Tag: D month-by-month

15 months this week (Tuesday, to be exact), wow! D is turning more and more into a little person every day, and that tiny baby who burst into our lives last August is quickly becoming a distant memory. Which kind of makes me sad. I absolutely loved the newborn stage – teeny little girl, depended on me and R for every single thing, could snuggle in and sleep for hours in the crook of your arm. But I have to admit, seeing the person whom D is becoming is amazing. She has the funniest, most incredible spirit, and watching her learn something new every day just fills me with pride. Like hey, we made that little human, and maybe we didn’t so bad after all.

 

So what’s new in the life of Miss D?

• We just had her 15 month checkup yesterday, and she is 32 3/4 inches tall, weighing in at 23 lbs. She loves stepping up onto the regular scale at the doctor’s office all by herself now, too.
• *Almost* has a couple words. When asked, “Who says moo?” or “How does the cow go?” she’ll reply “Mmm…” We just need to work on getting those Os tacked on there. And when prompted with, “How does the puppy go?” she’ll say “Woof, woof.” Ok, it sounds more like “fff, fff,” but we totally know what she’s saying. Unfortunately the “thank you”s we heard a few months ago are now nowhere to be found, something we need to work on reviving. Actual words can’t be far off, though, what with the sometimes endless rivers of chatter that flow from those little lips.
• LOVES her books. I think now more than ever, actually. I brought an old CD rack down from the attic a few weeks ago and loaded it up with all her books in her bedroom, and she will go in there time after time and empty the entire thing, just sitting there reveling in a pile of books. It is beyond cute to hear her reading them out loud, too, as the “bdyips, bdyips” and “bdyaps, bdyaps” make up countless stories. She does have a couple favorites, which she so hopefully carries out to you so she can climb up into your lap to have read. I love it.
• She is great at entertaining herself, which I also love. The other weekend R bought a set of those interlocking foam play mats to cover the floor, since we have no carpet in our house and the floor gets kind of cold (not to mention hard). They’re the alphabet and numbers from 0-9, and I cleared out an entire corner of our living room to lay them. We finally put away her playpen (the jumperoo made its way up to the attic a few months ago) and had enough room to use this new corner play area to hold all of her toys and things in the living room. It’s perfect, and she will sit over there and toodle away quite happily on her own (yes, toodle, i may have just invented that word too). She has a couple Magna Doodles, her little push toy, inflatable beer bottle (wonderful example we’re setting), kickball, corner pillow for lounging, shapes for stacking and putting through the correct holes in their respective boxes, gumball machine toy, whatever random pieces of this and that she collects from around the house, and of course more books.
• She will let us know when she’s hungry now by going over to her highchair, grabbing onto the tray, and acting like she’s trying to climb up it. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before she does this when we’re not looking and pulls the whole thing down on top of her. Not looking forward to that one.
• Is primarily still a champ sleeper. Her bedtime is usually somewhere between 7-8, and yes, she still takes a bottle of milk at bedtime. It’s not quite as necessary as it has been, because there are nights where she’ll be so tired we can just put her in her crib and she’ll fall right asleep without it. Most nights, however, she’ll start doing her sleepy eye-rubs and maybe get a little whiny, so we’ll give her her bottle, she’ll climb up and lie between R’s legs in a blanket on the couch, and drink her milk until she falls asleep. Or sometimes I’ll rock her in her room with the bottle, just depending on what we’re doing and how tired she is. I know we need to give this last bottle up soon, but she still loves it and I don’t think this nighttime routine is hurting anything. She’s been waking up a couple times in the nights lately, but I think that’s due to growing pains. At least I hope it’s due to growing pains and not a new non-sleep schedule she’s picking up, because that just doesn’t fit into my need-sleep schedule.
• Loves participating in all the activities at daycare – finger painting, water color painting on the easel, story time, finger plays, songs, and most especially playing out on the playground. There have been days when her class is outside playing when I arrive to pick her up and she won’t want to go home. Stinker! One day she tried to eat wood chips to avoid coming with me, another day she tried to permanently attach herself to the wooden rocking boat in her empty classroom so I couldn’t carry her out to the car. At least she likes daycare, right?
• This girl L-O-V-E-S to be outside. Which is awesome. She adores riding in her little seat on R’s bike, and when he picks her up like that from daycare they’ll often head to a park afterward to play on the playgrounds some more. Unfortunately those days may be over for the season, but they got a ton of them in this summer and fall which was so great. She loves going on walks in the stroller, as usual, but even more so is thrilled by just being turned loose in the yard to run around on her own. She plays in the grass, crunches leaves, picks up rocks, the whole shebang. And if you try to take her inside before she wants to go? Hoo boy, look out! You will instantly have a writhing, crying serpent in your arms. Fun. She’ll also stand guard at the front or back door if one of us has gone outside and dared leave her behind indoors, pining away for her chance to get back out there. Maybe someday we’ll have a bigger yard so she can really run free. Because right now she tends to try to escape down the sidewalk as far as she can get. Which doesn’t bode well for the next few years, seeing as she’s only 15 months old right now and all.
• Puppies remain her favorite animal, with I think cows now coming in a close second. Obviously she hasn’t and doesn’t see many cows up close like she does dogs, but the cows mooing in books are some of her favorites.
• Bath time is still a blast for her. Again, trying to get her out and dried off becomes a game of skill, wrangling a slippery, squirmy babe.
• She gives the best hugs and kisses, and when she snuggles up against my neck as I’m holding her on my shoulder is when I want to freeze time forever.
• This girl dances like no other and rocks out constantly. Whether she’s in her highchair, on your lap, standing in the bathroom, or just running around as usual, as soon as she hears music come on she will start bobbing and swaying. In fact, it is mandatory that we turn on the speaker in the kitchen when she’s in her highchair. She makes the rules, remember?
• Still doesn’t have a “lovey” or anything else she always sleeps with, but she does love to hug her plush toys tight and then throw them in the air to do somersaults. Funny little girl.
• I swear she’s learning how to snap her fingers. She will move her index fingers and thumbs together while she’s dancing, much as you do with your middle fingers and thumbs to actually snap. Hers don’t make noise, obviously, but it’s impressive to see her doing the motions nonetheless.
• She’s in size 3 diapers (4s for overnights) right now, but I think will soon be moving up to 4s. Her clothes are pretty much all 18 months minimum. She still wears some 12 month onesies and tops, but the pants are all too short if they’re smaller than 18M now. Guess she’s got my long legs.
• Eats all regular food, and has started learning to feed herself with a spoon. I know they work on this a lot at daycare, but when I hand her the spoon at home it gets used more as a prop, with her hands still doing most of the shoveling in of food. And I learned at her parent teacher conference Tuesday afternoon that only at home does she swipe her hands across her tray when she’s done eating to fling all the food that’s left onto the floor; they never see that at daycare. Awesome. Thank you very much, Squeaker.
• Has started learning to drink out of cups with no lids. They’re just the little tiny Dixie cups at daycare that they drink water out of throughout the day, but still. That’s a pretty big step. She has liked to drink out of our cups at home for months, but that generally results in one very wet little girl. I may have to get some of the little Dixies for her to use outside of school for practice.
• Has 14 teeth, with 1 just about to poke through, if it hasn’t yet already. I haven’t checked since the other night, when it was just barely still hiding under the surface. All the new ones are eye teeth and molars, so I can’t blame the girl for being a little crankier than usual sometimes.

 

I think that about covers it. A lot of the above is probably a little repetitive from recent months, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a bunch of stuff, but it’s hard to condense everything into a few bullet points when you’re dealing with such a multi-faceted child as D. 😉

 

 

 

D turned 14 months old this past Saturday. What the what?? Why does that sound so big? Like has it really been 6 months since she was 8 months old? That little number sounds much less scary and grown-up. Alas, I still haven’t figured out how to make time stand still or even slow down. She certainly is as entertaining and amazing as ever, though, so I thought I’d give you the latest update:

• Her last trip to the doctor’s office was at the beginning of September, when she weighed 20.7 lbs. She even stood on the big person’s scale and everything! We haven’t had an official measurement since her 12 month checkup, so I’ll have to estimate again here, but I’ll say she’s roughly 32″ tall and probably just under 21 lbs. She’s growing!
• Drumroll please… 13 teeth!! Yes, that is correct – her little mouth has sprouted 5 new teeth in the past month. I should say in the past week and a half, really. So now in addition to the 8 in front (4 on top and 4 on bottom), she has 4 more on the bottom and 1 more on top. The 4 new ones on the bottom are both cuspids and first molars, and the 1 new one on top is the right cuspid. Crazy! I was worried that teething with these big teeth was going to be horrific for her, since before they poked through you could see her gums just bulging, but (knock on wood) they really don’t seem to be affecting her much. I hope it stays that way.
• Crawling is a long-forgotten mode of travel these days, and her walking is getting more and more coordinated. She moves fast when she wants to, too! I finally wised up and got a baby gate for the basement stairs, so fortunately we have thus far avoided any monumental stair catastrophes. (insert more knocking on wood here) She loves to stand at the top of the basement steps chewing on the gate when you go downstairs and laugh as she sees you go around the corner at the bottom.
• Climbing has become a favorite activity of hers, making me wonder if she might be part monkey (well that, and the night she ate a whole banana in about 7 bites). She can now climb up onto the couch by herself, climb onto the ottoman to the glider in her bedroom, climb into her froggie chair, and just this weekend she started climbing up onto the ottoman/bench we use to store some of her toys. Ok, 2 of these have posed problems – the froggie chair and the bench. We have just recently gotten to the point where she will get in her chair and actually sit as opposed to standing in it like a total stinker. That took much “feet down”ing, physical repositioning of the toddler herself, and finally ignoring the “look at me, I’m standing!” face and squeaks to get her to do that one correctly. The bench is a new-found plaything since she started standing on the lid of it this weekend when it was on the floor (ahem, thanks a lot for that one, grandma…), then proceeded to think she could continue standing on it when it was back in place on the bench. Wrongola! So we’ll work on that one.
• Still no real words yet, but more new noises get added to her “vocabulary” all the time. I can’t wait until she does start talking, so we can finally hear what she thinks she’s been saying this whole time.
• LOVES her books. Which I, personally, find awesome! It’s so funny to watch her “reading” her books too, as she sits flipping pages, with strings of “bdyap, bdyap, bdyap” and “dis dis dis”. I know they do tons of reading at daycare too, which is wonderful for the kids.
• She loves art projects. We are already filling up a tupperware bin in the attic of water color paintings and other drawings she’s done at school. I think I’d like to get her a little easel of some sort for Christmas, because I know they’ve used them in her room at daycare. A budding artist, mayhaps?
• She loves water. They have a water table at school that they play in all the time, and she becomes a slippery limp noodle when I try to take her out of her bath before she’s ready to be done splashing around. If we walk by a sink she practically dives in it to wash her hands, like they do every morning when they get dropped off at daycare. Starting personal hygiene early – I like that.
• Unfortunately she has also already learned the throw-herself-down-on-the-floor-and-splay-out-in-toddler-misery when she doesn’t get her way. Seriously? Already? Boo on that, little one. You’re only 1! They’re called the terrible TWOS, in case you missed the memo.
• Puppies are her absolute favorite. When we’re outside and she sees a puppy she starts squealing and pointing with excitement. Puppies and squirrels. Fortunately we don’t pet squirrels.
• I guess she really loves all things furry. Whenever she gets to a page in her books that has fur or fuzz of some sort on it – a kitten or puppy, textured clouds, a lion’s mane, etc. – she loves to pick at it and try to eat it. That part I don’t get at all, but then again, there are many things going on in that little brain that I probably don’t get.
• She likes to pick invisible things up between her tiny little thumb and forefinger and pretend she’s eating them. Yeah, who knows…
• She’s pretty smart. She definitely knows your actions and imitates them – brushing hair, brushing teeth, using her q-tips, lining toys up after she’s seen me do it, wiping off her high chair or the floor after she’s seen me do it, trying to put keys in the doorknob after she’s seen us lock the door… It’s so amazing to watch her do all these things and think wow, she really does know what’s going on in the world around her. Just 1 more reason why we try to keep things happy for her. Kids sense everything and truly are like little sponges, soaking everything up, including your mood.
• She’s becoming enthralled with the toilet now, too, and if the door’s open always comes in when you’re going to the bathroom to investigate. Awesome. But maybe this means she might be ready for potty training sooner rather than later? Unfortunately she’s also taken to grabbing her crotch when getting her diaper changed or bathed. Hmm, guess we’ll need to start working on that, too.
• We’ve been having issues with diapers leaking overnight, so I sent Facebook feelers out to find solutions. Apparently Huggies Overnights in a size bigger than usual are the way to go, so we picked up a package of them this weekend. So far, so good, fingers crossed.
• She eats pretty much anything now. I’ve noticed she doesn’t particularly like things with skins and will spit that part back out – sometimes grapes, hot dogs, etc. Usually she isn’t too picky, unless she’s not feeling well, when she generally doesn’t want anything to eat. She loves carrying around her little cup of snacks and munching on puffs and Cheerios.
• I still haven’t gotten rid of her morning bottle yet, but I don’t really care so much about it anymore. I like giving her an easy, peaceful wake-up, since none of us likes having to get up early, leave home, and be apart all day. Plus I don’t think it really hurts that a 1-year old is having a morning bottle of milk. She gets that one and then another bottle at night at bedtime, but drinks all of her milk at school from a cup. So that’s fine with me. On weekends I do usually give her a bottle when she goes down for a nap, but it just helps calm her and send her off to dreamland.

I know I say it every time, but I really couldn’t possibly love this little girl anymore. She brings so much happiness and laughter to us daily, and it’s incredible watching her turn into a little person running around our house. I love you, Squeaker!

 

I obviously totally forgot to do these last week, when D turned 13 months old. Whoopsies, bad Mommy.

I noticed, too, that sometimes I listed out separately her likes, dislikes, stats, etc., and sometimes I just made 1 list of everything. I can’t remember which I did more often, but I think I’ll just stick with a master list this time. That way I can think of everything at random instead of having to categorize. Sorry – thinking out loud there for a sec. But here is where our little girl stands now:

• Walking like it’s her job! She actually runs, too, which is utterly hilarious. Her balance still isn’t the greatest, so when she really gets going she’s all pitched forward and looks like she’s going to take a header straight into the floor at any second. Fortunately she rarely does, though, and just continues on her merry way. She started walking the day after her 1st birthday.
• Lots of new sounds are coming out of her little mouth. Still not really any actual words yet, but in about the past 2 weeks I’ve noticed many more sound combos. “Bdyaps”, “bdips”, “bdis”, “dat”, “bla-la-la” (that’s flicking her tongue in and out of her mouth, wan’t sure how to type it phonetically) are some of her current favorites. They must have been working on “b” and “d” sounds at school lately.
• She always starts talking as soon as she wakes up in the morning, which I absolutely love. If she’s not crying awake (like she usually is when she wakes up too early), she’ll either be standing in her crib when I come in her room or else she wakes up when I turn on the light in her closet, and then the jabber begins. It’s always accompanied by her pointing at something in her room. What she’s pointing to and talking about though, I rarely know. I just pick her up and smother her in kisses to begin the day.
• She loves carrying little toys around now. My mom got her a little wooden tool box for her birthday, and she loves getting the bits and pieces out of there. She also loves carrying around the plastic balls from her gumball machine, as well as her little plastic Sesame Street characters that some of our friends got her for her birthday. She still doesn’t have a sleep toy or blanket, like many kids do.
• Books remain some of her favorite play things, and she loves to get them out of the pockets of the glider in her room, where I store a couple of them. For some reason, her favorite thing is to find a page that has something furry or fuzzy on it, pick at it with her little forefinger and thumb pincer grip, and put her fingers right in her mouth likes she’s grabbed something and is eating it. I don’t know why she does this, or why the fur entices her to do this, but it’s really funny to see. Sometimes she actually does pull a piece of the fur/fuzz off though, and then it’s amusing watching her try to figure out what’s stuck on her tongue. She also loves books with babies in them and laughs every time she sees one. Pages with little mirrors so she can see herself she also digs.
• She’s down to 1-2 bottles a day, 1 in the morning (sometimes) and 1 at bedtime. I think the bedtime one will be around for awhile, but I’m slowly trying to morph the morning one into a cup of milk. I’ve had some small successes, but she still much prefers a bottle in the morning.
• She can feed herself pretty much everything now. Sometimes I’ll still give her spoonfuls of really messy stuff or things she can’t easily pick up, like cottage cheese, but for the most part I try to feed her foods that can be served in 1-year-old bite sized pieces. She doesn’t seem to be too picky either, which is great. The other day I carried her outside as I picked some tomatoes, and she dug right into one and ate half of it. And the other night she ate an entire whole banana in under a dozen bites. Then she barfed as I was putting her to bed.
• She loves to be outside, and on these warm summer days we’ve had she’s had a ball playing at her water/sand table and in her little inflatable whale pool.
• Her last doctor’s appointment was on August 3 and her next one isn’t until November, but at that appointment a month ago she weighed almost 20.5 lbs. and was 30.5 inches long (i think). So right now I’d say she probably hasn’t grown too terribly much from that. We can certainly tell that she gets heavier more quickly now carrying her around.
• This week we go on her first plane trip, out to Denver. I’m a little anxious about it, but I honestly have been able to keep a fairly relaxed attitude so far. It’s a 2.5 hour flight out and 2 hours back, so hopefully that doesn’t become too unbearable for her. I think the noise of the plane might scare her a little at first, but I’m hoping that since she’ll be right on our laps with us we’ll be able to comfort her quickly. The flight out is late evening, over her usual bed time, so maybe she’ll even be able to have her bottle, snuggle in, and sleep for most of it. I’m planning on taking 2 bottles of milk, some blueberry puffs for a snack, and a couple little books and toys to try to keep her entertained. I’m staying hopeful that she does as well as the little guy who was behind me on my flight out to Denver a few weeks ago.
• We’re starting to get into the discipline stage, which can be challenging. She likes to look right at you, smirk, and do exactly what you just told her not to do, and I’ll admit that can drive me crazy after a couple times in a row. Right now our big thing is trying to teach her that her chair is for sitting, not standing, but she usually climbs right in it and stands up tall as can be instead of obeying. Greeeat. This’ll be fun. She also does the splay out on the floor and cry when she doesn’t get her way or you take something away from her, which is also just a ton of fun.
• R got a new seat for his bike so he can pick her up from daycare in that instead of with the stroller or bike trailer. She loves it! R said she gets especially excited when they see a dog go by, as puppies are one of her favorite things.

 

We’re so lucky, because overall, she is a very happy little girl. Seeing that little face light up when I walk in her bedroom each morning to get her is a certain kind of magic, as is kissing her head as I rock her and give her her bottle before bed each night. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 40 million times on here, but I love her more than I ever thought I could possibly love a child. Thank you, Squeaker! It is so fun watching you grow into this awesome little person.

 

1 year ago today, life as we now know it began. D turns 1 today! Happy birthday, sweet pea!! How in the world did this happen? It’s kind of weird because I look back at this past year and it really doesn’t seem to have flown by in a flash. Like it does feel like we’ve had 12 full months with her, if that makes any sense. (don’t you love how i use “like” in my sentences as if i’m a 6th grader?) However, saying that we now have a “1 year old” as opposed to a “– month old” seems uber strange. Time in general has seemed to only speed up as we’ve gotten older, which everyone always tells you it will, so I’m so thankful that it feels like we really did fully enjoy her first year of life instead of looking back and thinking where in the hell did it go? I’m sure each subsequent year will blow by faster and faster, but this first one has been perfect.

So here’s what’s shakin’ in the wide world of D on this, her big 1 year birthday. Again, not much has changed since last month, but here we go:

• Weighs about 20 lbs. and is probably around 29-30″ tall (we have her official 1 year doctor appointment on wednesday this week, so i’ll find those out for sure then).
• Still has just the 6 teeth. I’m convinced more are on their way, though, what with her fingers in her mouth again and tendency towards the cranky side lately. Molars maybe? I’ve heard they take a long time to finally cut too. But I could be totally wrong there. Maybe she’s just being a brat.
• Still so close to walking, but not quite there. My mom and sister said they saw her take a step in Canada and one of her teachers said she saw her take 2 steps at daycare that following week, but we still haven’t seen any evidence of this phenomenon at home. The hands and knees leapfrog gallop/”crawl” is still her preferred method of travel, or if she has something to hold onto she loves to cruise around standing. She also loves to hold your hands and walk around that way.
• Favorite toys? Anything. She has never really shown a preference for any one or two of her toys, but is more of an equal opportunity player. She does still love her gumball machine, which always results in the plastic balls ending up scattered behind and under all the living room furniture since our floors slant. She also loves her books, and is always excited when I open the little cupboard in her room where we keep the ones she isn’t quite ready for yet. Lift-the-flap ones are still some of her favorites, with only 2 flaps as ripped-off casualties so far.
• Diapers size 3, and clothing size 12 months. She can still fit into some 9 month outfits, but I won’t buy anything smaller than 12 months at this point. I would call 12 months the minimum size, too.
• Favorite foods? I don’t think she really has one – she’ll eat pretty much anything. She much prefers to feed herself now, too, which is nice. So I try to give her everything in tiny pieces that she can manage. Too bad she likes to shove fistfuls of those tiny pieces in her mouth all at once, which kind of negates the tininess. Ah well. Fortunately I finally figured out how to get her to take those gross vitamins that she needs – put them in her bottles of milk. Seriously? DUH!! Why did that not dawn on me until just a week or two ago? I was only able to successfully hide them in her food a handful of times and was really frustrated that she wasn’t getting them. Of course she won’t detect 1mL of vits in 8oz of milk. Geez. At least she gets them now, I guess.
• Her first words were “thank you”, in Canada this year. R says she’s saying “tattoo”, but it’s quite obviously “thank you”. We always say it to her after we give her something, so she learns the correct timing. It’s funny though, because she also likes to say it when she gives you something. Like putting a bite of whatever she’s eating into your mouth. So polite. Little Miss Manners we’re raising here. Other words aren’t exactly *words* yet, still more just noises. I think there’s one she does that is supposed to be her name, but to anyone but me and R it would just appear to be another crazy sound.
• She’s a great waver – loves to wave hi and bye to everyone, everywhere.
• Still loves stroller rides, and now that we added a bike ride last weekend she loves those now too.
• She’s been treated for 3 ear infections this year, but in actuality we think it was only 1 that never fully went away. Her doctor said they generally don’t start looking into inserting tubes until they’ve had 5 in the first year, so at least we didn’t make that cut off. We found out she’s allergic to the Omnicef (cefdinir) family of antibiotics too. No issue with penicillins, though.
• It took until 10 months for her to take a nose-dive off something, and that was off the bed in our hotel room the first night of our WI brewery tour weekend. Whoopsies. The only other one so far came in Canada, when she tipped over my legs and took a head-first digger off the couch. Like I said, fortunately babies are pretty rubbery. She was no worse for the wear after either spill.
• Personality? Oh yes, this girl has one. And it’s big. Like, you need to look at me and immediately start playing with me when I enter the room, big. Her teachers at daycare say she’s the nosiest one in the class, always having to see what everyone’s doing and getting into everybody’s business. I said oh great, the class bully. They said no, not a bully at all (whew!), just curious and nosy. We call her the queen of the class. Fortunately she seems to have much more of R’s outgoing personality than my shy one. She has started exerting a little bit of clinginess and neediness lately, though, but I think that may be associated with a touch of separation anxiety, which is apparently common at this age. She’s never cried when we leave daycare in the mornings, it’s more like come here, pick me up, every time you walk by her. Which I can understand – she hasn’t seen us all day and wants our attention once we’re home. It’s just hard to unload the dishwasher or put away groceries or change your clothes when one arm is occupied by a spider monkey. But as one of my friends pointed out – it does feel great knowing that she loves us and just wants to be near us.
• Sleeping. Hmm, this is a tough one, and one that I’ve talked about a lot recently. She’s been a great sleeper up until probably the past month or so, which was my first inkling that unsurfaced molars were bothering her. Those may be part of the problem, but one of her daycare teachers said she’s also at the age where babies will start to try to see how they can control you with their crying. Which would definitely explain a lot of the having to practically slither out of her room once we put her in her crib so she doesn’t wake back up with the first creak of a floorboard. And that’s not an exaggeration. Some nights are a real struggle, and I’ve been all the way to the door, stepped in the wrong spot to hit a creak in the floor, and up she popped to start over. So I now know the exact route to take so as not to make a peep when leaving her room. It works best with bare feet too, not slippers or flip-flops. She still wakes up sometimes during the night too, which she hadn’t done for the longest time either. Sometimes she needs a bottle to go back to sleep, other times a little rocking does the trick. So this one kind of has us stumped. We haven’t resorted to full-on CIO yet, because those nights when we’ve steeled our resolve to endure it, she goes to sleep no problem and stays there all night long. Fortunately this is really the only area where we’re having an issue right now though, so I think that’s pretty good.
• She gave up taking a second nap at daycare months ago, so is usually pretty exhausted by the time we get home each day. We try to prevent her from taking a nap in the evening, though, because when she does is usually when we have trouble getting her to go down at a good bedtime. With no evening nap she’s usually in bed by 7:30-8, sometimes even 6-7 if she’s super tired (like falling asleep in her highchair tired). With a later nap, or if she’s just unusually wound up for some reason, she can be up until 9 or later. Those nights tend to be the ones when she wants to fart around at bedtime instead of going to sleep. Wrong answer. I just worry sometimes that she doesn’t get enough sleep without that second nap, but I guess she’d fall asleep if she really needed it, right?
• Her hair is starting to get a little longer (very little, but some) and it’s cute how the ends curl around the back of her little head and neck. Her eyes are still a beautiful gray color, and I’m so happy she’s thus far escaped the poop brown shade of mine.
• She has one little freckle in her hairline just above her right temple, and so far this is the only marking I’ve seen on her. No birthmarks, or anything like that.
• She gives the best hugs I’ve ever known. This may be part of her clinging phase, but I’ll take it. When I pick her up and she buries her head in my neck and wraps her little arms around my shoulders to hold on tight, it’s just about the most wonderful feeling in the world.
• We took our first short family vacation when we did our WI brewery tour weekend at the beginning of June, then our first big family vacation when we went to Canada the first week of July. She did great on both, long car rides and all.

I think that about sums things up for this year 1 recap. We got her this water table for her birthday, and I made some funfetti cupcakes for her to smash in her face tonight. I also made a giant photo album chronicling her first year, complete with room for 960 photos. There are 900 in it so far.

Thank you for making us a little family, D, and especially for showing me that maybe I am the mommy type after all. My eyes view life in an entirely different way now, thanks to you. We love you more than anything in this world.

I’ll put up some 1 year shots after today’s festivities.

 

D turns 11 months old tomorrow, so let’s see what’s new since last month, shall we?

Not a whole lot. 🙂

Stats

• We don’t go for official measurements again until August at her 1 year appointment, but since she’s been in so often recently for these damn ear infections I know she weighs about 19.5 lbs.
• Discovered she’s allergic to the Omnicef family of antibiotics. Sweet. That was fun.

Likes/Dislikes/Miscellany

• Feeds herself a lot more, which is encouraging. Daycare said they haven’t actually fed her for months, besides stuff that obviously needs a spoon, like yogurt. She much preferred to have me feed her at home, though, but has recently become more willing to pick stuff up herself to eat. She does like to grab for the spoon now too, which I know I need to let her do, but I rarely like to since whatever she grabs for ends up on the floor, her head, or me.
• To go along with the self-feeding, she’s started eating a wider variety of foods, too. Doesn’t favor just baby cereal anymore, which I think is awesome. Since we’ve already switched her to cow’s milk, I’ve started giving her whole milk yogurt too, instead of the specific baby yogurt (which i think is just whole milk yogurt, anyway). This is great, since I can stir a dropper-full of those nasty iron-fortified vitamins that she needs to take into the yogurt, and she’ll still eat it. Victory! (watch, now that i say that she’ll stop eating it. pray for us all) She doesn’t mind meat now either, probably because we just give her tiny bites of our regular stuff, not pureed and mashed up. Brats and sausage are ones of which she’s particularly fond. Blueberries are her new-found favorite, and those and Cheerios I think she would eat by the bushel-full if we let her.
• Loves to cruise around the house and does so with ease. She still does the hands and knees galloping that she transitioned to from the frog-legged scooting. Before this funny little maneuver she would scoot with one leg forward and one leg back, and when she finally got onto her hands and knees we were like oh nice, she’s gonna crawl! Nope, she’s still scooting. Leap-frogging, actually. She literally bounds along on her hands and knees, very much like a little pony galloping. Especially when she sees you and gets really excited – man, she moves! She’s already burned some holes in the knee of one of her pairs of pants. I thought only little boys did that.
• Now stands without assistance for a couple seconds quite frequently. She still needs something on which to pull herself up to standing (the coffee table, couch, dresser, toilet, your leg), but she can let go and just hang there by herself. Last weekend I had taken her to see some of our friends, and she was trying to get some Cheerios out of the cap to her bottle while standing there like nobody’s business. Like yeah, Mom, I’m standing here, no big deal, nothing to see. I haven’t gotten her to take a step while standing yet to begin the actual walking phase, though. She still plops back down to the ground to start moving. I have a feeling, however, that first step will occur any time now.
• Still loves playing with all her toys, and now especially likes her gumball machine. She knows how to open the door at the bottom to take a ball out, then drop it back in the top so it can go down the slide. Don’t worry, they’re not actual gumballs, they’re toy balls, not chokeable.
• She loves riding in the cart at the grocery store. She still is pretty tiny for it, so I make sure to strap her in each time, but she has the best time going up and down the aisles laughing and squealing.
• Loves to whip her daily sheet from daycare around when you pick her up like a flag, often hitting you in the face with a paper cut. I have learned to now fold it in quarters before handing it to her to avoid getting sliced. For whatever reason, carrying around pieces of paper is one of her favorite activities – her daycare sheet, grocery lists, receipts, etc.
• Still doesn’t appreciate being put onto her changing table for diaper changes, so I’ve found a tactic that makes her laugh – I reach into the basket of diapers that’s just behind and above her head, grab one of her shoes, and quickly put it on top of my head while making a ridiculous noise and smiley face. This turns tears into instant giggles. Why, who knows? She’s a baby, that’s why.
• Still loves all her lift-the-flap books, and will look up at you and smile as you’re reading to her. I love that.
• I thought she’d outgrown her jumperoo, but I put her in it the other day while doing a workout dvd, and she still goes nuts.
• Can still wear 9 month sized clothes for the most part, but is slowly moving to all 12 month stuff. The 9 month pants are getting pretty capri-ish on her, plus all the summer clothes I’ve bought are 12+ months anyway. Unfortunately the weather has been such shit up until now that she hasn’t even had a chance to break out these cute new outfits yet and has still been wearing her long sleeves and pants.
• Is in size 3 diapers. What, you didn’t want to know that one?
• Still has just 6 teeth, 4 top front ones and 2 bottom front ones. I kept thinking some new ones would break through these past couple weeks since she was so uncomfortable, but I think all of that was just from the ear infections and subsequent rash. Boo.
• Dropped her afternoon nap at daycare a while ago for some reason (not sure if i mentioned that last month or not). She’ll usually take about an hourish nap at some point mid-late morning, but refuses to nap in the afternoon. I guess there’s just too much fun stuff happening there that she doesn’t want to miss, because she almost always takes 2 naps when she’s home on the weekends. As a result, she’s often wiped out tired by the time we get home from daycare each day, but I try not to let her nap so she’ll go to bed earlier and usually sleep pretty well through the night. With no second nap she’ll go to bed as early as 6-7; with a second nap she might be up until 9 or sometimes later, depending on how wound up she is.

And for your viewing pleasure, recent photos of the wondrous and amazing Miss D.

 

 

 

 

 

D turned 10 months old on Wednesday – double digit months! She seriously gets funnier and crazier each day. I have a feeling we’re going to have one precocious little girl on our hands if these past couple months are any indication.

Not a whole lot has changed since the 9 month stats and she doesn’t have another doctor’s appointment for measurements until August, but I’ll do a rundown anyway.

Tricks:

• Her new thing in the past week or two is “crawling”. I say it in quotes because it’s still not your typical hand-knee, hand-knee crawling, but she’s at least now got the idea of getting on and staying fully on her hands and knees. Then she kind of hops/scoots herself forward. It’s hilarious. We thought her frog-legged scoot was crazy, but now the hopping forward while pulling along on her knees has taken its place. I’ll try to get a video of it to put on here so you can witness the cuteness first-hand.
• She pulls herself up to stand on anything with ease now. When she first learned this it was more of a tentative wooahh, what is happening here? Why are my legs straight underneath me instead of in a little pile? Now she just pops right up like nobody’s business. It’s funniest when she does this while on the couch so she’s standing against the back cushion, then she’ll start falling down and rolling all over the place then standing back up to do it all again – very goofy infant acrobatics.
• She also walks around holding onto furniture after pulling herself up quite freely now. Again, the first couple steps when she discovered this trick were pretty wobbly, like ohmygosh what are those feet things doing down there?? But now she’s all come on guys, you mean you wanted me to just stand there? Pssh, that’s baby stuff. I’m walking here!
• Still lots of clapping and “singing”. The best is when she breaks out into a chorus of high-pitched squeals as I’m trying to change her diaper first thing in the morning. Sorry, Daddy, I know you’re sleeping but I’ve got to wake up my vocal chords too!
• We have started hearing more new sounds fall out of her mouth lately, like she’s starting to try to put consonants together instead of the usual strings of na-na-na, da-da-da, ma-ma-ma, dis-dis, dat-dat, etc. She’ll throw some br sounds in every once in a while and kind of a ml sound. Yeah, I guess it’s a lot harder to explain in writing. I’ll try to start posting some audio clips too as she progresses.
• Still just the 6 teeth in there so far. We think some new ones may be sprouting soon though because she’s begun drooling a lot again and she’s constantly playing with her tongue. If it’s not curled up out the side of her mouth, it’s flapping in and out in a blather-blather-blather noise. (again, a hard sound to explain in writing, but i know you know what i mean. try it – flick your tongue and and out of your mouth making noise and it sounds a lot like blather-blather)

Likes:

• Pretty much all the same foods are still her main go-tos – Gerber baby cereal (usually either oatmeal or mixed grain), bananas, sweet potatoes, applesauce, baby yogurt, etc. We did switch her to eat solely off the daycare menu last week, so we no longer have to take food for her. That is very nice. And fortunately she gets a lot more variety there than I’ve had luck with getting her to try at home – they’ll have things like pancakes, toast, cereal, and fruit for breakfast; pastas, veggies, grilled cheese or turkey and cheese sandwiches, and fruit for lunch; goldfish crackers or Cheerios and fruit for a snack in the afternoon; and they always give her a sippy cup of water after each meal/snack. My goal is to get her eating all non-baby food at meals, but we’re not quite there yet. That’s why I keep giving her the Gerber cereal at home – I know it has good nutritional value in it and she’ll eat a lot of it to fill up. Especially when she gets picky with food, I worry that then she doesn’t eat enough.
• She switched to all whole milk as of last week as well, and daycare provides that each day for her too. Fortunately she enjoys the whole milk as much as she did breast milk, so that transition was nothing for her. Now if I could just get her to take the vitamins she needs since there is no iron in the moo juice. I can’t really blame her though – they’re a dropper full of nasty dark yellow liquid that smells like ass, so I can only imagine how it tastes. She’s taken them a couple times, but usually she gets one taste, scrunches up her whole face like I’m trying to feed her poison, and spits out whatever has managed to make it into her mouth. Not cool since that shit stains like you wouldn’t believe.
• Reading books (especially Karen Katz lift-the-flap ones) and playing with all of her toys. She’s not picky – she’ll play with anything and everything.
• Playing with and rearranging all the magnets on the fridge. She also loves to look at all the pictures on there.
• Looking at pictures of herself. I’m not kidding. This kid’s vain, too.
• Being outside – stroller rides, playing in the grass, sitting with Daddy on the porch just watching.
• Following you around the house and watching your every move. She gets especially mesmerized when you brush your teeth, which she likes to do with her finger toothbrush and baby toothpaste as well.
• Pulling on your hair, smacking your cheek, or exploring your face and mouth with her free hand while you give her a bottle. If anyone else tried to smack my face or dig out my molars and tongue with their bare hands I’d be more than slightly annoyed, but those sweet sweet baby hands can roam as they please.

Dislikes:

• In the foods category she isn’t a big fan of new textures. Pastas and pears have been ones she’s spit out on me a couple times. But she is getting better at eating meats – she likes brats. 🙂
• Diaper and clothes changing
• Still not liking getting strapped into the car seat, but fortunately she’s fine once in there (usually).
• Being put to bed if she’s not fully ready. Good luck trying to get her to go to sleep if you put her in her crib too soon.

And here are some recent pictures of our growing beauty.