Allie is officially 9 months old today! My how time as flown. Awesome things she is doing:
-Crawling like a madwoman--she can even move on wood floors. All the daycare kids love to tell me about how Allie will no longer stay in "baby land" and instead keeps trying to crawl out to play with the big kids.
-Pulling up constantly--we got a leather ottoman to use as a coffee table during this time (it's a storage one so after that I'm sure we can use it for toys) to try to help minimize the bumps and bruises she gets and she loves gnawing on the corners of it and popping the stitches with her teeth. Obviously it's going to be in rough shape very quickly, but oh well. She will even slightly walk along the ottoman so I'm sure full fledged cruising won't be too far behind.
-Super smiley and will giggle if you make funny noises--previously she used to just laugh if you tickled her or swung her around or something like that, but now she loves if you make barking noises (Sandra Boynton's "Doggies" is a favorite book right now) or other silly mouth sounds. Love making her laugh.
-Still no real stranger anxiety--my cousin came over this week and Allie hadn't seen her for months and she still went willingly to her and didn't have a problem with it. She's somewhat reserved when she's around new people, but between reserved and a bawling mess, I'll take reserved.
-Really discover her voice over the holidays--likes to make farting sounds with her mouth and will shout occasionally. Makes all sorts of other noises, but nothing particularly close to words yet. There's a few dadada's every once in a while, but even my husband doesn't think she's said dada yet (and lord knows if it was close he would say she was!).
-Much better about sitting and looking at books when I read to her, she really seems to love the pictures. Am hoping that she will develop the same love of reading that my husband and I have.
-No longer uses the baby tub and loves the added space for more toys that the grown-up tub allows. Splashes and plays like a crazy woman in there (so much so that she bumped her head on the faucet early this week--time to get a faucet cover!!).
-Has the tiniest feet even though she's a big girl overall (she has her 9 month appt next Friday so we'll see if she's still at the top of the percentiles then but I imagine she will be)--still fitting into 0-6 month shoes! I'm wondering if her tiny feet will impede her ability to stand on her own? I guess we'll just have to see!
-Is finally eating purees! We worked a lot with table foods over the holidays and I guess it paid off, b/c now she'll eat puffs like a champ and will eat purees twice a day (before we could rarely get her to even open her mouth!). Such a relief to have her finally getting some calories from solid food (not that I'm expecting her to want/need less breastmilk at all--that will be her primary source of nutrition until she's one, but I'm happy that she's learning to eat other foods as well).
Friday, January 7, 2011
Monday, December 20, 2010
Feeling Very Thankful
So I know all those thankful posts are sooo Thanksgiving, but something about Christmas time makes me feel so incredibly grateful for everything I have. Had a great weekend with my husband's family and with all sorts of travel and holiday celebrations ahead, I'm feeling so very thankful that I have so much: a fabulous husband, an adorable baby, a loving family (even fantastic in-laws, who knew such a thing existed??), a great pair of pups, I could go on and on...
Find myself wanting to pinch...myself, I guess (feeling very Austin Power-ish there, sure there's a better way to say that) all the time--is this really my life? Seriously, it really is a wonderful life...
Find myself wanting to pinch...myself, I guess (feeling very Austin Power-ish there, sure there's a better way to say that) all the time--is this really my life? Seriously, it really is a wonderful life...
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Ladies & Gentlemen, We Have a Crawler!
After what seems like years (and actually was probably about a month), Allie has finally figured out how to crawl forward! She did it last night for the first time for us and I confirmed with our daycare provider that she just started doing it there yesterday as well (I think out of respect for the parents wanting to witness all of a child's "firsts", she sometimes doesn't bring up new things they are doing, lest the parents feel bad about missing it). Our daycare provider actually said that Allie was breaking out of the baby area to go hang out with the bigger kids, which makes me laugh. I don't think she's quite ready for that level of play, but she must think she is!
Much improvement on the eating front as well--we moved to more table food types of eats and Allie really seems to like that better. So phew--I might not have to breastfeed this kid her whole life.
In other, REALLY exciting news, Allie is finally sleeping through the night! We started trying to let her cry a bit when she woke in the night as we were pretty sure she was getting up to eat out of habit more than hunger. First night she woke a couple of times, didn't cry for more than 10 minutes (in fact, the second time I was actually going to go feed her and stopped to go the bathroom first--she was asleep by the time I was done!). Second night, more of the same. Third night was a bit rougher--she woke and cried for 25 minutes before putting herself to sleep, which was SO hard for me. My husband slept through it, that f-er. Seriously, who sleeps through almost a half hour of their child crying just down the hall?? The man I married, that's who. Anyway, it was pretty much the longest 25 minutes of my life. But since then, she's slept through the night without a peep!
An unexpected bonus to that is that not only is she sleeping better during the night, she's going down easier too. Before this, I was never sure what I would get when I nursed her and put her into her crib at night. I would always try to put her down slightly awake so she could learn to put herself to sleep, and most nights she would do so with no problem, but every once in a while she would get upset and cry a bunch. Which was so hard. But since we started doing the night waking sleep training, she's been going to bed like a dream.
Now I just need to figure out to get ME to sleep through the night--after 8+ months of not getting to sleep through the night (even more when you add in the uncomfortable last months of pregnancy--God knows I wasn't sleeping through the night then), I am still waking up half a dozen times a night, just to peek at Allie on our video monitor. It's getting better though--some day soon, every member of our family will get a full night's sleep!
Much improvement on the eating front as well--we moved to more table food types of eats and Allie really seems to like that better. So phew--I might not have to breastfeed this kid her whole life.
In other, REALLY exciting news, Allie is finally sleeping through the night! We started trying to let her cry a bit when she woke in the night as we were pretty sure she was getting up to eat out of habit more than hunger. First night she woke a couple of times, didn't cry for more than 10 minutes (in fact, the second time I was actually going to go feed her and stopped to go the bathroom first--she was asleep by the time I was done!). Second night, more of the same. Third night was a bit rougher--she woke and cried for 25 minutes before putting herself to sleep, which was SO hard for me. My husband slept through it, that f-er. Seriously, who sleeps through almost a half hour of their child crying just down the hall?? The man I married, that's who. Anyway, it was pretty much the longest 25 minutes of my life. But since then, she's slept through the night without a peep!
An unexpected bonus to that is that not only is she sleeping better during the night, she's going down easier too. Before this, I was never sure what I would get when I nursed her and put her into her crib at night. I would always try to put her down slightly awake so she could learn to put herself to sleep, and most nights she would do so with no problem, but every once in a while she would get upset and cry a bunch. Which was so hard. But since we started doing the night waking sleep training, she's been going to bed like a dream.
Now I just need to figure out to get ME to sleep through the night--after 8+ months of not getting to sleep through the night (even more when you add in the uncomfortable last months of pregnancy--God knows I wasn't sleeping through the night then), I am still waking up half a dozen times a night, just to peek at Allie on our video monitor. It's getting better though--some day soon, every member of our family will get a full night's sleep!
Monday, December 6, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
A Very Eventful Long Weekend
We had an incredible Thanksgiving--we hosted and had both my mother-in-law (who is fabulous, seriously) and my parents over for dinner. Food was great, as was the company. Allie even enjoyed some pumpkin to mark the occasion--no, not the pie, but just some canned 100% pumpkin (have you ever tried that stuff? it tastes just like a tin can--yum). Solids have been a struggle for her--we were really trying with her for a few weeks after she turned 7 months, both at home and daycare, but she got sick and we've taken some time off. Plus she hates it, so it's frustrating to do. But she really seemed to enjoy the pumpkin, so I'm thinking maybe she likes the thicker stuff, not the wimpy baby stage 1 foods we've been giving her. So I think we're going to try to beef up her remaining stage 1 stuff w/ cereal and start working on some stage 2 foods as well as some grown up foods like banana and avocado. I know, I've got big dreams but we've got to get this kid off the boob at some point. I am not going to be breastfeeding her at 8 like that YouTube video, thank you very much.
Besides the good eating, Allie also felt that Thanksgiving and all the attention was a good time to break out a couple of new moves. Both were awesome, but my fave was, if you asked her for a kiss, she would open her mouth a little bit and lean towards you to give you a kiss! It was so heart melting--she did it to me several times and once with my MIL.
The second thing was the debut of a new face--she kind of pulls her hands up under her chin, back of hands together and smooshes up her face into a pouty look. We call it the Grumpy Rapper, as it looks like she's doing one of those high up arm crosses popular amongst old school rappers. You know, like the guy on the left here:
It's pretty much the cutest thing ever and we were all crying with laughter over it. And on Saturday she went from her tummy to a seated position, which she hasn't done before.
She got another cold though (which makes 4 I think for the fall--it sucks) and hasn't done the kissing thing since and only randomly will pull the face. She's on the mend again now so hopefully we'll see the return of both soon!
Besides the good eating, Allie also felt that Thanksgiving and all the attention was a good time to break out a couple of new moves. Both were awesome, but my fave was, if you asked her for a kiss, she would open her mouth a little bit and lean towards you to give you a kiss! It was so heart melting--she did it to me several times and once with my MIL.
The second thing was the debut of a new face--she kind of pulls her hands up under her chin, back of hands together and smooshes up her face into a pouty look. We call it the Grumpy Rapper, as it looks like she's doing one of those high up arm crosses popular amongst old school rappers. You know, like the guy on the left here:
She got another cold though (which makes 4 I think for the fall--it sucks) and hasn't done the kissing thing since and only randomly will pull the face. She's on the mend again now so hopefully we'll see the return of both soon!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
'Tis the Season--Holiday Cards!
I can't believe it--it's the holiday season again! Seriously, where has the fall gone--how it possible that Thanksgiving is tomorrow?? And we all know that Thanksgiving signals the downhill slide into Christmas, whether we're ready or not.
Something I've been stressing about a lot this year is our annual holiday card. Each year that John and I have lived together, we've sent out progressively more humiliating cards of the dogs in some sort of holiday apparel. It's actually a lot of pressure--people always tell us how much they're looking forward to our card and that they can't wait to see what we're doing each year. Here's a sampling of some of the photos from past cards:
So there's pressure there regardless. But this year we added a new member to our family and I'm sure our friends and family are wondering (honestly, I'm sure they're not really sitting around thinking about our holiday card at all--I'm not that self-important. I have had a few people ask though, so it has crossed some people's minds) if the dogs will get ousted from the holiday card in order for Allison to shine, front and center. We of course wouldn't let that happen, so I started thinking months ago (I wish I was kidding) about how to incorporate all our "kids" onto the annual card.
Through some Googling, I found a few ideas that I thought would work but we recently got family pictures taken and they turned out awesome, so I wanted to include them as well...such a dilemma!! What to do, what to do....
Through some searching, I realized that thankfully photo card companies have wised up and realized that some of us need more options then just the simple, one photo card that we've utilized in year's past. I am in love with this option from Shutterfly:
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/starlight-ribbon-christmas-card-5x7-flat?sortType=1&fa=8&storeNode=93496&fe=1&fc=1
It's perfect--could put the dog/Allie pic as the big one and our family shots on top. Plus the colors are beautiful. However, it could look a bit strange since our family pictures are more, well, fancy I guess then our silly picture of the baby and dogs (yep, we've already got it taken, we're just waiting on the CD of images from our photographers). So maybe it would look weird?
No worries, there are other options then! Shutterfly also makes 5X7 folded cards, so we could put the big picture of the dogs and Allie front and center and put the family pictures, as well as a bit of a holiday update letter (we've yet to do one of those, but there's a first time for everything, especially with the big year we've had!!). Love the simplicity of this one...would really let the picture do the talking:
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/starlight-ribbon-christmas-card-5x7-flat?sortType=1&fa=8&storeNode=93496&fe=1&fc=1
Through some searching, I realized that thankfully photo card companies have wised up and realized that some of us need more options then just the simple, one photo card that we've utilized in year's past. I am in love with this option from Shutterfly:
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/starlight-ribbon-christmas-card-5x7-flat?sortType=1&fa=8&storeNode=93496&fe=1&fc=1
It's perfect--could put the dog/Allie pic as the big one and our family shots on top. Plus the colors are beautiful. However, it could look a bit strange since our family pictures are more, well, fancy I guess then our silly picture of the baby and dogs (yep, we've already got it taken, we're just waiting on the CD of images from our photographers). So maybe it would look weird?
No worries, there are other options then! Shutterfly also makes 5X7 folded cards, so we could put the big picture of the dogs and Allie front and center and put the family pictures, as well as a bit of a holiday update letter (we've yet to do one of those, but there's a first time for everything, especially with the big year we've had!!). Love the simplicity of this one...would really let the picture do the talking:
Still not sure which way we'll go...stay tuned for an update on that! Speaking of our family pictures, we're totally going to do the easy way out this year with photo gifts for all the family--I know it's a bit of a cop out, but we're totally playing the new parents card. For John's side, it will be photo books and calendars, all of Allie. For my side, a photo book of Allie, but the calendar will also feature my nephew, so my parents can enjoy both of their grandkids. I've never done a personalized calendar before, and am just loving all the features of them--check it out, you can put in everyone's birthdays and anniversaries (with pictures if you want!!)!! Too cool:
I know they'll be a big hit!
PS: Any other bloggers out there that are looking to send out holiday cards this year, check out Shutterfly's awesome promotion--50 free cards for bloggers!! You just can't beat that! Here's the link: http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/
PPS: In case, you haven't guessed, this post is a part of said promotion, but my opinions about Shutterfly's products are true, swear!
PPS: In case, you haven't guessed, this post is a part of said promotion, but my opinions about Shutterfly's products are true, swear!
Monday, November 1, 2010
Allie's First Halloween
Allie was a beautiful ballerina for her first Halloween--someone gave us this adorable onsie with a tutu attached so I thought it would make a perfect costume (plus where else would she wear such a thing? it's so cute but notso practical). She wore it on Friday to my office to show her off and to her daycare's Halloween party, then we put it on her on Sunday night so she could see all the trick-or-treaters coming by. I'm sure she had no clue what was going on, but it was fun for us!
While we're on the subject of trick or treating, I'm going to get a bit judgey--I just don't get people taking their babies trick or treating when the kids aren't even old enough to eat any of the candy. I understand wanting to show off your kid and I think the experience would be somewhat fun for a child as well, but you could do it and not take candy. Seriously, parents, buy your own damn candy. It's not that expensive--hell, you could even wait until today to buy some at deeply discounted prices. I think next year maybe we'll take Allie out around the neighborhood in her stroller or a wagon, but I'll be damned if I use her to troll for candy. That's actually one of my main reasons for writing this post--so if by next year I've changed my tune, I can go back and read this to get a reality check.
And now for some pictures of all that cuteness:
While we're on the subject of trick or treating, I'm going to get a bit judgey--I just don't get people taking their babies trick or treating when the kids aren't even old enough to eat any of the candy. I understand wanting to show off your kid and I think the experience would be somewhat fun for a child as well, but you could do it and not take candy. Seriously, parents, buy your own damn candy. It's not that expensive--hell, you could even wait until today to buy some at deeply discounted prices. I think next year maybe we'll take Allie out around the neighborhood in her stroller or a wagon, but I'll be damned if I use her to troll for candy. That's actually one of my main reasons for writing this post--so if by next year I've changed my tune, I can go back and read this to get a reality check.
And now for some pictures of all that cuteness:
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