Happy Birthday to my big 2 year old

I'm almost a month behind in writing this post... and as I start to write it, I went to look at my 21 month post and realized I never wrote that either.  I dream of having more time to chronicle Miss O's life, but honestly it hasn't been a huge priority for me recently.  As Miss O gets bigger, I continue to struggle (in good ways) to find space for me as mother, me as wife, me as employee, and me as child of God in the very few hours per day that we're all allotted.  Sometimes in the evening, I think through a blog post, but I can't bring my fingers to dance over the keys to actually write one.  But today, I'll take the time, since it's been more than 6 months since I told the world about how amazing my little (now BIG) girl is!

Miss O has learned to run.  She's so cute when she does.  She clenches her fists and pumps are arms back and forth and shouts "run run run!" while she does.  Occasionally she giggles and says "gonna get you!" instead.  She's so powerful.  We're also seeing more jumping and climbing than before.  And she can maneuver challenging situations better than she used to-- she's not so afraid to be "stuck" at the top of a step stool or alone while sitting in a big-person chair.  

In the last month or two, she's definitely outgrown her "baby" puzzles- the ones where each piece fits in it's own hole.  I'm struggling to figure out which toys would be best for her next to develop both brain power and fine motor skills.  We've started a little beading (but she needs a lot of support to sustain this task for more than a couple minutes) and we're also doing cutting (with a pair of scissors auntie Heather got us for our birthday).  Miss O also loves painting at school-- I want to be bold enough to get the normal paints out at home, but I picture a huge mess... so we're sticking with water colors for now, for which the mess is slightly more contained.  It's hard for O to coordinate water -> paints -> paper... she sometimes forgets to do the paint or wants to do ALL the paints but no water.  But she's happy while she does it and I don't care about the end product, just the imaginative spirit and the motor task of doing it. 

I wouldn't say that O has become a "picky" eater, but she definitely has her preferences... which are likely played into by my fatigue in coming up with new things.  She'd eat nothing but cheese and fruit if I let her.  On occasion she'll sneak some meats in via lunch meat or hunks of chicken if we have it in our dinner.  And if all else is failing for food, she's really happy with mac and cheese, spaghetti, or home made pizza, so as much as I don't love making grains a HUGE part of her diet, we do a fair amount of them at this point.  Vegetables are more challenging, because of flavor and texture both, I think.  But she loves a green smoothie, so I sneak spinach and kale in that way.  And she doesn't mind pureed pumpkin or squash or sweet potato mixed in with applesauce or tomato sauce or even a cheese sauce, as long as I'm careful with flavors and portions.  So I do that too.  And I figure as long as we're focused on "healthy" for now, then variety of veggies will come as I can reason with her more.

In february, I was pretty anxious about Miss O's language.  I was contemplating getting a hold of a doc earlier than her 2 year visit to try to schedule a meeting with a pediatric SLP who could help me figure out why her "language explosion" wasn't happening yet.  But around the time we went to Panama City Beach (mid-march), the explosion finally started... We started seeing two word combinations -- first basics like "more please" and "no want" and now onto more complex things like "kitty floor" and "booboo hurt."  After models, she'll string 3-4 words together like "mama, more please" or "my yogurt spoon," but these types of things are far more the exception than the rule.  I still feel like she's fluttering around on the low end of normal, but her receptive language is SO excellent and her social pragmatics are good, so I try not to get worried.  Expressive language will continue to come with time.  It's not uncommon for other moms at school to say "she's so little, I forget how old she is," but I don't think it's her size, I think it's her slower speech that makes her seem little to everyone.  There's a boy that is just one month older than her who talks WAY more, and even the teachers say to me, "but he's SO much older..." and he's really not.

The big, exciting news that really prompts me to finally write is that we're officially potty training!  O first expressed interest in the potty at 15 months.  But since I have been working essentially full time, it's been hard to commit to it.  We've gone through phases where we do treats or stickers for sitting on the potty, but I couldn't get anything consistent.  On the rare occasion that I'd begin a potty "boot camp" on a Saturday morning, I'd give up after the 4th or 5th accident in the afternoon.  But about 2 weeks ago now, O had a bowel movement on the potty 4 evenings in a row! So last weekend, I decided to get serious and O had an "unfurnished basement" weekend.  We only had 2 accidents the whole time, and both were while she was running to the potty.

This week, I've been doing unfurnished basement in the morning and evening and letting her do diapers at school (mostly because school doesn't seem to care whether I want to potty train her right now or not... ugh... the topic of a whole different post).  And we haven't had any accidents at all.  We're coming up on 3-day Memorial Day weekend, so I'm hoping to move from unfurnished basement to cloth undies and still be successful.  Then we'll switch to pull ups at school, undies at home... my goal is to never buy another diaper in my life!  We'll see if I'm being realistic or not... :-)

Okay, that's probably about it for now... I'll leave you with these two pics, taken on her actual 2nd birthday.  Not a bad smile, if I do say so myself.

Toddler O is 15 months old!

I can't believe how fast time is flying these days.  Miss O is officially 15 months old!  There's been so many changes since the 1 year mark.  Let me see what I can recall...

Gross motor wise, I never thought I'd have a kid who played on a playground like this.  Miss O is walking and even running occasionally.  She climbs the stairs at the playground and loves to go down the slide backwards.  We have to really encourage her to go down forwards, but that makes sense to me, since she's been going down backwards off the bed and down stairs for months now.  She imitates movements like bouncing and dancing too.  She's just figuring out that she can march in place.  Legs aren't just for transportation... she can use them to do cool stuff!

Fine motor is beginning to teach us things about baby proofing as well.  Miss O, of course, has been feeding herself for a while.  She holds her own straw cup and can even push the little button that raises/lowers the lid.  She LOVES to use a fork to spear and bring food to her mouth.  And her little picky fingers can find the ONE piece of dirt on the whole sidewalk.  No problems with this girl's vision either. :-)

We're essentially weaned from a bottle completely, using straw cup for water only.  Miss O still nurses in the morning before I go to work and over night, but she is using real adult food for her primary nutrition!  Her weight gain has been good and she's stablized out at the 25th%ile.  Looks like she has more "small" genes from mama than "tall" genes from daddy and mama's grandparents.  Her favorite foods are still the basics - cheese and yogurt.  No way this girl could go full time Paleo or vegan.  But she's actually tried some new stuff recently too... things that I'm really proud of like raw baby spinach and oven roasted brussel sprouts.  She doesn't eat those EVERY day, but it's certainly more often than not that she's happy as a clam eating whatever we're eating.  She also eats scrambled egg with spinach almost every morning. And much to her mama's liking, the new pediatrician we saw at 15 months said only the following about her iron intake, "She eats meat?  She's fine.  She goes like the energizer bunny."

Oh! And I almost forgot to talk about talking!  Way to go, SLP mama... :-)  Miss O is gradually building her vocabulary.  First word was "uh-oh" if you count it as a word.  Next came "ga" consistently used for CAT both pointing at our cat and at a kitty in a magazine.  Now she also says mama and dadda (though not consistently), hi & bye (though they often sound the same) and is beginning to imitate a few other words inconsistently.  In sign, she says "all done," "more," and "help" with cute little approximations.  She also waves bye and blows kisses.  We're trying to add a sign for "water" to the vocab, though since she's headed off to day care soon, I don't know how well it will carryover...

More on the pediatrician later.  It's been quite the ordeal between the 9, 12, and 15 month visits at Children's Hospital Boston. For now, the pics.  Someone reminded me a long time ago now not JUST to save the happy, smiling pictures.  Some day, I'll be thrilled that I remembered these adorably sad moments too...

Photoshoot with Kate McK.

Despite our "gazelle intensity" in attempting to get out of debt and our minimalist life, one thing I didn't want to pass up on was a One Year family photo shoot.  I'm blessed enough to be friends with this amazing woman, Kate mcKallagat.  She took our pregnancy photo shoot pics and was gracious enough to agree to take some pics of us and Miss O near her first birthday as well!  We returned to Lars Anderson, the site of our engagement and marriage.  It was fun to revisit places we've had other pics taken at different life phases...

Miss O turns ONE YEAR OLD!

Well, my baby is officially 1.  And while the term "toddler" often refers to a specific time period that is yet to officially start, this girl is toddling like you wouldn't believe.  After her first steps at 10.5 months, she didn't repeat the performance for weeks!  But between 11 and 12 months, she really learned to cruise!  As you can tell from the pics below, she can't and won't really sit still for the pictures any more.  I think we're going to start doing quarterly photos instead of monthly.  Along with walking, Miss O is progressing in all of her other milestones as well.  She's self-feeding nearly 100% of the time, which makes life a little more flexible for me.  We're also beginning the process of weaning, which will be the topic of a separate post, so I won't bother going through the details here.  

We're really looking forward to a whole week of activities for the birthday.  We're doing a photo shoot with Kate McKallagat.  We're also having a birthday party (with smash cake) up at Grammie and Grandpas house.  More photos to follow...

Olivia was 11 months old!

I at least wanted to get photos up, even though I am woefully delayed in keeping up with the blogging. The more mobile O gets, the less time I have for computer stuff. Go figure. :-)  

Anyway... at 11 months, Miss O had officially taken her first few steps!  What a smarty.  She did it while we were in Florida for Ben's work.  Ben and I were both there and happened to both look over at the right time... bam!  3 steps between a chair and a coffee table.  We of course are "convinced we saw the first steps."  But who knows.  Maybe she'd done it before when no one was looking?  Regardless, we were thrilled.  

Will have more to say with the 12 month/birthday post.  

Baby O was 10 months old!

Slightly less delayed... mama's been busy!

Miss O is doing so many more things now than she used to.  The biggest "thing" though, isn't an action, it's an INTERACTION!  O has always had a personality.  She has been a smiley, laughing baby throughout life.  But now we really watch her interact with us-- watch us, understand what we're saying, and react.  She loves to giggle and will repeat activities that make you laugh and then laugh along with you.  She also loves to cuddle and will curl up next to anyone on the couch or on the bed and push her head into yours and smile.

Motor wise, this girl is practically walking-- she holds onto your hands and then ZOOMS through the house on two feet, squealing the whole way.  She can move around the room, grabbing on to coffee tables and couches along the way.  And within the last few days, we've seen a few seconds at a time of independent standing.

Fine motor is also improving.  She definitely has a functional (if not yet perfect) pincer grasp.  She can pick up tiny items off the floor and put them in her mouth... a behavior we don't like.  And she can pick up tiny pieces of food and put them in her mouth... a behavior we DO like!  She's also gotten better at spoon feeding-- both tolerating us spoon feeding her and also attempting to spoon feed herself.  She's a total mess when she does it herself, but she's happy!

She eats just about anything you put in front of her.... cheese, scrambled eggs, chicken, pork, bacon, ground beef, yogurt, pureed fruits/veggies (from spoon or pouch), as well as hunks of fruits and veggies.  It's amazing!  If you really let her go, the food is actually GONE now a days, rather than just munched on, spit out, and pushed onto the floor.  But her all time favorite is little freeze dried yogurt drops.  They're like crack to her.  Once you feed her those, she won't eat anything else.  So they're served last. and only once a day. :-)

Enjoy the picks of my little darling.  She's amazing!

Baby O was 9 months old!

Delayed... but didn't want to miss out giving you guys these pics...

Merry Christmas, big girl!

Well friends, you may have noticed that I missed the 7 month post.  Never fear, I did take pictures, I just was so busy around the thanksgiving holiday that I never got around to typing up my little love note.  As I’m posting this 8 month post, I am also posting the pics from the 7 month marker, back dated.  So feel free to scan back there and take a look at Miss O with her turkey.

But here we are… Christmas Day 2012 and Miss O is a whopping EIGHT MONTHS OLD!  I can’t believe it.  I can’t believe I haven’t slept more than 4 hours consecutively in 8 months.  I can’t believe we’ve had this blessing in our lives for 8 months.  And I really can’t remember much of life before her.  Maybe that’s due to the blessing part, but I also think it might be due to the sleep part! J  I’m so excited that I waited until O was exactly 8 months old to write this, because we’ve seen amazing changes in her just over the last couple days!

O has really grown into her personality in the last week or so.  Now when she vocalizes, it’s not just to get attention or to play with her voice, she’s definitely trying to tell us something.  She calls out to someone (or something) when she wants your attention when you’re across the room.  She says “dadadadadadada” when she’s playing and she says “mamamamamama” when she’s sleepy or hungry.  When she’s exploring something new or trying to figure something out, she says “aba!”  The best part is when she can’t get her mouth and voice coordinated, so she starts to move her mouth for a “babababa” but the voice doesn’t start until the 3^rd or 4^th syllable.  She looks like a Japanese dubbed movie.  She also is SO excited when she sees other children, especially children that are older than her.  On Sunday she got to climb up in her Cousin, J’s lap (he’s 5 and in a wheel chair) and she just squealed and laughed and shouted at him.  She really loved it!

At around 7 months, the army crawl she was doing took on a cute personality with what we call her “peg leg.” She crawls with both forearms and the right leg, but the left leg stays sticking out straight.  Despite the 3 legged business, she’s super speedy.  Over the last week or so, she’s also trying to get up onto all 4s a little better.  She can take one or two “steps” that way, but then the belly flops back down onto the floor and she keeps going with the peg-leg army crawl.  But more exciting than that, we watched Miss O pull up to kneeling for the first time on the day that we took the 7 month pictures.  And now that we’ve hit the 8 month mark, she’s consistently pulling up on anything she can find and pulling all the way to standing!  She’s so proud of herself when she does that.

Eating continues to go well.  She’s a “baby bird” when someone tries to feed her purees, and usually eats everything she’s offered.  But I’m still not doing purees at home, really.  Grandma does them sometimes and day care does them at least once a day.  At home, we do all solid foods.  She’ll put almost any flavor in her mouth.  She LOVED the black beans with chili seasoning I gave her.  She also eats things like red and green peppers, hunks of egg or banana, and pieces of broccoli or asparagus.  Her favorite seems to be slices of cheese… a girl after my own heart.  But what I really love is that she doesn’t mind when we put exciting seasonings on things—onions and garlic with her beans, mustard on her veggies, yogurt dipped bananas.  She’s quite the adventurer when it comes to flavors.  We’ve also started offering both an open cup and a sippy cup at various meals, just for experience and play.  We always put water in these and she smiles and laughs when the cold stuff touches her tongue.

I guess the final note I’d say at this point, is that I completely understand why by 6 months of age, people want to “sleep train” their child.  I’m tired.  I’m tired of being woken in the middle of the night, I’m tired of crying when it’s time to try to go to sleep.   But Ben and I revisit our goals and desires with attachment parenting frequently, and we’re sticking with it.  Miss O still breast feeds 2-3 times every night and we’re still happily co-sleeping, despite our interrupted sleep schedule.  I am looking forward to the holiday craziness dying down, though, so that we can focus more on our own family’s routine at home rather than trying to cope through with different activities and schedules every day of the week.

Anyway… Merry Christmas and Hugs from Boston!  Blessings to you all in the New Year!!!

7 month old Turkey

half a year? Where did it go???

Today my sweet girl is 6 months old.  And other than the fact that she's been refusing to fall asleep (or stay asleep once she finally gets there) for the last 3 hours, I really couldn't be happier.

Communication wise, I feel like O found her voice just within the last couple days.  She grunts and growls when she's sleepy or hungry.  She squeals with delight when something is funny, she knows that if she cries, someone will come pick her up and she stops crying immediately after she's gotten us to perform this task.  And she blows raspberries at herself while playing on the floor with her toys.  She's awesome at looking when someone calls to her, no matter where the person is in the room.   But most exciting is the communicative intent of her movements.  The other day at day care, she was laying on her belly on the floor behind her teacher.  When she heard me come in the room, she peered around the teacher and just smiled.  When I said hello and started talking to her, she army crawled toward me SUPER fast!  Way to make a mama smile.

And yes, I did say army crawl.  This girl can really zoom!  No matter where you set her down in the room and how many toys you put in her reach, this girl will be holding a plastic trash bag, a power cable, or a piece of cat food faster than you can blink.  There's absolutely no leaving her alone for more than about 30 seconds unless she's in a completely baby-proofed area.  Thus, we've added a baby gate to the nursery doorway (which overlooks our kitchen).  Each morning that we're at home, she gets a little bit of alone time in the nursery with her toys with the gate closed.  I'm really hoping that by teaching her now that the nursery is a fun place to be, we can save ourselves some trouble down the line when we NEED her to be in a separate space.  Don't get me wrong-- we're talking 5-10 minutes max and it really only works at certain times.  She tells me when she's done being alone by fussing/crying or by coming to the gate and squealing at me.  Of course, right now it doesn't work at the times I need it too-- when I want to cook dinner or run down to the laundry room in the basement.  But it's a process and I'm happy with it thus far.

Oh!  And the exciting news is that she can sit up unassisted!!!  She did it for a few seconds at a time around a week or two ago.  But last weekend (with ALL FOUR GRANDPARENTS present) she sat on the table top for a good minute or longer.  Since then, she's been capable of several minutes at a time.  The issue is that a) she can't figure out how to get out of it and b) if she gets too spastic/crazy with the toy she's playing with, she falls over.  hehehe...

Miss O is regularly eating pureed foods at day care, but we're still sticking essentially with baby led weaning at home.  Be on the look out for a couple of book reviews in the coming weeks about baby led weaning resources...

Love from Boston!

5 months old

So I'm a little late in getting this post up.  Baby O was 5 months old on 9/25/12.  The pictures are from that day, but it took me a little while to actually get the post written.  Size wise, Baby O has slowed down with growth.  But that just means that her developmental growth is even more amazing to watch.  I worry every day (okay, maybe just once or twice a week) that I'm not soaking it in enough, not enjoying it enough... that I'll look back and barely remember and regret.  But I do what I can and I'll at least have these blog posts to remind me of the little details when I'm old and gray.

Communication wise, O is definitely in a period of soaking every little thing she sees and hears in.  She is IN LOVE with the cat.  When the cat comes into view, she gets very still and just stares.  When kitty moves or wiggles, it makes O laugh and smile.  She's easily distracted by noises in her environment, even if she can't figure out exactly where they're coming from.  The other day on the train track, you should have seen how wide her eyes got when she heard the squealing of the train!  She's definitely turning towards us when we talk to her-- she can tell when we're talking to her versus talking to each other.  She's got a good variety of vowels now-- "ah's, eee's" are common, "oohs" come out occasionally.  Every once in a while I hear a consonant - a /b/ or an /f/ or a /g/, but I know it's just sorta happenstance about where her articulators were when she vocalized.  She also blows raspberries at me once in a while, which I love.

Fine motor is so awesome.  I need to write another Montessori post about the toys that are best for her now.  She can pick a toy up (or her pacifier) and bring it straight to her mouth.  She also really has a good sense of "I see it and I want it" and can reach and grab for things with her open palm grasp.  She doesn't quite know how to release one item in order to make space in her hand for the next.  That brings us joy and laughter occasionally. :-)

Baby O has moved from "rolling only" to really moving around on the ground.  She rolls several times in one direction to get from place to place-- usually to get within reach of a toy she wants, but occasionally to try to get to Ben and me.  This leaves us aware that we REALLY need to continue to baby proof the home.  She's fallen/rolled off the bed several times in the past week.  Thank goodness, we'd gotten rid of our box spring and frame, so it's just the 10/11 inch mattress on the ground.  But she still can konk her head pretty hard if we're not paying attention.  We might be seeing the beginnings of army crawling, but I have a feeling next month I'll have more to say about that.

And in general, we're still sleeping well, eating well, and have been healthy other than the near constant runny nose that I blame on day care.  Oh!  Eating!  I've tried some pureed carrots this month.  She doesn't mind the flavor, but she really wants NOTHING to do with me spoon feeding her.  We've begun a little bit here and there of "baby led weaning" where we're just giving her whole real foods like a half of an apple.  But technically you're not supposed to do that until 6 months.  So it's just sparse and intermittent for now.  We'll get more serious about it next month I guess.  The hard thing is, I just don't see time in the day to focus on feeding!  When the heck am I gonna fit that into our routine?!?!?

Love from Boston!