11 Months for Little e

Another month closer to the big milestone bday.  You are becoming such a little person.  You have all sorts of opinions about what you like (stuffed animals, fruits, touching everything) and what you don't like (veggies, diaper changes, walking).  You sign the word "more" for everything...you use to let us know that you want something...food, toys, something you see.  Although you've started using push toys to "walk", you have little interest in actually walking.  You can cruise around furniture and use the extra "standing" height when needed, but crawling is your preferred mode of transportation.  If Daddy holds your hands and encourages you to "walk", you buckle at the knees and cry a most miserable wale.  It appears you are a pretty strong willed person.

You are now completely formula fed.  It seems to be a good thing for all of us.  You are consistently sleeping from 8pm to 7am with two solids naps (one in the morning and one in the afternoon).  You are pretty easy going though if we miss a nap.  Your patience it still appreciated for the times when we just can't meet your needs first.

As for food, your 5 little teeth help crunch through most things.  But you don't seem all that motivated by food.  You tend to be indifferent at meal times.  You definitely are picky about what you eat.  You are up for trying new foods but prefer the sweets.  And never seem to melt down due to food.

In addition to the baby sign more, there are other ones that are starting to appear.  The most recent is milk.  All the other signs (dog, milk, all done, fan and light) are more situational than your use of "more".  You can tell that the use of "more" is your first way to communicate your needs and wants.  Speaking of signing, we have started the third round of baby signing class.  It is the one time a week that you are around little people your size.  We sing and play with toys.  You like crawling all around the room (visiting different parts and people) and you like the singing.  You play well with others and seem to enjoy the company.

You share your affection and are good about giving kisses to those you love.  You seem to also include all animals among your most loved.  Whether they are stuffed, real or on TV, you squeal with delight when there's an animal around.  The stuffed kind seem most open to your affections.  When you receive an stuffed animal, you immediately reach around the neck and give the biggest squeeze and then with such excitement, you kiss their little faces.  You have favorites (horse, bunny and monkey) but all animals are accepted.

Your hair is just reaching into your eyes so I've started the search for a way to manage the bangs while your hair grows out.  Clips don't last long.  They are quickly pulled out and chewed on.  I've started to make a little pony tail that sits on the top of your head with the little plastic hair bands.  But in fits of frustration, those come out too.

Your eyes seem to be slowly reaching a hazel of some sort.  And your hair maintains a strawberry blond color.  You still seem like a robust size, although we won't know how much so until the one year visit.

Ellie's 4 Years Big

After months of asking if you were four, you have officially reached the day!  You are four and a big four at that.  You are wearing size 7 tops and size 6 bottoms.  You are almost 50lbs and a size 11 shoe.

You are all girl now.  There's no more round little toddler tummy.  On certain days, your lean, mean tummy looks six packish.  Your legs have "prickly" hair (in your words) all over.  You recently received a "hockey tooth" from a swing.  We cut your long, thick hair to shoulder length to overcome daily arguments about getting your hair brushed.  You love having your nails painted (each a different color). 

Parenting victories this year include de-pacifiering, fully potty trained, reducing the obsession with milk (only 2 cups at bedtime), you have been sleeping through the night for a month now (!) and introducing a sibling without going to the crazy house (came close though). Your food habits are no better than last year though.  You would much prefer dairy and breads to fruits and veggies and meats.

Speaking of a sibling.  You love Eva (and are soooo excited for her to play with you) and she ADORES you.  She wants to be near you and wants your acknowledgement all the time.  It was a hard transition though.  Who knows what begot what but we struggled with defiance (we thought 2 was bad...three was way harder) for months this year.  But with lots of good counsel and reading and trial and error, we seem to have found a good place for our family.  We all seem much happier and having so much more fun these days.

Your comprehension of the world continues to astound us.  We have to watch what we say and how we say things.  You can pick on the context of conversation and apply it to your own dialogue.  You continue to love figuring out how things work.  We spent much of August traveling around Michigan doing all sorts of things (zoo, festivals, air show, etc.)  But your favorite visit, by far, was to the Ford Rouge car factory.  You loved all the machines working to assemble the various parts of the F-150 truck.  You loved the conveyors running over head.  You asked really good questions about why things were they way they are.  You ran from one section to the next out of shear excitement and curiosity of what would come next.  We laughed with glee since it's something we love too.  We came home and introduced you to the "How it's made" TV show and you watched for hours as they show how each thing comes together.

You and your Daddy bonded in a way that was very sweet this year.  You two have always been close but with Eva's arrival and my nursing duty, I just wasn't available in the same way.  I do get jealous because most of the time your response is "I want Daddy to do it".  But I'm grateful that you have such a great male role model.  I hope you end up with someone as special and amazing as your Dad.

At school, you have found your stride at Community Daycare.  They love you and you love them.  They tell us how well you play with everyone.  Boys, girls, older kids, younger kids, everyone.  It doesn't surprise us.  You love people.  You love talking to anyone and everyone.  Our neighbor goes for a walk twice a day, you love watching for her and running to the door screaming "Hi, Alice!" sometimes (with or without all pieces of clothing).  I think your warmth endears you to adults...you are refreshingly loving to all.

Don't get me wrong, you are all preschooler too.  Not always the sweetest person.  You can be a big handful when you are hungry or tired.  You will not budge if you don't want to....for anyone or anything.  Daddy and I have become much smarter about when and how to pick our battles.  You can melt down with the best of them.  Daddy and I recorded you saying " I don't want to" for at least 5 minutes through screams and tears recently.  Yes, you are all child too.

My hopes for this upcoming year include, more bonding as a family unit (I want to get rid of Mommy/Eva and Daddy/Ellie divides), get us all to a place where we eat the same dinner (overcome the food controlling stuff), continue to build your relationship with Eva (siblings are some of our most important friends) and prepare you for beginner-garten next year (we've already decided that we're going to wait for kindergarten, deferring a year, since you're a bubble kid).

I love who you are becoming and am trying so hard to remember "the days might be long, but the years are so short".

All My Love, Mommy

10 Months and Counting for Eva Gail

It's been a busy month of vacationing.  We've been here there and everywhere in Michigan exploring all sorts of fun places.  Connecting and reconnecting as a family of four.  All the while, Eva continued her march to toddlerhood.  She's signing multiple words, got 2 more teeth (for a total of 4), started pulling up to standing, learned to clap, play games, follow simple commands and verbalize her sounds (ma, ba, da).  We don't have a dr's appt this month but from the look of it, she's leaning out. 

Sleep has graced our house after such a long time away.  Eva's down to one wakeup and will go all through the night if the conditions are just right.  So we are a much happier set of parents.

We also learned that she loves, loves, loves animals.  She squeals with absolute delight when she sees one close by.  Her favorite seems to be dogs (she'll excitedly sign dog if you watch closely).  If you give her a stuffed toy animal, she'll bury her face in it and will squeeze it nice and tight.  It's a sweet personality trait developing.

With all the time we've spent together, Eva and Braden have strengthened their bond.  Plus, I'm only nursing once a day so she's being fed equally by me and Braden.  She's still more likely to come to me but she's also starting to seek comfort and playtime with Daddy.
 
Ellie and Eva also created their first game.  They bounce on a bed taking turns flopping on pillows.  They both laugh and laugh and are really patient with each other.  Eva started clapping the first time they played the game.

Eva Got Gears

We love thinking of our children's little selves as growing machines.  It just makes sense to us.  In our minds eye, we see little gears being added to their complex system.  And no where does this seem more evident than the first year. 

More of Eva's gears came online this week.  We started the week with a visit to the pediatrician for her nine month check up (90 percentile across the board: 21lbs, 29 ins, head 18ins).  She's doing great in almost all the developmental areas except communication.  We've been so focused on baby signing that I've honestly have forgotten to do basics like bababa, mamama, dadada, etc.

What's so cool for us is how quickly their little sponge minds work.  After a few focused days, she's vocalizing the ba's.  And has also seemed to pick up more commands like sit down, where's fill in the blank, please give me, soooo big, not Eva's.  So it was probably all there but we just weren't asking her to show us.  I also think more baby signs are appearing like more, dog, light.  So it's nice to start seeing the inner workings of Eva's personality.

She also started clapping his week, playing games with us, and pulling herself up to standing.  She's starting to be more toddler like than baby.  I'd love to freeze and enjoy all of these new found abilities for awhile.  I know now once we cross into toddlerville tantrums and whining will be joining the party too.

We finished the week off with a visit to the cottage with Grandma and Papa.   It took a little while for her to warm up to the place and people.  Funny enough, she has an obsession with dogs.  So Hunter (their dog) made her most happy the first 24hrs.  But once she got thru the transition she had lots of fun playing with her grandparents and on the beach.  She's not keen to be in the water yet but loves to play along the water's edge.

So our busy week ends and our busy baby continues on her mission.

Birthday Weekends

Had a very special weekend of birthday celebrations!  Although if you were to ask Ellie, all birthdays the household celebrates are hers :)

Happy 9 Months!

What a great month.  Braden's been home the whole month and we've been teaming up to knock back some of parenting dramas.  Who knows exactly why, but Ellie's been back in her happy go lucky place.  Eva's reached an age and ability of being someone/some thing for Ellie to play with.  So although, Eva is often the butt of Ellie's humor, they will spend 15-30mins hanging together.  Sleep, although not awesome, is getting better on days.  (And the days that follow are the best!)

Rewinding a month, we hosted Uncle Cort, Aunt Amber and Cousin Sophia.  It was neat having the cousins together.  Sophia's about two months ahead so it's a sneak peek into the upcoming months.

About the same time Eva started crawling (maybe Sophia inspired her!).  It's not the "normal" crawl but it's mobility and she's perfecting it.

She also had her first fever this past month.  It reached 100 degrees and lasted over a night.  All we can figure is that it was related to her teething.  She teeths and teeths like crazy but we still have only one, lonely little bottom tooth.  

Her sense of self continues to grow.  She's become much more vocal about what she likes, dislikes, wants and doesn't want.  At our baby signing class, she gravitates to the same foam blocks every week and likes to chew on the same plastic instruction sheets during exploration time.  When she's had enough of Ellie or other babies get into her space, she calmly puts her hand up and pushes back.

She's also trying to communicate more.  Unfortunately the baby signs haven't taken hold.  So we're getting a lot of squeals and shouts.  She's been doing more and more of call and respond type games.  When one of us bobs our heads up and down in the yes motion.  She'll repeat.  And it goes back and forth for awhile.

Dancing also seems to have taken hold.  She really likes jamming out in our arms while we dance around a room.

Lastly, we've moved up the bath chain from sink, to inflatable tub, to full on bath!  On occasion, her and Ellie take baths together :)  Super cute moments.

 

Let's go fly a kite

A standard pancake breakfast

Daddy's pancakes, Ellie's decorating

Another pair of loved shoes

We're doing some spring cleaning today and it's time to retire another pair of play shoes.  Ellie's long outgrown them.  It's a reminder to be more present for the girls...here today, gone tomorrow.

Ellie's life skill

She was cracking me up one day with her tongue rolling.

Whoa - 8 Months

Slow down...I personally dislike when we get close to the end of a year.  It just feels like the proceeding months went too fast and now we only have a little bit of time left.  Well that's where I'm at with Eva's first year.  I can't believe we only have 4 more months to go.

But after reviewing previous blogs, I'm also grateful to be where we are.  Eva's a whole little person.  She's engaging and sweet and loving (she gives me lots of kisses) and sleeping and taking a bottle and an all around person.  So I wouldn't trade being here for the newborn phase again.

Really the big stuff of the month happened the week leading up to the 8th month mark.  Babies are really amazing when it comes to skill acquisition.   We took a 5 hour flight to California and it was like some switch was flipped.  On the other side of the flight, Eva was now rolling from front to back and back to front.  She was actively trying to get people's attention to get a smile/reaction.  It made for a super fun trip since we were out and about a ton.

She also is starting her language development.  I can ask where Ellie or Daddy is and her face/eyes immediately dart for them.  Yesterday, we were looking at the ceiling fan in our room and I was making the sign for fan (pointing finger going in a circle).  I then asked her to show me the sign and she raised her hand and twisted her wrist.  Our first sign!

Teeth are coming!  The first one has broken thru and the one right next to it, isn't far behind.

With teeth comes food.  We have worked up to a range of foods.  She's eating mashed foods, feeding herself biscuits and cheerios.  And most fortunately, taking bottles. We've been giving one 8 oz bottle just before bed and that seems to be making a difference to how much sleep we've gotten from her.

We are 8 months!!!

Ellie-isms

We've been working super hard to get back on track with Ellie.  It feels that we lost a little magic when Eva joined the family.  Adding another person seemed to jumble up things and we were left with a little person that wasn't sleeping as well and was defiant about a lot.

With the help of her preschool teachers and a lot of one on one, we're back!  We still have an almost 4 year old that challenges boundaries but she's much happier, minds directions more and is sleeping better.

With this new found "grove", we've been enjoying many funny observations that come from her little mouth.

One day we had a duck pair tootling around our yard.  We were trying to describe how they were different.  The "boy duck" was the pretty one with the curly tail feather.  And the "girl duck" was colored so she would blend in with her surroundings to protect the eggs.

Later, Ellie saw the ducks again.  She said "Hey, there's the tricky one!".  We were puzzled...the tricky one?  Yes she insisted, "The one that likes to hide." :)

Another interesting thing Ellie is doing, is labeling things as beautiful and not beautiful.  It's normally categorized as something with lots of colors versus something that only has one color.  Recently, this came up in school when her group was asked to sort a pile of rocks and gemstones.  Most kids sorted by size or color but Ellie applied her "beautiful lens" to the activity.  She didn't even want to show the not beautiful ones (the rocks).

Ellie's also getting into words.  They have been practicing writing names all school year and she's been getting better and better at writing her letters. 

The other morning we passed by a schedule chart in the kitchen.  She looked at it and said "There's the Quiet Time sign".  I was astonished that she knew it said that.  I asked her how she knew that it said Quiet Time.  She looked at me like I was crazy and stated matter of frankly, "Because it says Qqquiet...Q-U-I-E-T."  Got it.

. . . so angelic

Mud bath anyone?

We did some trenching in the yard and the rain over the last couple days gave me the chance to backfill with minimal settling.  Ellie decided to help out. . . Nuff said

One of those things I want to remember. .

Little Ellie has been tucking her hand under her face when she sleeps - too cute.  They look so angelic when they sleep.

7 1/2 months

What a month-ish it's been...not our most elegant but blessed none the less.  

There were some ups but many frustrating downs.  Again, I believe sleep is behind much of our angst.  We, inclusive of all family members, just need to get more of it.  The good news is that we've been working hard on it, trying to work through each of the girls hangups and are making head way.  This week, we have had successful nights which has led to happier days.  So the plan is to keep the focus on and get more and more sleep.

Eva's quickly figured out rolling last month (like 2 or 3 days of practice).  It was something the pediatrician encouraged last visit.  He wasn't worried because she was sitting well but wanted to get the other motions going.  Although I must say that hanging out on her stomach is still not preferred.

Most recently, she's been working on going from a seated position to hands and knees.  She'll rock or reach on hands and knees and then go back to seated.  So I'm guessing that crawling is not far off.  I think once she has the muscle strength to carry her robust self, she'll be fully mobile.

We had a quick visit with the pediatrician this month for a vaccine.  While there, we did a quick weigh in.  She's growing at a pretty steady 1lb/month.  This month she was just over 19lbs.

In other great news...Eva's closed tear duct finally opened.  The week we were scheduled to meet with Dr's to consider a probing procedure to open the duct, all the eye goop we'd been living with cleared up.  Funny how life works like that...even for babies :)

 

Playing in the rain

Got to enjoy some splashing in the puddles with grandma today. . . is there anything better than puddles???

Port Huron

We had a great long weekend at the Weitzel cottage this weekend.  Highlights included watching an artist blow glass, the lighthouse boat and some time down town Lexington.  Ellie and daddy took the kayak down the river.  We even found time to pick "flowers " and make smores.  Dandelions never looked so pretty.

Gemini Love

Ellie's preschool hosted a Gemini Concert yesterday.  The group Gemini (twin brothers) started putting on concerts for kids when Braden and I were kids.  So they have been doing it for a longggg time. 

I've been wanting to take Ellie to see one of their performances so I was tickled when they were "coming to us". 

They lived up to everything I've heard!  They were excellent performers and everyone loved bopping along to their fun songs.  What a special treat to have seen them in such a small venue (ohhh how my life has changed ;) )