One Year New!

My Dearest Princess,

Happy 1st Birthday! I can't believe you are one year new. To celebrate, you had not one, but FOUR birthday parties. Whew! Too much birthday for your poor, worn-out Mom, LOL!

Your first birthday party was in Chicago with Sittee, Grandpa, Uncle M, and Aunt B. We made Sprinkles cupcakes for you, complete with pink cream cheese frosting. You enjoyed eating the cake and pulling at the packages. During that trip, you also got to attend your Uncle M's graduation and tour his college. You also got to meet one of your other Great-Grandma's. How special to be the little princess!

Your second birthday party was celebrated at our home on Memorial Day. We had your dad's father's family over for a bbq, cake, and presents. I went with a "pink" theme, not too heavy on the "princess" or any particular character. You fell asleep in Grandpa's arms. Your Grandpa loves that picture and has it posted as his facebook profile pic now.

Your third party occured on your birthday date. Sittee and Uncle M came to town to visit you just for your birthday. We had dinner at Frisch's and then Sittee bought a kid's cake for you at Kroger. She placed a giant "one" candle on the cake and we sang happy birthday to you. You then proceeded to smear cake all over the table! (I guess you weren't very hungry!). I had to change both of our clothes because we were both wet and covered in frosting! Daddy mopped the floor. :-)

Your final party was the Sunday after your birthday at Ma'am and Pap's house. Your paternal grandma and her family also attended. You were too full on cookies to eat any cake! But you loved the Elmo cell phone that Grandma gave you. When Daddy tried to take the phone away from you (just to see it), you lunged for the phone and yelped, "I need it! I need it!" Everyone heard you and knew exactly what you said!

Your communication skills are amazing. A couple of weeks before Memorial Day, I tried to feed you peas. You kept turning your head to the side, obviously not wanting the peas, but I kept insisting. Finally, you looked me straight in the face and said, "I hate it." I didn't try to feed you any more peas after that!

You point to pictures of yourself and say, "I did it." You also can say, "I want it." While climbing stairs, you've reportedly said, "Up" (though I didn't hear that myself). You will also ask, "What is it?" and "Who is it?" While listening to bagpipe music in the car last night, you asked us, "What is it?" and then said, "It's nice." Your dad and I are amazed every day at your speaking skills. Your speech is somewhat muffled, but the fact that you can say as much as you do is very cool.

I love you!

Mom

Almost Walking!

My dearest Princess,

I'm sorry it has been so long since the previous post. Since you have become mobile, more of my time is spent "chasing" you!  You are definitely a curious baby. Anything that I have in my hands -- you want. Any where you can crawl, you will go. In fact, you climbed to the top of the stairs at Mammaw's house last weekend! 

As soon as you started crawling, one of the first things you did was push yourself up to a standing position while holding onto a chair. You are still doing that, and your favorite thing to do now is to walk from side to side while gliding your hands along an object. I think if I worked with you with the walker you could be walking....but I don't want to push it. (It's supposedly better for your eye development if you spend a few months crawling). 

A typical day for you involves waking up about 7 am, eating, diaper change, clothes change, and then... play time!  You can stack blocks, flip pages in books, pull the pieces out of the alphabet mat on the floor, and poke at the tiniest minutia of dirt. In about 3 hour intervals you eat, play, and then take a short nap. You tend to still wake up about once in the night, around 2 am for a quick drink, then immediately back to sleep.

Your chatter seems to have become more focused within the past few weeks. For example, on April 30, I was taking you to daycare and had a few balloons in the back of the van for a co-worker's surprise birthday party. You gestured at the balloons and excitedly babbled to me "about" the balloons. That's new! Similarly, this morning, you gestured at the picture of you on the wall and said one of your most common pattern of sounds, "I did it!"  (Yes! That is you in the picture!)  This is a change from what  seemed like more random chatter before. Of course, you still say lots of "Mamma, Dadda!" 

Your cognition of speech is improving too. I remember on April 18, you were playing with your diaper pail and I said, "No, you can't play with that" while shaking my head no. You shook your no also and turned away from the pail. (And then you turned back to the pail and cried because you wanted to play with it!).

It's been fun to watch your eating skills improve over the past month. You can now feed yourself puffed cereal and even teething biscuits!  You are also doing much better on eating food with textures. For Grandma S.'s birthday, she was so pleased to watch you eating the puffed cereal on skype!

You were the star at Easter Mass. :-)  Grandma and Grandpa came in town and we all went to Church together. You wore a sweet pink dress with white tights, white sweater, and black shoes. Everyone smiled at the adorable baby!   

Tomorrow we will celebrate our first Mother's Day together. OK, never mind, it's really our second Mother's Day together -- I made Daddy buy me a gift last year. :-)

I love you with all my heart,

Mom

The Valentine Crawler

My Dearest Princess,

On Saturday, February 13, I was playing with you on the floor in your bedroom when you scooted forward on your hands and knees.  All day, I pondered whether or not that counted as crawling. You were on your hands and knees, but you had moved along by pulling your butt into your chest, rather than moving each leg independently.  By the end of the day, I decided that that did indeed count as crawling because your arms were straight, your legs at 90 degree angles, and you had covered some distance. But I didn't need to worry!  That evening, you did a full-out crawl!  You were on one end of the floor mat and I thoughtlessly placed a container of Clorox wipes on the other end.  You wanted to get to that new object, and nothing was going to stop you!  You crawled, one hand in front of the other, one knee at a time, across the floor to that container, then proudly grabbed it and banged on it like a drum. I am so proud of my little crawler!

Love,

Mom

On the Cusp

My Dearest Little Princess,

I am enjoying these last few days when you are "relatively" immobile. I have spent the last 7 months (plus the 9 months before that) carrying you, but that is quickly changing. You have been scooting backwards and rotating to the side by pushing up with your hands for awhile now. About a week ago, you figured out how to push up with both your hands AND your knees, but then you looked around confused because you couldn't move from that position. 

Yesterday, I put you down for your nap in your crib while you were still awake because sometimes you will just fall asleep. I went into my bedroom, grabbed a basket of laundry, and passed your bedroom on my way to the stairs. I noticed that you were on your hands and knees facing the crib rail. I literally just went down the stairs and set the basket down at the foot of the stairs and came right back upstairs to get you (since you were obviously not going to fall asleep). And in those brief moments you had pulled yourself up the side of the crib and were teething on the top rail. Since when did you start doing pull-ups??! 

Here are some posts from your Dad. His writing is a bit more creative in style:

Jan 21: Got another bad report card from school today. Bulling a pair of boys half again her size, three months older, and that can walk. Apparently the toys in question are hers, and hers alone.

Jan 21: Daddy is apparently back on baby's "Cool List".

Jan 20:New life lesson. Home alone with sick baby = very exhausting.

Jan 17: I grabbed the baby's plastic chain toy as she was playing with it. She aggressively ripped it out of my hands and screamed. "Ba Ba Ba, DaDa!" (Translation: Bad Bad Bad, Dad!)

Jan 14: Princess scooted forward about 6 feet on the floor at school yesterday afternoon. Apparently she was chasing some boy.

Jan 10: A pearly white has been sighted peaking through the gum line.

Dec 27: At 6 months old, my daughter recognized the remote control was the most powerful item in the world. At 6 months, 3 weeks, she is strong enough to rip it out of my hands...during kickoff.

Love,

Mom & Dad

Baby's First New Year

Dear Little Princess,

For New Years, your family from Chicago came to visit. Aunt B arrived on New Year's Eve and we had so much fun playing with you.  Aunt B held you in her arms and walked backwards with you while you held onto the string of the Fisher Price Chatter Phone and watched the toy's eyes move up & down. Aunt B and I took turns holding you while dancing to Christmas songs. And of course there was lots of peek-a-boo!  You and I were too tired to make it until midnight, but we had had a wonderful evening with Aunt B!

Grandma S, Grandpa D, and Uncle M were here on New Year's Day. I took you over to their hotel where Grandpa D was in the breakfast area reading the paper. He was so happy to see you! He read to you Pat the Bunny and pretended that one of your toys was a talking puppet. And of course, Grandma S and Uncle M were so delighted to see you and hold you.

I was a little sad to see 2009 go just because it was the year you were born, so it is very special to me. But I'm looking forward to all of your wonderful milestones for 2010!

Love,

Mom

Baby Loves Tissue Paper

Dear Little Princess,

I underestimated how much you fell in love with wrapping at Christmas. As I discovered today, you now LOVE to rip tissue paper.  At dinner tonight, I secured you in your high chair, put your bib on, and then when to the refrigerator to get your dinner (a jar of sweet potatoes). Notice that my back was turned for maybe 5 seconds there. When I returned to your high chair, in those 5 seconds, you had torn your bib off and were eagerly yanking it between your hands. I realized after awhile that the plastic on the back of the bib makes a similar sound to the ripping of tissue paper, and that you were throwing your arms apart while holding onto the bib like you were trying to rip it. Fortunately, I had some tissue paper handy and gave it to you (watching like a hawk of course to make sure none of it got close to your mouth). You happily yanked and tore and RIPPED that paper!  I'm proud of you for your coordination, though I'm also slightly worried that maybe this means you have frustrations you are taking out on that paper!  I took some of the tissue and made confetti, which greatly amused you to watch the little confetti pieces fall.

This isn't the first time you have shown some impressive coordination. About a week or two ago you successfully turned off (and on) the waterfall soother on your crib. I had asked you maybe a month ago, "How do you turn it off?" and you grasped at the button, not quite able to hit it (though I'm still impressed that you apparently understood and answered the question!). I had thought, though, that maybe it was a fluke that you had grasped at the button after I asked you how to turn it off. Well, ever since then you became determined to turn it off yourself. The first time you did push that button yourself, you beamed and turned to me with a full grin, completely satisfied that you could do it yourself.  After mastering turning on and off the waterfall soother, you are now trying to turn on and off other things too, like the swing! Daddy says you are his little engineer. Grandpa calls you Cyber Baby because of all the Skype video calling we do as a family. As for me?  I secretly think of you as my little genius. Yes, a genius for ripping paper and pushing buttons. :-)  Moms are so proud of the smallest things!

Love,

Mom 

Baby's First Christmas!

Dear Princess,

It was a pleasure having you with us this Christmas!  We took you to the family parties in your Santa suit and you were a HUGE hit. Everyone wanted to hold and look at you.  You got tons of toys and clothes (all of which Mom is very grateful for!).  Your new favorite toys are the stuffed animals that sing and a toy that has pop-up smile faces. Mom's favorite new toy is the playpen. I can finally put you down and let you play freely with your toys! You aren't quite crawling or sitting up all by yourself, but you are on the cusp... you can sit with a little support for long periods (or by yourself for about 5 seconds before flopping onto your belly). You can't crawl but you can scoot a bit from side to side reaching for toys.

You almost unwrapped a present while we were at Michelle's house on Christmas Eve. I poked a hole in the wrapping paper and you slowly pulled at it, fascinated with the colorful paper (but not really noticing the toy inside). Next Christmas, when you can really shred the paper to get those toys, will be even more fun!

Love,

Mom