Mood:
energeticTopic: Everyday
Mia is so full of new words lately! Just this weekend, she added flower, bubbles, and tree.
Adorable!
Posted by Jamie
at 11:02 AM EDT
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energeticMia is so full of new words lately! Just this weekend, she added flower, bubbles, and tree.
Adorable!
chattyAmazingly, its been a year since the first time we attempted giving her a bottle, and now I am weaning. Its a very bittersweet feeling, this weaning thing. On the one hand, I'm hoping that my body will release like, maybe 20 pounds of fat stores once it realizes that I am no longer feeding another person. On the other hand, I'm nostalgic for all those times when she would snuggle next to me at night, nurse, then drop right off into dreamland still attached.
I'm not so nostalgic for those days when she'd nurse for 2+ hours at a time and wake whenever I tried to detach her though. I've learned my lesson for the next time around not to encourage that!
Fortunately she is a very snuggly little girl, who has shown quite a partiality for her Mommy (despite calling me Dada rather than Mama several times this week). I still get my snuggles with her at night- they're just not nursing snuggles. Her nightime routine right now consists of:
Its been a good 2 months since we've had any sleepy time problems, despite the fact that she has cut her two top teeth almost simultaneously in the past week.
My baby, she's so wonderful.
incredulousA whole year since this. Can you believe it?
We just had Mia's official 1st birthday party this weekend. The weather was wild- one second the sun was shining beautifically, the next, the clouds were rolling by, bringing scattered showers and the wind was whipping the tablecloths off of the borrowed Shriners Hospital tables. Everyone had a blast though, and all the kids were happy- between the water table, various balls and sports equipment, and the rented bounce house, there was plenty to keep everyone busy!
We got big pizzas from Manny's in Holyoke, had chips and dip, a humungous sheet cake, and of course, sangria and beer for the grown folks. Believe it or not, there is not a morsel of cake or pizza left.
Here she and I are bouncing in the bounce house:
She's not all that sure about it:
All the kids loved the water table:
and with her beautiful big cousin Tai Tai
Ah... It was so much fun! But I think I'll try for something much more low-key next year :)
Here's a list of all the new stuff she's doing lately:
As far as her favorite toys and activities, she is really loving the following things right now:
This year has been such a rollercoaster for both Walter and I. I'd say overall, its been about 75% easy, 25% hard, but if you had to look back at just the last two months, I think its more like 95% easy, 5% hard. Eating, sleeping, and overall behavior has been very easy lately. The few moments of difficulty are easily forgotten.
I find it strange to think of myself as a mom of a 1 year old, or for that matter, the stepmom of a 15 year old. There are many moments when I forget what my life was like without her, although those brief moments of nostalgia for freedom do creep in every now and then. I solve that by hitting the gym after work and by taking a salsa class every now and then.
I wanted to say some eloquent stuff about how much being a mom means to me, and how much I have grown as a person in the past year, but I find myself completely "unable," as my friend Kara likes to say. My life is just simply wonderful.
chattyI can't believe that my little girl is almost 1. In two days. Unbelievable! I'll write more on that in my next post...
3 weeks have gone by and a whole bunch has happened. We've been playing a lot outside because of the supernice weather. She went in her first pool, ate her first (few!) bites of sand, had her first tubby experience with a friend, ate her first ice cream cone (well, took a few bites), had her first hot dog, and met her new cousin Monica for the first time. She also had her first major accident... caused by yours truly.
Here's a list of all the stuff she can now do:
The cuteness is never ending!
On a more serious note, I did a crazy boo-boo this past weekend. I was carrying Mia on my left side high up and reaching for something with my right hand (don't even remember what- its a total blur!), when she wiggled in my arms and I dropped her! She landed face first from the four feet in the air and landed with her arms and legs outstretched. I guess at least she was extended to absorb more of the impact over a larger surface... anyways...
I panicked and screamed! I scooped her up right away in my arms, and hugged her. She was crying very oddly- gasping and completely inconsolable. I called Walter back from going to pick up DeShaun, and thank goodness I did, because he went into EMT mode and checked her all over. It took her about 30 minutes to calm down enough to stop crying, and then she fell asleep. I laid next to her fearfully feeling her ribs and arms and legs to make sure nothing was swelling up. She slept for about 30 minutes, and then woke up crying again. Walter and I were all set to go to the ER at that point, but she settled down quickly and we proceeded to have a fairly normal day after that.
Not a scratch on her, thank God. I, however, am permanently scarred by this experience. Its the stuff of nightmares! I will never get over the guilt of that moment...
But she's fine. I will be fine. And she turns 1 this Thursday!
Ironically, on Monday when I was still feeling sorry for myself, I learned that our next door neighbor's house caught fire Sunday night and we had no idea! They came banging on our door and everything, and we didn't hear them at all. Thankfully none of their 4 kids were hurt, but they've lost everything. No rental insurance either... so sad. Walter and I went through all of our clothes to find stuff that they could use... wish we had stuff for the kids too...
Life's tough, but then there's pink birthday cake to be eaten.
Here she is hanging with her big brother:
and with her Daddy with the breeze in her hair:
Enjoying her birthday present from Chell and Rob!
Running around in her halter during that heat wave...
Looking at the water as if it might taste good:
and finally,
splattering her Mommy with vanilla pudding. Fun times :)
chillin'Amazing!
In the past week, Mia has gone from crawling, cruising, and rolling around to walking! And climbing stairs!
We went to go visit Grammy and Grampy this past weekend for an early Easter celebration, complete with an egg hunt and Easter basket yumminess. Everything went pretty well, although of course Mia decided to go on some freak nursing strike that only lasted those two days, but otherwise everything was fine. We came back Sunday afternoon, and she just decided to walk!
On Monday, Walter was sitting at the computer checking an email, and I was upstairs taking a shower. Mia deiced to come up the stairs and check on me while Walter wasn't looking- he heard her grunting with effort at HEAD LEVEL (the stairs are right next to the computer) and was completely shocked to see her 5 steps up.
We tried to install one gate so far, but of course its too tall to fit under the banister...
Time to do some serious baby-proofing!
rushedSo much has been going on.. its just been a crazy, crazy few weeks. Mia is making enormous developmental strides each day it seems, and its definitely affecting her sleep to some degree.
Here is a list of what's new with her:
1. Motor skills: She is now crawling! She went from crawling very erratically and clumsily, to crawling fast and with some skill this past week. She can also pull herself to stand now on almost anything, which is great and a big fat pain in the ass at the same time because she is now pulling up in her crib (more on that later). She is really adept at moving her larger toys (like her activity tables) along the floor to cruise to stuff that we have purposely blocked off or placed out of reach. She is getting so mischievious!
2. Eating and Drinking: I had a minor setback with my milk supply last week, so we had to add in an ounce of whole milk to her bottles. She didn't even know the difference, and had no reaction to it, so at least I know she's not lactose intolerant! She is really enjoying eating large chunks of food now too, which is very strange... instead of cutting up a strawberry, I place the whole dang thing on her tray. She picks it up in her little fist and bites off it as you and I would bite off an apple. Her fav foods right now are: mini meatballs from the Chef Boyardee meals, blueberries, cheese, raisin toast, goldfish, chicken, garlic bread, broccoli, carrots, strawberries, and yogurt puffs. She is a mighty good eater, thank goodness.
3. Talking: She now says legitimate words: Mama, Dada, Cat (which is really "kit"), and bitches. Yeah, you read that right. I have no idea how that came about, but she says it many times every day.
4. Sleep: She has recently gone from sleeping all night long with no crying, to waking at least once, sometimes twice, pulling up to stand and screaming her head off. Its like now that she can stand up, she suddenly wants to wake up to do that, just to piss us off. Of course, once she's standing, she either can't or won't sit herself back down again, so we have to go in and lie her down and pat her back so that she calms down enough to go back to sleep. If we leave the room before she is completely relaxed, she wakes up and pulls herself up again. Last week I was trying to take her in the bed with us after letting her CIO, and this week I just kept her in the crib but went in immediately once she started crying so that she couldn't get herself too worked up. That seems to be working much better.
5. Personality: She is exploding with personality... she does this cute thing with her nose- scrunches it up and giggles. She laughs constantly. She is very ticklish on her sides especially, and her armpits. She runs from us when we say "I'm gonna get you!" She smiles at everyone, and is always reaching out and trying to grab people's noses and glasses. She's also a bit rough when she's frustrated and just yesterday she ripped the glasses off my face. When I took them back she slapped my face about 5 times in a row real quick! She doesn't quick know how to react to my "No no no's" yet...
Overall, I'm so enjoying her every smile and laugh, and even those rough nights are just a blip to me now. I'm getting so much more easy going :)
celebratoryThis has been a marathon week for my lil honey. Just this past Wednesday, she decided she would start to walk by herself and crawl! Both in one day!
There's something in the water at Nana's house, I swear. She learns a lot of her tricks there, like sleeping on her belly, for instance. I couldn't really capture very much of her walking on video, because by the time I had let go of her, grabbed and aimed the camera, and started to record, she was sitting herself down again on the floor. I did catch, however, some of her crawling.
She is also:
Here she is having some vanilla ice cream"
Her first ponytail- a complete experiment that actually worked out well.
Playing her bells- one of her favorite toys.
Drinking from Daddy's Nalgene. She is an avid water drinker. She's so freaking cute!!!!
mischieviousThe past two weeks have been a blast! Mia is learning something new every day it seems. Here are her latest accomplishments:
1. Cruising all over the place! She takes quick little side steps and can hold onto all kinds of objects for balance- walls, pocketbooks, tables, her toys, cabinets, etc. She rarely falls over now unless she's tired, and can occupy herself for 30-40 minutes happily. Which makes ME happy, because I can then make dinner or do a little cleaning.
2. She has a tooth! Finally, a couple weeks ago her first tooth popped up. Since then, that same tooth has been embedded in my shoulder a few times. That lil sucker is sharp!
3. She waves goodbye and hello. Its sort of an arm flap, really,
4. She claps her hands now... especially when she sees her big brother doing it.
5. She once flipped from her belly to her back in the crib, but I haven't seen it since.
6. She says Dadada appropriately- both when she sees her Daddy, and also when DeShaun gets close to her. She has learned to say "Nanana" is the past couple days... and still, no Mama. Well, occasionally she'll say Mama, but its very inconsistent.
7. She LOVES to play peekaboo- with her blanket, her clothes, and with her daddy's leg!
Also of note these past two weeks.. DeShaun turned 15! Its completely scary how old and tall and mature he is- and how much of a little boy he is at other times.
FYI- that's a blueberry cream cheese pound cake. Walter's favorite, and DeShaun just felt like having it too.
Strangely, Mia is now fitting into the 12-18 month clothes. I can't believe how big she is getting!
Conversely, I am slowly (very slowly, damn it) getting smaller. I have 12 pounds to go to my prepregnancy weight, but in actuality, its more because my body composition is very different. I have way more fat on me now and will have to do loads of cardio to get it off. I was thinking about joining an amateur salsa dancing team, so perhaps that will help.
Off to hurry through some chores while Mia sleeps!
chattyThis past week has been a complete roller coaster. I mentioned last week that we'd be starting the Ferber technique with Mia. Well, click this link if you are interested in more details, but basically its a method of encouraging your baby to self-soothe when napping or going to bed at night. We had been nursing her to sleep at night and then moving her into her crib, but she had started to wake up shortly after being moved or several times at night wanting to know how she got from the bed next to Mommy to her crib. She was waking more and more often and getting more and more difficult to get back to sleep again.
So, last Wednesday we decided to start. Each day had a routine that went something like this:
Of course, each day she cried when we left her alone in her crib, but it has gotten progressively better with each day. We went in to pat her briefly at increasing time intervals (5 min, then 7 min, then 10 min, etc.) Here are the approximate crying times (for my benefit, really, when in a couple years I'm trying to do this for baby#2)
Day 1- 20 minutes crying, 1 wakeup with 45 minutes crying
Day 2- 12 minutes crying, 1 wakeup with 8 minutes crying
Day 3- 25 minutes crying, no wakeups
Day 4- 2 minutes crying, 1 wakeup with about 50 minutes crying
Day 5- 30 minutes crying, no wakeups
Day 6- 5 minutes crying, 1 wakeup- fed her as it was almost 5 a.m.
Day 7 (Last night)- 1 minute crying, 1 wakeup with about 45 minutes crying until finally I fed her, at which point I also discovered that she now has a nasty cold.
I'm telling you, I can't win. So now that she has a cold, will she forget how to sleep by herself? Will I have to start all over? God help me.
On a happy note, I did have a really great weekend. I left Mia with Walter on Saturday and went into Boston to see Dirty Dancing, The Musical (fabulous), with my best friend Jaime (thanks J!). Sunday, my parents came over to watch Mia while Walter and I did some work in the basement. We got so much done, and I felt so much better now that I can actually see surfaces down there!
This weekend Walter works both days, so there won't be much romantic V day stuff going on, but DeShaun turns 15 on Friday, which is cool and scary at the same time!
Well, I'm off to wipe a messy nose :)
don't askSorry, for the delay. My computer was infected by a bunch of nasty viruses and now that I have them cleaned off of it, my sound card and photoshop program both seem to be out of whack. So now I can no longer edit my photos, buy music off Itunes, or watch Mia's super cute videos. Its so irritating. I basically have to reinstall XP and I've been waiting to have a few free hours to do that.
Speaking of viruses...the past two weeks have been two of the toughest for us yet because Mia developed a nasty virus right after visiting the pediatrician's office last Tuesday for her 9 month check-up. She had a high fever from 100-104 degrees off and on for 5 days, and on the 6th day (Saturday) she broke out in a rash. We visited the pediatrician's office every single day this week, including Saturday and Sunday, for shots of antibiotics and blood tests looking at her white blood cell count. Basically, because of the virus, she became neutropenic and the shots of antibiotics were to prevent her from catching any secondary bacterial infection. Unfortunately, the antibiotics caused severe diarrhea which is just now clearing up, with resultant diaper rash. On top of that, the poor girl has a yeast infection in the folds of her thighs and thrush in her mouth.
C'est la vie, I suppose.
Now that she is better, we are embarking on a serious Ferberization. We start Wednesday, because Walter works today, and frankly, I am not strong enough to do this on my own.
She needs to get back to sleeping on her own, in her own space, and its time to stop nursing at night.
She is 9 months old on Saturday!!!!
Walter's birthday was Monday the 26th and it was so nice for Mia to sit on her Daddy's lap and help him blow out the candles.
She was very wild- screaming, screeching, grinning, raspberrying, etc the whole time...
Watch out for dangerous vampire babies!
She's so close to crawling! But she's still so frustrated to be stuck on her belly...
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