtime. The solid food — rice cereal — had the effect we expected: it seemed to leave Nina very perplexed. Not too much food was actually ingested. But the point of this whole thing is to acclimate her to eating, not to bestow nutrients. The utterly puzzled and somewhat disgusted face Nina makes when she takes a bite is delightful. I certainly don’t remember my first bite of solid food, but seeing this look on Nina’s face makes me feel like I do.

For those with babies who are not yet highchair owners, I can’t say enough about the IKEA chair. It cost just $20 including the tray, and it’s great — lightweight, easy to wipe down, and it doesn’t take up much room in the apartment. IKEA also sells a really cute and inexpensive toddler chair for when Nina is older.

This is a picture from the day that Nina was sick with a fever. She woke up the night before screaming and inconsolable, and very hot. The fever came down somewhat in the AM, and I took her to the doctor. She seemed alert, so he said to just watch her. I gave her some baby Tylenol (her first experience ingesting non-breastmilk!), and that seemed to help. She took a long nap and woke up like this. Since then, she’s been just fine. I’m not sure what caused the fever.

Nina’s sitting up on her own now, at 5 and a half months. She also got to weigh in at the doctor’s office, tipping the scales at 18 pounds, 5 ounces.

She loves to watch Dad and me engage in various domestic activities. But there’s one that particularly fascinates her: teeth brushing. When I’m by myself, I bring her into the bathroom while I shower, brush teeth, etc. While I brush my teeth, she is absolutely transfixed. Maybe not having teeth herself, she is envious. Funny little girl!

Refusing to be overshadowed by certain big news of the past 24 hours (on which I will comment soon…I am collecting my thoughts), Nina Woods has reached a new milestone today: eating without spitting up. While folks in my neighborhood are outside cheering Obama, Nina’s mama is rejoicing at home over this smaller but no less important victory. Goodbye to the Era of Regurgitated Milk — you will not be missed!

She likes the balloons

Originally uploaded by Ginny and John

I haven’t done a blog post on Nina’s developments in a long while…so it’s about time. She’s now a week or so past 5 months, and here’s what she’s up to (see our Flickr photos for more details): She likes to hold her hand (the left one) in front of her face and rotate it back and forth, apparently admiring her fingers. She’s rolling across the floor less, instead trying harder to figure out a way to move forward. No luck with that yet. She’ll push up with her legs so that her bottom is in the air, and sometimes end up sort of propped up on her forehead. She’s a lot more observant and responsive, and she loves playing in the Exersaucer that someone in the neighborhood gave me. “Manning the controls,” as we say. I still haven’t fed her solid food, as the doctor told me to wait until her 6-month visit, since she’s doing so well on the breastmilk. I’m trying not to over-analyze this too much and will just stick with the doctor’s recommendations. I thought about getting some rice cereal for her to try but then I realized I don’t have any plastic bowls or spoons. Need to get those.

Nina loves leaves, balloons, grabbing her feet, and anything with lots of colors. She likes when people dance in front of her and clap their hands. She has one book that she loves, called Chika Chika Boom Boom. The front page of this book has a big colorful version of the letters of the alphabet, and she likes to look at this as I sing the alphabet song. Her other favorite activity of late: squealing. She’s got a very good set of pipes, so her squeals of glee really echo through our high-ceilinged apartment.

John and I left Nina with her nanny on Friday afternoon and went to do some work outside the house (reading, etc.). Along the way, we stopped at one of the restaurants in the highly-lauded Momofuku chain, Momofuku Ssam Bar. We sat at the counter and had the prix fixe which included a really good squid salad, Momofuku’s famous pork buns, and a spicy dish of beef and rice cakes. All these were delicious, as were the two desserts (I liked the Blondie best; John preferred the PB&J). There was also a grilled branzini dish (branzini is apparently some kind of mild, white fish), which was fine but not memorable. This was my second time at Momofuku, the first being when my parents visited last Christmas. It took me a long time to get around to going to Momofuku, because I’m a purist when it comes to Japanese food, and I was sick of all the hype surrounding the place. But David Chang knows what he’s doing. Like combining mochi with hot spice, like in the rice cake dish had yesterday. I’ve never had anything like that in Japan, but it really works.

An episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Travel Channel show, “No Reservations,” was being filmed in the restaurant while we were there. We were sitting right behind Bourdain and Chang as they chowed down and talked about food for the cameras. John drew the ire of the cameraman when he stared at the camera at one point. We’ll have to find out when this episode will air, because I suspect you’ll be able to see us pretty well in the background.

On the Nina front: she has begun sucking her left thumb. She comes by this honestly, as I sucked my thumb until I was four. My mom sucked hers too. She has also taken to waving her right fist up and down, hitting her head and then her stomach, or anything that comes between the two (like mom’s chest while nursing, which hurts). I’m trying to get her onto more of a regular nap schedule. She definitely needs the sleep. We got back from Florida, and for the first couple of days she was really tired and cranky. She cried a lot and refused to play on her rug or ride happily in the stroller, which is very unusual. It was overwhelming, actually, because I’ve never had to deal with a lot of fussiness from her. It’s incredibly draining when a baby wails and wails, without apparent cause. I sympathize with mothers of colicky or otherwise very fussy babies. But she’s gotten a few very good nights of sleep since then (going to bed now at 7 PM or earlier) and this has helped. She’s also taking two naps in the morning of about 45 minutes each. She takes an afternoon nap too, but unlike the AM naps, I haven’t quite figured out when this nap should occur.

My friend Yishane made an effort recently on her blog to place her baby’s life into context of the current financial crisis. I’m not sure how I can do that with Nina — Does commercial paper crinkle loudly? If so, she will probably like it — but I will say that while I was playing with and then nursing her yesterday, I listened to an incredibly informative This American Life podcast about the events in the markets over the past couple weeks. I highly recommend it, as well as the NPR blog, Planet Money, that gives regular updates on what’s happening.

Nina and I are down in Florida visiting Grandmama and Grandaddy (who I would love to see Nina call “Gramps”…not sure how Gramps feels about that). Traveling solo with an infant, including a change of planes in Atlanta, was not nearly as easy as doing it with John, but it still went just fine. The hardest thing was keeping wiggly Nina from kicking our seatmate. She loved being on the crowded plane and looking around at all the people. When she wasn’t staring, she nursed and slept. At one point on the longer flight she got to moving around a whole lot, so I put her in the Ergo (this thing saved my life on the trip) and hung out in the back of the plane, bouncing. We met a very nice man named Matt, who is from Pensacola but works on a barge in the Brooklyn Navy Yards. He told me about a historic dive bar near the Navy Yards that is worth a visit (sans baby, I’m guessing). John and I will go check this out when I’m back in Brooklyn.

Nina’s enjoying the QT with her grandparents, and turning on the charm with lots of smiles and giggles. She’s sleeping well, including naps, in the Pack ‘n Play. She loves to reach for things like flowers, coffee cups, books or basically anything else you put in front of her.

Nina’s got a new trick since yesterday: blowing “raspberries,” pursing her lips and saying something kind of like “boooo.” I’m not sure why she’s doing this, but she loves it and does it constantly. It’s hilarious, and I’ve unfortunately had no luck capturing it on video. I’ll keep trying!

Nina turns four months today. This is a picture of her playing on the floor — one of her favorite activities, along with rolling over and over, standing up on her legs (with assistance), watching things happen in the kitchen, looking at trees and being lifted up into the “Super Nina” pose. That last one always gets her giggling. She also very much enjoys playing in the bed with her Dad when he gets up in the morning. She’s babbling quite a bit, and I swore today she said “Yeah!” when I asked her if she was hungry.

Nina had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, and she now weights 16 pounds, 7 ounces, which the doctor said is “literally off the charts.” So Nina is very healthy. The doctor seemed surprised at my ability to supply enough breast milk for this kind of growth. Not to be crass, but I’m quite pleased that these little 34B’s can keep up with the best of them.

Nina is sleeping through the night from about 8:30 to 6:30, although last night she awoke for a rare middle-of-the-night feeding. Maybe it’s a growth spurt. She’s also learning to take 3 good crib naps a day. I’ve discovered that nursing her before she goes down for a nap helps a lot (thanks for the advice, Grandmama). She celebrated her birthday by taking three naps of nearly an hour each. And this evening she has “Daddy Nite” while I’m at my class.

Now that I’m not working, I’m engaging in some creative pursuits. John’s encouraged me to try my hand at comics. This is my first attempt. I actually drew this one back in June, but I didn’t ink it until yesterday. Rather than comics, what I really want to do is write and illustrate a children’s book. I’m going to take an evening class on this subject at SVA, starting later this month. And this weekend, I’m going to take Nina to the Brooklyn Book Festival to hear a reading by Mo Willems, whose books I love.