10 months

Wow! A little girl can reach a lot of new accomplishments in just a month.

Nora is now waving! And she even waves bye bye when I'm getting ready to tell some one good bye on the phone. - As in,  "hurry up mom, i've waited long enough for your undivided attention." She is also very proud to give high fives and is working on the art of the fist bump.

She said her first word " banana" - this of course in addition to mama and dada.  She let go a roar of a Banana when I was getting breakfast together and I gave Elijah a banana after first offering it to Nora.  It was if she was saying, "NO! Give it back! That banana is Mine!"  We've also heard the occasional "spoon"

Other words she can say "Bye bye" and "Uh-oh"  My favorite is when she purposely hurls objects to the floor, leans over and says - uh oh.  I knew my girl was going to be a talker.

She's becoming more able to communicate all around.  And is picking up on some baby signs we've been using - most regularly she'll sign "all done" when she's in her high chair.

She's still not a big eater and prefers to scavenge for her food under the table once she's signed "all done"

She got her 3rd tooth this month.  She's pretty steady in that once one makes it's way to the surface she starts on the next.  Teething has been no fun for this girl and she makes it well known to the world that she is not happy.  I recently bought a food mesh thing that we put an ice cube in for her to chew on.  It's been a life saver and great invention.  Along the same note, I now understand - fully- the term "cry baby." Though I am thrilled that the screaming phase is over and greatly prefer the crying to the screaming.  She gets really frustrated when she's tired and sometimes cries when her brother scares her.  We really can't blame the girl - she just wants to be known and protected from brother induced falls.

She's gained so much control of her body this month - She's on and off riding toys, in and out of our outside play car, and is standing up and cruising around furniture.  I saw a commercial recently that said something about your baby only being a baby for the first year- that's not true, right? I get at least a solid 18 months of baby-ness.

9 months

Mom, why am I holding this bag of cat food? Are we getting a cat?

We are absolutely not getting a cat.  I need no more mammals to take care of at the moment.

Nora has a second bottom tooth.


Finally she has mostly stopped the screaming! One very smart lady suggested baby signs and we've started using some.

She's also recently realized how great her dad is and enjoys daily daddy hang out time.

She is totally not into solid foods, which is way different from her big brother by this time.  She's holding steady around 18 lbs in the 50% for weight and somewhere in the 90% for height.

After some wavering she's back to 2 naps a day usually though sometimes she'll sneak in a 3rd around dinner time.

She'd lost interest in standing for awhile but now back to it thanks to a standing toy.

8 months

So, I'm a month behind in posting her 8 month accomplishments - but that's only because I got behind in taking her monthly photos.  So below are Nora's happenings when she turned 8 months.

She's crawling! fast! She began 1 week after turning 7 months.  So a full month earlier than Elijah.  We discovered her first tooth July 19th, the day before we moved.  She began pulling to standing days before turning 8 months.  She is a big drooler and puts everything in her mouth.  Elijah did neither.  She also has an affinity for electrical plugs....  She's still screaming and screeching and some days our ears ache from the pitches she hits.  Right now it's her mode of communication and we're still working with getting her to express herself in (ANY) other ways.

She crawls with one leg tucked under her and when she gets really scared she flies like lightening into our laps.  Once when she was in the bath tub I turned the faucet back on to add some warmer water.  she basically crawled up me while in the bath tub.  She moves fast even in water :)

She does not like baby food as she has a delicate palate- She's not really big on solids in general.  Now she gets what the family is eating either in bite sized bits or ground up in our food mill.  I still have some jars or bananas on hand in case we're eating, say, peanut butter honey bread... She loves yo baby yogurt, grahams crackers, and egg yolks.

 She's a big moma's girl. 


Eli & nora are becoming big pals.  They'll chase each other (eli crawling around too of course) and love to play in his room together.  This is good because it will eventually become their room in about another year or so.

7 months

Nora girl is oh so close to crawling as of reaching her big 7 month milestone.  She rocks back and forth and back and forth revving her engine.  I know when she finally starts moving she's going to fly!  She's already doing this sort of semi scoot to get where she wants.  And we can no longer leave her in one spot and return to find her there moments later.  Now we often wonder - "How did she get there?"

She's pretty regular with her self-imposed 9:30 bedtime and is still taking a good long afternoon nap with brother from 1-3 or 2-4.  She always seems to sleep longer and better if I nap with her which is an added bonus for me twice over.

She's eating some solids.  She's not to fond of much yet.  Except she will eat bananas and avocados.  I've tried a little bit of lots of jarred baby food with her like carrots, squash, etc since we're moving this month I've not been as on top of making her baby food like I was with Elijah.  But I'm hoping to return to that once we get settled.  We're pretty big on baby-led weaning and table foods anyway as opposed to billions of baby food jars.  Another thing that is different with her is that I am not to concerned with introducing x before y or only 1 new food every few days.  Eli never had a problem with any foods and food allergies don't really run in our family - we've been doing just fine with this new laid back approach.

We've got 2 new games - she loves playing peek a boo with her brother.  And, she is quite the vocalizer (still screetching and screaming to my chagrin) so to encourage her to lower her octave I will cover her mouth so that she makes a babbling sound.  She loves this and will root for my hand if I stop our game too soon.

We've had a fun couple months and attended two weddings; one with/ one without kids.  Childcare was a hassle to work out, but I must say attending a wedding without kids is way easier and will be my preference in the future!  We also spent a good part of this month vacationing with Rob's parents in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge and also packing up our lives and house in Knoxville, TN.  Poor girl,  I know we moved a lot when Eli was little, but I'd love to be giving her more attention than we've been able to lately.  The good news is she's always close to us.  Even though we may not be playing with her as much as I want to, she still stays quite attached to us as she pretty much spends her waking hours in the Ergo with either me or Rob toting her around.

This is a very late 7 month pic after we moved into the new house.  She's in her farmer overalls and pictured with the jams and preserves that my mom brought me and my 2 boxes of tomatoes that we canned later that day.

Eli at Two and a Half

This little boy is amazing.

All in all he had a stellar transition into our new home and surroundings.  We worked hard to talk often about the new house and Lexington.  When we first started talking about the new house, he thought we were saying "blue" house.  So we began talking about life in the "red" house and leaving the "yellow" house.

He did grab onto the concept of new eventually, however.  Now whenever he sees kids he doesn't know he'll look at me and say, "mom, new friends?"  He also has talks about "new big house" - our new church and "new baby book" - our new library.

We left some great friends of his in Knoxville.  The ones he talked most about seemed to be Ruyi, Jordona, Ellie, and Granny & Pop.

The evolution of my name over the past year or so has gone something like - Ma, Ma -ie, Ma- My, and currently I am MomMom.

He did not really talk much at all before this summer.  But now I hear, MomMom followed by whatever happens to be on his mind at the time all. day. long.  Friends said that's how it would go with a late talker.  Overnight changing from maybe a word here or there when prompted to 4-5 word sentences. He concentrates very hard and deliberately chooses each word as he forms it.  If we decipher his tonal language correctly - he smiles and gives an adorable half nod.

For awhile it's been a tradition that when we go grocery shopping Eli will get a free cookie and milk.  These are affectionately known to him as "Moo-Na" (drink with a cow on it) and "Dobie" I have no idea where the name dobie came from, but it refers to all cookies.

I've tried to be the type of mom that does not limit sugar.  Seriously, we don't have a lot of sugary snacks in our house anyway and I never wanted it to be an issue or fight.  So when people ask if he can have a cookie or candy or whatever, I always say yes and get Eli to say Thank you. But I've had to start monitoring sugar intake and he has become addicted  to chocolate milk since a recent visit from a certain Grand ma (you know who you are mom)  and I've had to start denying poor pathetic pleas at bedtime for  "ya-co-lat milt"

He plays great with sister and they are good buddies. Though when she first started learning to sit up Eli's cry of "baby down" sometimes wasn't entirely by accident....

Elijah loves, dinosaurs, diego & dora, Hops (rabbits) of all kinds.  Rides in the stroller.  ADORES stuffed animals and insists on sleeping with ALL of them (20ish) in his bed.  Sometimes I check on him and he is completely covered in stuffed animals.  He HAS to be ouside or "Outyide in the Yard" as much as possible.  Loves to "wing" in the "bu wing" or "geen wing" at his new house.  He's not big on coloring - but loves to read books.  He gets REALLY excited when he watches TV and shouts out the names of all the characters and jumps as they pop up in the opening credits.  This is especially fun when he's watching Sesame Street or Dora.

He calls his carseat the Black seat.While we drive he points out "ers" (cars) and "yucks" (trucks).  And tries to describe them by whatever his vocab will allow - mostly color or animal pictured.  My favorite combo was shouted with glee a few weeks ago, "nack yuck" a little debbie truck went wizzing by.

He knows his colors and shapes really well.  Can identify lots of letters and can count pretty well, though it goes something like 2, 3, 1.

He knows right feet from wrong feet most of the time and is very pleased to announce to me.  "Mommom- Mee shoes on wight feet".  Mee shoes being of course his Mickey Crocs.

He has now learned how to talk about his first emotion which is cool.  he'll ask, "Mom? Happy?"  yes, mom happy - I'll reply.  "Me, Happy!" he'll exclaim often.

He pretty much refuses to say his name or age .... to anyone.  If you ask his name you'll receive the answer, "ME!"

He's about to start preschool 2 days a week. Tues/Thurs from 9:30 -2.  He's very excited to "do stool day" - Go to school today.  Especially since he knows that Daddy goes to school everyday. And now asks me frequently, "mom, Daddy stool day?"

He still loves being loved on.  My boy will let me give him tons of kisses as he fake protests.  He loves to snuggle and be hugged.

I would say he has 3 favorite places - the library (story time), church (playing with kids in the nursery) and the play ground.  My guy can run, jump, belly swing ("MomMom, I'm flying yike Ming Ming"), slide, crawl back up the slide, scale the spiderweb rope thing, and climb up the toddler equivalent of monkey bars - which makes my heart race and my head light.

I'm going to give potty training a go next week since we are settled in our new "red" house and we'll see what comes of it.... I think he could have been ready long ago but I was lazy and feared regression with an upcoming new baby and impending move.  With that out of the way we're ready!

6 month update

The 6th month picture out on the deck!

 

 

Whoo hoo - this big girl is 6 months old already!  At her 6 month check up she registered 15 lbs7 oz and 26 inches long.  Little girl is tall!  Her weight is in the 50% (much smaller than big bro) but she is in the 95% for height.  Her 6 month blood test revealed a bit of an iron deficiency but that is no surprise 1. because I often have low iron and 2. Very little iron gets through in Breast milk.  So, we're going to pick her up a multi vitamin, but probably the introduction of table food alone is solving the problem.  She'll be checked again at 9months for anemia.

She is staying strong with her 3 naps a day.  One morning, one during Eli's nap time, and another inconvenient one as I'm trying to get dinner on the table.

On her list of accomplishments, as is evident by the above photo, Nora is sitting up!  And very well balanced at that.  She began sitting up the week that I worked at VBS a week before turning 6 months.  She smoked all the other babies in there with her mad sitting up skills.  She and Eli both really enjoyed VBS.  I think Elijah would definitely benefit from a mother's morning out program.  That is first on my list once we get to Lexington.

About a week after she turned 6 months we started offering solid foods.  Her firsts were banana and avocado.  I completely skipped the cereal this go around.  Nursing is still going strong.  We've tried giving her a bottle a couple times, but she most adamantly refuses - so I hear.  She'll take a few dramatic sips so as not to starve to death I'm sure.  And then, hold out until I get home.  She also completely ditched her pacifier around 4 months as well.  I really tried to get her to like it.  Especially offering it on car trips, but she rarely took it - preferring to scream instead.  I'm not sure how we're failing on this point.  I've heard of only a few other babies that have refused these things all together like my two seem to have.

She's still screeching.  We tried to curb it as much as possible and redirect her to lower octaves.  But, I can already tell, she's going to be a talker and a playground squealer.  She's begun clinging to us when we pick her up.  Wrapping her arms and legs tightly around our necks and waists.  I love this little monkey stage!  I now can wear her on my back in our Ergo.  I love this because I can function more normally and she, as always, enjoys being along for the ride. 

She's also learned that she can sometimes muster toys out of big bro's hands and also pull his pretty blond locks.  With her new sitting ability the world is opening up to her and she is playing better than ever.  Sometimes Eli gets a bit too rough with her and accidentally knocks her down.  After which, he'll run over to us pointing and yelling - "baby down!" "baby down!"  Unfortunately, sometimes her downfall is caused by brother as well.  Other times, I have to ask.  Needless to say, the word "push" has entered Elijah's vocabulary.

5 month update

5 months have flown by.

Little girl is an awesome player, as she gets more control over her body movements she is able to reach for and oogle toys more and more.

Along with this new stage, she seems to be taking shorter and shorter naps and waking more to nurse at night than before.  She is however, settled herself into a 3 nap a day schedule.  With her first nap just about an hour after she first wakes in the morning.  You're right little girl, Elmo is exhausting! 

She's now out of the bassinet and into the crib and she has broken her way out of the swaddle for good.  Oh my how I love swaddled baby's.  Poor Eli cried too much before we learned the power of the swaddle.  Thank you "5 S's" for saving our lives these past 5 months.

One new aspect of Nora's behavior is a bit troublesome - she screeches, shrieks, high pitch squeals.  However you put it - it hurts our ears...literally.  We haven't figured out yet if it's teething, separation anxiety, or just her.  We're trying our best to nip it in the bud for the sake of all our ears, including Eli's.  He'll walk over to her and say, " no, baby."