Tag: L month-by-month

Lana turned 4 on October 21, and she simply gets more twinkly and beautiful by the day. And since I’m almost a month late with this post (shocking, I know!), I’ll fill it with lots of pictures of our incredible middle born.

I just reread her 3-year-old post from last year, and it’s clear that her amazing aura hasn’t changed. But seriously, these kids need to stop growing so fast! I swear the height of things she can reach gets taller daily. Within just the past couple weeks she has become able to ring the back doorbell without me having to lift her up. Thankfully her answer to my question of “Where is my baby girl going?” is still the same as it was last year. “I’m right here!”

It’s funny, because lately she’s been saying, “I feel like I’m 3 today.” She just tickles me to death. Her creativity has only increased exponentially with age, with tinies still being her M.O. She is also drawn to all things Hello Kitty, My Little Pony, Frozen, and princesses and fairies. At any given moment her favorite color is pink, indigo (yes, indigo, not just purple), or turquoise.

She’s become extremely helpful with Morrison, as those two are my little pals all day while Della is at school. I’m honestly going to cry when Lana has to start school next year because I’m going to miss her so much! I’m trying to treasure these days with her home all the time and cherish every last second.

She skips through life with her top piggie and curls bouncing, and I could not love her more for it. She makes up and sings little songs; loves to say, “Mama, guess what?”; adores making collections of things in nature; takes cultivating her fairy garden very seriously; will choose playing just a little longer over doing whatever it is that I’ve asked every time; always needs more hugs and kisses good-bye from Della in the morning school line; is my willing partner whether we go for a run or do what she calls my “inside exercises;” comes out and snuggles up at my side after every nap; is up before Della to come join me in the kitchen almost every morning; has taken to writing me letters and drawing me pictures for our bedroom gallery just like Della; and still never lets Nigh-Night get too far from her side and her sucking thumb.

The overwhelming feeling of joy and love I feel when I simply think of this girl is indescribable. There is something about her that is tied so fiercely and permanently to my heart and soul that I can’t even explain it. The sparkle she brings to this world is heavenly, and I hope it shines as brightly as it possibly can forever.

Happy birthday, Lana Marie! We love you beyond words and to the moon, stars, and tip of my heart and back!

And just for grins, here’s Della’s 4-year-old post to see how these two spectacular little ladies compare and contrast.

 

Lana Marie just turned 3!

Our beautiful second born turned 3 years old on Wednesday, and I can’t believe how much it seems like she’s grown up in just these past couple weeks. Her sentences are clearer, she pronounces sounds so much better (especially “L”), and she’s getting so tall! I’ll catch myself looking at her and thinking, “Where in the world has my baby girl gone??” Fortunately, her answer to that question is always, “I’m right here! I’ll always be your big baby girl.”

She’s smart, she’s sassy, she’s pretty independent, and she’s wickedly creative. For as often as she makes me yell, I can’t even begin to put into words how much I love this girl and how full my heart and soul are because of her.

I’m secretly thrilled that I get to have her at home with me for another whole year after this one before she has to head off to K4. Spending my days with her and now Morrison, too, makes me so happy.

We love you so much, Lana Marie! Thank you for being the sprite-liest part of our family!!

This is pretty incredible – check out this shot of Della at her 3rd birthday party compared to the one of Lana from her party last weekend. Ryan actually did a double-take, thinking the one of Della was Lana! I’m apparently very creative with their hairstyles at this age. And if you’re interested, here is Della’s 3 year old post. I’m sure it’s chock-full of stats and how her development was at that point, whereas Lana can’t be described by numbers and measurements. This one is off with the fairies!

And a bonus comparison today! Lana loves her birthday parties, as evidenced by the same pose at her 1 year party.

 

 

Lana turned 2 last Tuesday, and of course I’m late getting this post up. But there’s no way I could let a celebration of this amazing little creature go unmentioned.

I’m sure Della’s 2-year post was filled with measurements and words she was saying and activities she was doing, but Lana just can’t be described like that. Yes, I do have the stats from her 2-year checkup, but everything else about this kid is just felt.

She’s my little buddy when Della’s at school in the mornings, and I don’t think I could have picked a funnier partner. Her catch phrase of “Help me, Mama?” rings through the house when she’s trying to get her Lego towers apart or get a shoe on or get her beloved Strawberry Shortcake pieces back in their bag or zip a jacket or you name it.

She is the craziest little kid I’ve ever known. Last week the girls rented The Princess and the Frog from the library (my new favorite Disney movie, by the way), and Lana totally dug the music with its bayou flair. She was bopping around playing her air guitar throughout the whole movie, and at one point I looked over to find her standing on her head in a tripod position, bouncing her knees up and down to the music. Literally dancing on her head.

She gallops and hops around the house like a wild child, and one of her newest moves is putting on her jellies and instantly getting happy feet. Her little feet start flying around so fast she’s a blur. She also does what I call interpretive dance. She slowly spins while waving her arms around her head. You just can’t help but watch and laugh.

She has the sweetest little heart, and is always giving hugs and kisses and is very quick with a “Sorry!” when needed. Usually. Her independent play is wonderful, and she loves to narrate as she goes. She’s constantly either chatting away or singing some version of something while she plays, and she loves to work away in their play kitchen, brewing up countless concoctions that she always brings to you for tasting.

Her little snaggle teeth give her the most adorable lisp, and her communication skills are pretty amazing. She talks in all phrases now, sometimes even throwing in what’s pretty close to a full sentence. I got a little princess scooter second-hand from one of our neighbors, and she loves gliding along on it, stretching out her hind leg in the cutest balance pose ever. And everywhere she goes she must run.

Now for the stats:

• Height: 35.75″ (93%)
• Weight:  27.6 lbs. (61%)
• Head:  48.7 cm (69%)

She wears size 2T clothes, about size 6-7 shoe, size 6 Seventh Generation diapers (size 5 in most other brands), and size 6 overnight diapers. Potty training is nonexistent right now, but I’m not going to push it until she actually shows some interest. She’s really good at singing her ABCs, she can count to 10, and we’re working on learning her colors and shapes.

What else can I say, besides this little girl is simply incredible. A shining personality would be an understatement for this one. My sweet baby girl is 2 years old! Happy birthday, Lana Marie! We love you SO very much!

 

 

 

Here I am again, later than ever for her biggest update post yet, because Lana is now closer to 13 months than to 12. But just a few weeks ago she turned ONE YEAR OLD!

I’m pretty sure I said it with Della, too, but it doesn’t so much seem hard to believe that she’s 1 now, but more surreal. Like I can’t really call or think of her as an infant anymore, since she’s cruising around the house with the rest of us. She reaches up on tables, chases after Della constantly, dives into the ball house to play all on her own, even enjoys playing outside in the giant leaf piles already.

We had her 12 month checkup last Wednesday, and unfortunately it turned into a sick visit as she had her most relentless cold to date. Thankfully we started amoxicillin that night and she was 100 times better in about 2 days. But either way, here are her official 12 month stats:

• Height: 30.5″ (90%)
• Weight: 19 lbs. 15 oz. (50%)
• Head: don’t know the measurement, but it was 75%

Her walking gets better by the day, and we almost never see her crawl anymore. I know she started doing that last month, but now it really is her main mode of transportation. She’s even started trying to run, and we saw her jump a few weeks ago, too. That was about the funniest thing ever. She only got around a centimeter off the ground, but it was definitely a full-on two-footed jump. In her tiny Badger slippers, to boot.

She still eats basically everything herself. I don’t think she’s met a food yet that she doesn’t like, but I have noticed that pasta in tomato-based sauces are not her favorite. She has begun taking a little lunchbox to work just like Della instead of 2 little cups since she needs more food to fill up. Such a big girl.

I think she’s about done with daytime bottles, too. She’ll still drink a pretty good amount when she wakes up in the morning, but before/after naps and even at bedtime she drinks hardly any now. She loves drinking out of cups, though, so I think I may try giving her milk in them at meals again. I tried to do this a month or so ago, whenever she first started drinking water from a cup, but she just made a mess with the milk. Maybe she’s progressed enough by now, though, to actually drink it.

There was 1 big step this month – we FINALLY moved her crib out of our bedroom and into Della’s, the weekend after her birthday. So it’s now “the girls'” bedroom. Once she started sleeping through the night this summer I didn’t bother, because she was then such a good sleeper. Plus I remembered what a pain it was to fully disassemble the crib to move it between rooms, after having done it when I was pregnant to get it into our room in the first place. But I finally bit the bullet and did the manual labor, and it was a pretty smooth transition. The first couple nights she let out a few cries at bedtime, I’m sure just getting used to her new surroundings, but now there are no problems. I had to start staggering them for afternoon naps, though, letting Lana get fully asleep before having Della go to bed, or vice versa if Lana took a morning nap and isn’t sleepy by the time Della is. And occasionally Della just sleeps in our bed if Lana is messing around too much in her crib and taking too long to get to sleep and I need them both to go down somewhere.

Speaking of naps, I can’t decide if she’s going to stop taking a morning nap all together or not. When she does take one I try to push it earlier now, say closer to 9 or before if at all possible, so she’s plenty tired when it’s time for her afternoon nap to match up with Della’s around 1-1:30. On days she doesn’t take a morning nap she’s usually ready to go down by 12:30 or so, which is ok, but then I just try to get Della down closer to 1 than 2 so they overlap for a longer period of time. I’m pretty sure Della was down to only 1 nap by the time she turned 1, but she was also at daycare full-time then, in a noisier/busier room all day. Most days when we’re home now I can still get L to take her morning nap. And if she does happen to fall asleep at work, I just have them wake her before 11.

She’s actually forming some recognizable words, which is great:

• hi
• bye-bye
• nigh-night
• bubbles
• purple
• map
• dada (either dada or della or both)
• mama
• no (of course)
• yeah
• pop
• clap-clap
• choo-choo
• knock knock
• boo (for peek-a-boo)
• yuck
• sock

She also loves to clap and roll her hands like when you play pat-a-cake, and she does the tickle me signal for when you put the cake in the oven. She’s becoming quite a good mimic. Yesterday she started rubbing her hands together and putting them on her tummy when she saw me putting on lotion after my shower. She will also comb her hair, and she’s a whiz with all the magnets on the fridge. Having Della to watch and imitate definitely helps in this category.

I think those are the main things for this month. She has now moved up to size 4 daytime diapers and size 5 overnights in Seventh Generation, and wears size 12 month or 18 month clothes. Her shoes are about a 2-3 now, too.

Lana Marie, I tell ya. This one is about as funny and lovable as they come!

And now the comparisons. Here is Della’s 12 month post; here is the picture with D on the left and L on the right.

And finally, here is the collage from Lana’s first full year. I have a hunch I probably will not continue this past 12 months, so enjoy it while you can!

 

 

 

 

Every month I vow to get these monthly posts for Lana up on time, and so far I continue to fail miserably. For example, Lana turned 11 months old last Saturday. Let’s see, that was only what, 10 days ago? Geez. At least I got it up before she got closer to 12 months than to 11 months, right?

We still haven’t had another well-check for official measurement stats, as that comes at 12 months. And I feel like there isn’t a whole ton of new stuff to report this month – she just keeps growing and getting funnier and funnier.

One huge thing that did happen this month, however, was walking!! She took her first actual continuous steps 1 day before her 11 month birthday, and I could not have been more excited. She had taken a couple half or single steps in the days leading up to that, but this was full-on walking partially across the room to me. Baby Frankenstein in full effect.

She’s been great at standing and balancing on her own for a while now, so instead of putting her down on the floor in a sitting position I’ve begun putting her down more often in a standing position, and I think that was her cue to start taking off. That and the fact that Della and I were crouched across the room cheering her on. Della loves to coax her over to her now too, which is one of the cutest things ever. But as I sit here typing this, I am drawing a complete blank on in which room these first steps occurred. Can you even believe that?! Man, my memory is shot. I knew I should have gotten the video camera out! Ugh, terrible mothering. I seriously can’t believe I can’t remember this. What is wrong with me? I’m pretty sure it was the dining room, but for some reason the details are completely escaping me! At least we can get her to do it pretty much all over the place now. And I still remember the first time she rolled over. Does that count for anything?

Aside from walking, though, things are pretty much status quo. She still gets into everything, puts anything possible in her mouth, and is loud as can be. Her talking gets funnier every day too, with the variety of sounds that come out of her mouth. I called her first word “hi”, complete with waving. She now waves and says “buh-bye” too, which is great.

I’ve been trying to teach her a little baby sign language, too – so far she can do “more”, “all done”, “milk”, and we’re working on “eat” and “please”. She’s been really good at “milk”, “more”, and “all done”. I just taught her “milk” last week, and she caught onto that one really quickly.

She feeds herself basically everything now, and her range of foods is really good – bananas, oranges, apples with no skin, sweet potatoes cut up, peaches, pears, grapes (quartered), blueberries, cheese, chicken nuggets, any steamed/mixed vegetables, beans, Cheerios, any other dry cereals, pancakes, waffles, Goldfish, Teddy Grahams, all snack crackers, eggs, and then of course anything that still needs to be fed to her like applesauce, cottage cheese, yogurt, etc. I’m such a non-lover of having to spoon feed, though, that I usually take the easy route and give her all finger foods.

One big food-related event was switching over to whole milk already. I said that whenever we ran out of the last tub of formula we were on after she turned 11 months that was going to be her last one, and I stuck to it. I thawed the last 8 bags of breastmilk I had in the basement freezer as we started getting low on formula, so that helped supplement those last couple days, then we switched over to all whole milk last week after she turned 11 months. Hooray! She also drinks from a sippy cup very well. So far I’ve only given her water in it, but hopefully that will translate easily to milk when the time comes.

Here are the posterity stats again – size 12-18 months in clothes with a couple 9 month things left, size 3 daytime diapers, size 4 nighttime diapers, and around size 2 in shoes I think. Her favorite ones right now are little soft-soled ones, so I don’t think they really have a size besides “infant”.

Despite my lack of punctuality on getting this posted, I did actually take the time to do her 11 month collage the right way this time. Ta-da!

And then here are L and D in their side-by-side; Della on the left, Lana on the right. For those really curious as well, here is Della’s 11 month post for even more comparison. These 2 little beans are simply the greatest.

Lana turned 10 months old 2 weeks ago tomorrow. Gheesh, can you tell I’m way behind on my blogging this summer?

Let’s see what’s changed since last month’s update, shall we?

She crawls everywhere, and as fast as possible. The army crawl/belly flop has now been left completely in the past, and when she really gets moving she puts her head down and barrels forward like a little bulldog. She chases Della around the house like crazy (or Della crawls with her a lot too), or chases us down and tries to climb our pant legs when she doesn’t want to be put down on the floor.

She pulls herself up on everything and walks in between and around furniture like nobody’s business. Her standing alone ability is improving too, but so far those real first steps all by herself haven’t happened yet. But seeing how far she’s come in her standing since last month, I’m sure walking is somewhere in the near future.

She eats basically all of her meals by herself now. I love it! Feeding an infant baby food is not one of my favorite activities, so now that she can feed herself, it makes my job at meal times so much easier. We only have 4 cups of frozen pureed sweet potatoes left, then it’s goodbye baby food. Hooray! Fortunately she’s loved everything she’s eaten so far too – hard boiled eggs, cheese, toast, cereal, cantaloupe, black beans, peas, mixed veggies, crackers, pasta (loves mac and cheese!), blueberries and strawberries (halved or quartered, don’t worry), bananas… I’m sure I’ve forgotten something she’s had to this point, but you get the picture. She’s a great eater. She has begun drinking water from a sippy cup, too, which is nice for after meals.

Sleeping is still going wonderfully, thank heavens. She drinks her bottle before bed (we make an 8 oz. one and she usually drinks most of it), we give everyone goodnight kisses, then she goes down awake with her green monkey and nightlight on. Works like a charm. I really cannot stress enough how much this bedtime routine has saved our sanity. We were just talking about how terrible her sleeping was a few months ago the other day, and it truly has been a 180 degree change since then. I didn’t think in my wildest dreams I’d ever say this, but yay for formula! I think she’s officially down to 2 naps now, too – a mid-late morning one and an afternoon one when Della naps.

Her little “words” are still hysterical, with lots of “da-da” sounds. I can’t tell if she’s just jabbering or really trying to say “Dada” or “Della”. We shall see. She is also great at saying “Hi” and waving, so I’m calling that her official first word. She knows how to put things up to her ear and say hi too, like she’s talking on the telephone. It’s really good!

Like last month, she wears size 3 diapers in the daytime, 4 in overnights, and pretty much all size 12 month clothes. She has 8 teeth now, 4 on top and 4 on the bottom, and you can see the big white outlines of where her top incisors are going to come down too. It looks crazy. One of my sisters dubbed her “SpongeBob” with her 2 big front teeth coming in and her giant blue eyes, and I actually think it’s a pretty fitting moniker.

Sorry, I’m getting kind of lazy with these monthly collages, but they’re a pain to piece together. Maybe I’ll get ambitious and actually make next month’s the right way.

And of course the finale, the Della/Lana comparison photo, with Della’s 10 month stats post here if you’d like to compare that way as well.

 

 

 

Lana turned 9 months old on Sunday. Now she’s spent roughly the same amount of time outside as she did inside. Crazy.

somebody was very sleepy and much more interested in getting the 9 months sticker off her shirt than having her 9 months picture taken

We had her 9 month well check yesterday, so here are the official stats:

• Height:  28.5″ (75%)
• Weight:  16 lbs. 15.5 oz. (25%)
• Head:  44.5 cm (50-75%, i think)

The word this month is MOVEMENT! She started off doing her army crawl/belly flopping around the place awhile ago, but now she’s a full-on regular crawler. We spent the past couple days down at my mom’s house, and as soon as those little legs hit carpet, up on all fours she went. She loved crawling normally (and fast!) on all carpeted areas, but then she’d flop right back down onto her belly as soon as she hit another hard surface. So weird.

One big accomplishment she had was crawling up the steps at my mom’s house too. They have 2 steps from the living room into the kitchen, and she handled them like she’d been crawling since day 1. It was pretty impressive.

Now that we’re back home she does a combo of crawling and belly flopping, so I have a feeling she’ll stay on her knees for good pretty soon. She has started crawling out of the room chasing Della more often than flopping, so that’s a good sign.

She also started pulling herself up on everything last week. She had begun doing this in her crib the week before so we had to lower her mattress, but I hadn’t seen her do it on the furniture too until almost a week ago. Now she does it like it’s second nature. And she’s very confident in this new found skill. A little too confident sometimes, and I’m constantly afraid she’s going to fall and crack her chin on every single thing.

Let’s see, what else have we got going on now? She’s still sleeping beautifully, thank heavens (knock on wood!). I take her into her room after her nighttime bottle, hand her her big green monkey, and put her in her crib awake still. It’s great. I plugged a little nightlight in right next to her crib, and she’s doing great. Let’s hope this keeps up for good!

I think she’s transitioning from 3 naps a day down to 2, too. Often she’ll take a little later morning nap then a solid mid-afternoon one, so she doesn’t really need more sleep after dinner. Depending on circumstances she does still sneak 3 in some days. I’d say right now it’s about half and half 2 naps vs. 3. Fortunately, though, when she does take an evening nap, she usually wakes up and is pretty much ready to go back to sleep almost right away. I’ll just change her, get her pjs on, and get her bottle ready. This routine is infinitely better than what we had to endure a few months ago!

Eating. She’s a great little chow hound. She eats all solids for lunch and dinner, and yesterday the doctor said to start adding in some more food too. She had Cheerios for the first time yesterday as well, per the doctor’s ok, and she ate them with no problem at all. That’s good, because now I don’t have to worry about buying separate little puffs or anything for her. Cheerios for all.

Teeth. She has the front 2 bottom ones fairly well in, the front 2 top ones are coming down now, and just yesterday I saw the bottom left one right next to the front one coming through. And she grinds them, ugh. No wonder she constantly has to have something in her mouth.

Not a whole ton of “words” yet, but still lots of sounds. “Do” is her big one (sounds like “doh”, not “doo”), and I’ve noticed she says it a lot when I tell her no. Maybe that’s what she’s trying to say, because she hears “no” often. The little stinker is a magnet for everything she shouldn’t have – outlets, DVDs off the shelf, books under the coffee table…

And I keep saying she’s going to be an opera singer. She can scream at an octave that most people could never dream of hitting. It’s practically glass-shattering. And she usually doesn’t do it when she’s upset, rather just to make noise. Lucky us.

For those keeping track at home, these stats are roughly the same as last month – she wears size 3 diapers and size 4 overnights in Seventh Generation (size 2 daytime and size 3 overnights still fit pretty well in other brands), and almost all of the clothes she’s wearing now are 12 month size. I brought all of Della’s summer clothes down from the attic from her first summer, and those are essentially nothing but 12 month pieces. So that’s what Lana’s wearing for her first summer too.

I think that about covers the main things for this month. She is certainly still my little squiggle, and I love her to death.

Not only do I have a photo comparison of the girls this month, but 9 months is apparently when I had started blogging and updating on Della too. So you can read how they compare as well, right here.

i tried to pick a comparison photo with similar facial expressions 😉