Walking and several other firsts!

Well Emily has pretty much mastered her walking in about one week. When we went to Minnesota March 28-April 1 she was just starting to let go of things and stand on her own. Last weekend (April 13) she was just starting to take a few steps on her own, but never more than 3 or 4. And as of today, she can pretty much get across the room on her own! She doesn't want to sit and play with toys anymore, she just wants to walk all around the house. Time for more baby gates!

We had a very nice visit to see the Comer's in Minnesota a few weeks ago. Emily had another birthday party and with cake, presents and balloons! She made quite the mess with the cake and frosting! She loved all the fun presents she got, some really neat interactive toys, including a house, an airplane, and a vacuum! We also got to have a quick visit and lunch with Great Grandpa Paul, and Emily played the piano at his house.


Then Easter weekend we got to take Emily on her first bike ride. She really liked riding in the trailer and did a great job even though some parts got bumpy when we got off the trail and on the sidewalk to come home.

Last weekend she also had her first swimming lesson. Mommy got to go in with her while Daddy watched. Em wasn't scared, she did just fine. The class has a pretty big age range (up to 3 years) so she couldn't really follow the instructions that the teacher gave, but did ok when I held her on her front and back to float and helped her jump into the pool. She mostly wanted to play with the beach ball that the teacher was using. The hardest part was getting her and myself dressed in the locker room. But we've learned a lot from the first time and hopefully this weekend will be easier!

Last weekend we final ran out of formula. So she had been on mixed formula and whole milk since the first of April. When we introduced whole milk she didn't mind at all. Now she has been on all milk for about a week. She had a really bright red diaper rash earlier this week for about 3 days, but it seems to have cleared up now, not sure if it was related or not. She has also been using a sippy cup with a soft spout for her formula/milk since late March and does a great job, although she still wants us to give it to her in the high chair even though she can do it herself. But when we give her water in the sippy cup with the hard spout, she does that on her own just fine.

She also is really not interested in the baby food anymore even though I try to give it to her a few times a week anyway since we have a lot left! She especially loved cantaloupe this week.

One Year Old!

Emmy celebrated her first birthday last week! She enjoyed presents both the weekend before her birthday and the weekend after and we are going to Minnesota this weekend and will celebrate again!

• She had her first piece of cake at home the weekend before her birthday and really seemed to like it. She wasn't so sure why the frosting was all stuck to her hands, but then enjoyed grabbing big pieces of the cake and shoving it in her mouth.

• One of her favorite presents so far is the dinosaur that has wheels on it that she stands behind and pushes while she walks.
  
• She can walk pretty steady and fast while holding on to the dinosaur or our hands. She has stood on her own a few times and frequently will stand with barely a knee or her belly propped against something to just steady her the slightest bit.
• At her 12 month check up she checked out super healthy. She is 31 inches (96%) and 24 pounds 11 ounces (92%).
  
• She now has 4 teeth on top and two on the bottom.
• She is getting better and better at eating more table food instead of baby food, but prefers is we feed it to her instead of just put it on her tray. She really seems to like spaghetti, meatloaf, and peas.
  
• We haven't switched to milk yet simply because we had a big container of formula still left and because of traveling this weekend. We will make the switch sometime after we get back from Minnesota.
  
• She has loved playing outside and taking walks since it has been very warm so far in March (70's!).

• She continues to be very vocal and loves to just babble and talk to herself. When looking at books on her own she sometimes will babble as if she is "reading" the book to herself. She knows that Tom is Dada and likes to call out to him when he isn't in the room. We have learned that we must shout to each other from different rooms because sometimes when the gate is up downstairs so Emily can't go upstairs she will stand at the gate and shout "Dadadadadadadada!" when Tom is doing something upstairs.
• She still is pointing at EVERYTHING and trying to say what it is.

11.5 Months

We've been so busy lately that we haven't managed to put together a post for Emily's 11 month birthday until today. We are honestly enjoying every minute with her and have found that this time in her development is a lot of fun. She is still growing, happy, eating well, and smiling a lot.

• One of the first things to happen right after our last blog post was that Emily had a big fall at daycare. She tried to stand up while pulling up on a folding chair which fell down and hit her on the forehead right between the eyes. She had a very big bruise and lump on her forehead for a couple weeks and now, 6 weeks later, you can still see a slight bump if you look at her profile.
• We've had lots of visitors in February, starting with Aunt Rachel, Aunt Julia, and Grandpa Joe coming to visit the first weekend in February. She had the most fun playing with Grandpa Joe's mustache and making noise with Aunt Rachel's water bottle.

• Then Emily got sick with some sort of cold virus that gave her a fever and a runny nose. She had it for several days, passed it to Mommy and to Daddy. Then it either just went away for a couple days or Emmy and Mommy got a second virus, but it seems like we were sick for at least two weeks! No fun!
  
• Granny Jan and Grandpa Tom came to visit in mid-February and got to see Emmy pulling up on everything and scaling the stairs every chance she got.

• She seems to be losing some weight from her constant movement and crawling. She walks along the couch and from one piece of furniture to another. She can walk really well if we hold both of her hands, but hasn't tried to take a step on her own yet. She can bend down to pick things up while standing and holding on to something, she does lots of "squats." She will probably be in 18 month size clothing for awhile.
• Speaking of constant movement, at the end of the month we flew to and from Arizona to visit Nana Ellen and Grandpa Lee. On the plane rides Emily didn't sleep but for 45 minutes on the way there while in Megan's arms. She was very interested in all of the people, lights, buttons, and especially the magazines in the seatbacks. Even with that disruption, she slept and and adjusted well in Arizona.

• In Arizona, Emily spent a lot of time outside and played on a playground, went for walks with the family, and especially liked the orange tree in the back yard.

• She got her bottom two teeth in the first week of February and her top two teeth in the end of February. Now that she has these four teeth this week she has been grinding them together a bit. The sound is awful, so we really hope it's just temporary since they are so new. She still sucks her thumb when she first go to sleep for a nap or at night.
• We mistakenly thought her new teeth were causing her to have a fever but after a trip to the doctor we found out that she had a virus that affected her for about a week...until she got another cold/virus for a second week.
• She is increasingly interested in our food and has small bites of soft foods each day at daycare. We are feeding her pureed meat at dinner every night and give her things like fruits, vegetables, and pastas when we can. She's also starting to take some of her formula in her sippy cup and we hope to start to transition to regular milk in the next few weeks.
• Emily has become much more vocal after a short period when she didn't say much. It seems like she's now trying to put sounds and "words" together. She intentionally says "dada" to Tom. And she loves to just babble to herself constantly.
• She also points at everything. She does it in coordination with her sounds. For example, every time we are in her bedroom she points up to her stuffed animals that hang in a net in the corner while saying "da". Thanks to all of our friends and family who provided those for her.
• Her naps haven't changed much but she has proven that she can have shorter naps or even go without her morning nap and make it through the day pretty well. But on a normal day she still will nap for around 3 hours total between the two naps and sleep for 12 hours at night.

• We like going on walks at the "dead mall" in town on Sundays and are happy that spring is coming, we have taken a few walks outside already.

10 Months Old!

It's hard to believe but our Emily is now ten months old and showing no signs of slowing down. She has developed rapidly in the past month and has lots of fun new skills.

• Started her tenth month with a trip to the doctor's office due to a nighttime cough that has been waking her up the past few nights. It is nothing serious but we did get another weigh-in: 24lbs!
• She is crawling everywhere and has just started pulling herself up to a standing position on anything she can find. This includes furniture, her gym, the blue elephant, and people's bodies. She even pulls herself up on the gate we had to install this month to keep her from tumbling down the stairs.

• Speaking of stairs, Emily climbed all the way up them for the first time today without any assistance. She has gone from starting to pull up to getting up the stairs in less than a week. Scary!
• Two other fun movements are her new abilities to clap her hands (and have it make noise) and shake her head "no". She still doesn't know what "no" means but we're pretty sure she'll figure it out in the next year or seventeen. She has also added "uh oh" to her vocabulary along with intentionally dropping toys on the floor for mommy and daddy to pick up. As you can imagine, these two skills have come in handy for an infant.

• She has started eating some chicken and pork mixed in with other fruits and vegetables. This caused some constipation at first but seems to have cleared itself up now. Emily is also quickly mastering the sippy cup and enjoys a tall glass of water after dinner along with some snacks for dessert. She eats about 5oz of food at each meal with formula to supplement her at each mealtime. Still no teeth yet, but she seems to manage fine without.
  
• Emily is still sleeping well at night from about 6:30pm-6:30am and has one nap in the morning at around 8:30 and one in the afternoon at around 12:30.
• She craves stimulation and admittedly, mommy and daddy aren't the most exciting people in the world. When things get boring at home we now like to do some mall-walking and PBS children's show watching. Super Why! is dadd...um, Emily's favorite.
• Nana Ellen came to visit for the last 5 days and had so much fun taking care of Emmy. Emmy really likes having someone new to entertain her, with reading books, singing, climbing the stairs, and stacking cups together, they had a great time.
• 

Happy Holidays!

We had a great first Christmas with Emily! We drove to Minnesota on Thursday the 22nd (Emily's 9 month birthday) and stayed at Great Grandpa Paul's house along with Nana Ellen and Grandpa Lee for three nights and then went and stayed at with the Comer's after that (Grandpa Joe, Mary, Aunt Julia and Aunt Rachel).
Emily did really well on the 4+ hour car ride even though she still only sleeps for 30 minute naps while in the car. She adjusted to her new surroundings pretty quickly, only waking up a few times at night, but not needing to be picked up or anything. She was around so many family members and did a great job being around people she didn't know and staying happy. Being around all those people gave her a chance to improve her mimicking skills which she is getting very good at.

She also loved spending time in some houses that had more room for her to crawl around and explore. She is so curious about everything that is going on around her and wants to watch what everyone is doing. She has really perfected her crawling and is great at standing up while holding on to something. In addition, she is getting better at transitioning between crawling and sitting and vice versa. She did miss her gym/jumper station while traveling though and has been bouncing a bunch since we have been home. We did have to cut our visit short unfortunately. On Monday the 26th Emily woke up with a big rash on her torso, arms, and thighs. We think it was hives that she got in reaction to something she came in contact with, but aren't sure what exactly caused it. We left on Monday just because we were concerned about what was going on with her and wanted to be at home. By Wednesday it was pretty much gone.
On Wednesday she had her 9 month well baby visit and weighed in at 23 pounds 5 ounces (99%) and 23.5 inches (96%)! So she is a big girl for her age, but at least proportional, so no concerns. Everything else looked great at the doctor's office, she is developing fine. Still no teeth. Almost going to start wearing the 18 month size clothes we got for Christmas! Working on taking more and more solids to start weaning off the formula and even though she's had a sippy cup for a couple months, she is finally drinking from it regularly.

We're In The Army - Nine Months

We are happy to report that Emily has been crawling for the past couple of weeks. It looks more like an Army crawl with one or both legs dragging behind her but she's getting the hang of it. She's also responding to our prompts with babbling or loud but happy screams. Our updates include:

• Eating food three times per day at 7am, 11am, and 5pm supplemented by formula after each feeding. She hasn't eaten a food she hasn't liked yet. We've added rice rusks and yogurt bites to her diet and she does well with them even though she doesn't have any teeth yet.
• A couple weeks ago she dropped her evening nap and now sleeps for about an hour in the morning and two in the afternoon on a good day.
• She can get wherever she wants to be including the stack of books on the bottom shelf of one of our end tables. Her "crawling" makes for a very dirty belly no matter how many times we clean the floor.

•  Her vocalizations are becoming more varied and loud. She makes noise to mimic us, when she's happy, and to get our attention.
• She's still a very happy baby who loves to sleep at night. She's usually asleep by 7pm and wakes up between 6-7am.
• She enjoys daddy's goofy dancing partially because she doesn't realize how bad it really is.
• Baths are fun for her no matter what her mood is. She loves to splash and play with her rubber ducky when she doesn't have it in her mouth.
• We're excited for some new toys at Christmas because she needs more and more stimulation these days and can get bored and whines more easily than she used to. Her new favorite toy is a plastic key chain with keys and a fob that plays car sounds. She loves to put it in her mouth and push the horn sound button over and over and over and...
• The Hicks' came to visit for Thanksgiving and provided Emily with a new audience. She appreciated their willingness to travel all the way to Iowa to celebrate the holiday and her dad's birthday. She even got a onesie from her Granana Mae with her photo on it.

• We head to Minnesota for the Christmas holiday tomorrow and have her nine month appointment when we get back to Cedar Rapids. We're excited to see how much she has grown and developed. As with many of us during this time of year, her pants (12 month size) are growing tighter every day.

8 Months Old!

Emily is 8 months old today and we can't believe how fast the time has gone! She has grown so fast and is amazing us each day! She's so amazing a malt shop we went to last weekend in Minnesota has already created "Emily's Favorite Malt" which includes hot fudge and butterscotch, Yum!! We continue to tell each other how lucky we are to have such a happy baby!

• Emily weighs 21.2 pounds and is 28.5 inches long. Wearing size 12 month pants and size 9 month tops.
• She is getting very close to crawling. She gets up on her legs and rocks back and forth, and goes backwards, but hasn't figure out how to move her hands at the same time as her legs to go forwards. She has good wrestling potential!
• She eats fruits or veggies at lunch time and dinner, and continues to have 4 bottles per day. Still working on getting her used to the sippy cup.
• She continues to sleep from about 7pm until about 6:30am (except when she has a stuffy nose like this past weekend). She naps for about an hour in the morning and a little longer in the afternoon. She is starting to drop her evening cat nap that is sometimes around 20-30 minutes at about 5pm, sometimes she doesn't take it at all if her earlier naps were longer.
• Continues to suck her thumb when tired and when going to sleep. Hasn't really used a pacifier for several months. She got another cold this week, which made it really hard to suck her thumb since her nose was so stuffed up, which she did not like at all.
• More and more vocal with lots of babbling sounds of bababa, dadada, gagaga, and hmmmmm, eeeeee. Meanwhile, Daddy has progressed to words with two syllables and contractions.
• Loves to read books, bounce in her baby einstein gym, bang toys on the high chair, and play peek-a-boo. She's very ticklish and loves when Daddy kisses her neck.
• Daycare continues to go well, she really likes playing with the other kids and rolling/scooting around on the floor when they are upstairs.

Emily continues to have lots of visitors and to do so great going from person to person. A couple weeks ago Aunt Julia came to visit and Emily was so good for her and let her help with lunch, bath, and diaper time! Then last weekend Megan had some work meetings in Minneapolis on Friday so Tom and Emily came along to hang out at Grandpa Joe and Mary's house. Aunt Rachel came over to visit each day we were there and Emily had a great time playing with all the fun toys at their house! We stopped by to visit Great Grandpa Paul who was so surprised to see how mobile Emily is! Then this weekend for Thanksgiving Tom's family is all coming to visit, including Great Granny Mae! We are excited to host our first Thankgiving Dinner!