10 month state of the Willa address

You talkin' to me?

She looks very Deniro in this picture to me, too funny!

As of today, our big 10 month old girl has 8 teeth, five signs, one word, and a personal best of five seconds of independent standing.  She also has conquered crawling on all fours, although she still prefers to pull herself up and cruise/assisted walk.  She has discovered Gerber cheese puffs, a Chipotle quesadilla, and that the wonders of Cheerios never cease.  She can power down multiple servings of pureed baby food in a single sitting and is down to four or five feedings a day.

One area where she seems to be regressing a little is overnight.  She has been waking up at least once a night, usually two or three times, for the past few weeks.  Not sure what that's about, but I'm hoping its just the "sleep regression" thing instead of a super fun new habit.

She is still loving her baby classes and all the kids in them.  She should move up to the next level classes in the coming month, so I'm excited to see all the new skills she can learn!  Her favorite element is still the parallel bars, and she is starting to cruise along them very smoothly.  I'm so proud!

Her newest skill is holding her arms up when we ask, "how big is Willa?" as if to say "soooo biiig!!!" It's ridiculously cute.

Next up is Thanksgiving, and trying all the tasty new foods along with it.  Hopefully she will like her Daddy's smoked turkey as much as the rest of us!

Belated 9 month state of the Willa address

My baby is 9 months old! 

On the 11th she had seven teeth, slept from 8-8, ate like a champ, and was dabbling with walking and crawling.  She has gotten very good at it in the past three weeks, so here are some videos to show you just how far she has come!

She goes to Kindermusik once a week and Little Gym twice.  She really lights up when she sees the other kids, and is impressing everyone with her tallness and her toothiness.  At her doctor's appointment she weighed 17 pounds, 1 ounce and measured 29.5 inches long.  This puts her in the 40th percentile for weight and 96th for height.  Wow! We're not surprised, but I'm definitely excited that she moved up from the 24th weight percentile.  And no wonder, she is eating so many things!

This month she started loving Cheerios and regularly eats them on her own.  We also started her on other Gerber snacks, as well as little bits of bread and cheese.  She eats mostly purees and still nurses for most of her nutrients, but it is sure a lot of fun to watch her try new things!

Her sign vocabulary now includes "milk," "want," "Daddy," and "up."  She is thiiiiis close to "all done," and babbles a lot, so I'm sure she will add more in no time!

The cutest thing she started doing is giving air kisses by pursing her lips and sucking in her cheeks.  It truly is the best thing ever, and hopefully it means we will skip the soggy open mouthed baby kisses, although they are delightful :-).

At this milestone month I have to stop and reflect that being her mom has only gotten better.  It makes me so excited for the future, and so thankful for the present moment.  We love you, Little Miss!!

Happy Halloween!

Our little miss Willa was a shark for her first Halloween, owing to her many teeth and propensity to chew everything to bits!

Chomp chomp

We dressed like Sheriff Brody and Quint to match her!

To celebrate, last Saturday we went to the Little Gym for their Halloween party with a bunch of other kids.  The activities there skewed a little old for her, but she had fun walking around the padded space and seeing some of her friends.

Baby friends!

That night we hosted a Costumed Pumpkin Carving for my work friends.  Only a handful of people came, but luckily for Willa one of them was her friend, Petra.

There was some mutual hugging/chomping action

We dabbled in some pumpkin painting, but because she was not allowed to eat it, it wasn't a fun experience for her.  So, I kept it quick and this was the result.  Hopefully she will like it more next year!

Thanks for the idea, Pinterest!

I also had fun with a little video of her in her costume today.  I was hoping that she would go after Roxy, but as always, I was her preferred chomping target!

I am definitely learning that having a kid makes Halloween lots more fun!  I can't wait for next year, and it's a lot of fun to reflect on how far we have come in a year :-).

Flying with the greatest of ease

Willa just seems to keep the hits rolling, she was a great flier! 

Especially when she gets her own seat

As it turns out, we accidentally paid for her to have a seat, even though the confirmation page listed her as a "lap child."  The ticketing agent told me she would refund the price, but the seat stayed open since the flight wasn't full.  With the extra space we were able to move her back and forth and she didn't get too bored.  I nursed her during take off and she napped for a while, until the captain's announcements blared and ripped her from her sleep.  Whoops.  She was awake for the rest of the flight and didn't fuss at all during the descent, so her ears must not have bothered her that much.  People around us complimented her on how well she did!

Toothy smiles all around!

On the flight back, I found out that the previous ticketing agent hadn't refunded our ticket, so I called and got the refund myself from the customer service line. Getting the money back was great, but because the flight was full with standby passengers, her seat didn't stay open.  Bummer.  Add this to the fact that Jeremy and I were seated apart, and Willa and I were slated to rock the middle seat.  Double bummer.  Luckily the standby person given the window seat next to me (Willa's original seat) was more than happy to trade with Jeremy to avoid the baby, so we did end up cramming close together with no legroom in the seats Allegiant Air makes people sit to compel them to pay extra.  I tried to use the plan that worked so well the first time, but because our plane was towards the end of the line to take off, I used most of her feeding and nap time on the tarmac.  Dang.  She stayed awake and active for the rest of the hour and a half flight.  Our arms got very tired passing her back and forth and trying to keep her from eating the safety pamphlets, but we made it with minimal fussing.  She held it together until the very end as we waited for the jetway, but even then she only cried for a minute or two.  The people around us complimented her again, despite the late breakdown.  I'm so thankful for understanding people!

Overall she reminded us, yet again, of how lucky we are to be her parents.  Could she be any better?

My big girl in motion

Here are a couple of videos that I have taken in the past couple of weeks to document just how grown up she is!

This one is footage of her alternative to crawling, rolling across long distances.  It's pretty cute to watch!

This one I took today when I was so excited to see her using her pincer grasp to get little bites of food.  I am marveling at this tiny person who uses her hand eye coordination like a champ!

This last one is evidence of just how much she loves her Daddy, and he loves her.  Lots of sweet smiles and giggles.  I think it's my all time favorite :-).

8 month state of the Willa address

Look at her, acting all casual about being such a big girl!

Our little miss is eight months old!  In the past month she sprouted her top two teeth, leading to quite a toothy smile.  She is doing well with nursing, not biting too much, but she definitely likes to take those pearly whites on test drives with everything in sight.  Her favorite thing to nom is anything cardboard or paper, so we have had to be vigilant about keeping those things away to avoid ingesting any!  She has also started to grind her little teeth, which sends chills up and down Mommy's spine.  I'm hoping I can redirect her to other teethers often enough that she will stop, but for now, yikes!

She has started going to the Little Gym twice a week, as of last week.  It's a fun class for her to take with other kids her age, and I appreciate the time to meet up with other parents.  They have lots of fun, padded areas for her to experiment with crawling, walking, and even hanging from bars (although she isn't doing much of the latter two just yet).  They have fun songs, coach the parents in spotting some flips and rolls, and paves the way for her to continue to attend classes as she grows.  Given how uncoordinated I was as a kid, I hope that this will help her avoid my fate!

She still sleeps very well, but her schedule is steadily creeping earlier.  She's been getting sleepier in the evening, usually around 9 or 9:30, and I can get her asleep by 10:30, which is about an hour earlier than it used to be.  Subsequently, her days have started earlier as well.  Today she started stirring at 6:50 and was fully awake by 7:30, much to Mommy's chagrin.  Luckily, she's good about waking up happy and talking to herself long enough for me to get a shower and become fully conscious before needing to get her up.  I just need to keep all this in mind so that I make sure to push my bedtime earlier to compensate ;-).

Willa continues to be a champion eater.  She has graduated to lots of pureed fruits, vegetables, and savory baby foods.  She loves the fruit the best, and has been known to polish off an entire jar of apples or pears.  She is up to three solid meals a day, with snacks in the afternoon and a feeding right before bed.  There has yet to be anything she refuses to eat, but she gets tired of the poultry based food the fastest.  She likes to assert her independence with her sippy cup, often refusing to drink from it while I'm holding it but immediately picking it up when I set it down.  That's my girl!

Our little swinger

While he was here, my dad took Willa to the swings for the first time.

She had a heck of a good time!

After Jeremy got back from San Francisco, we had to check it out for ourselves!  Being the loving dad that he is, he hunkered down in front of her and pushed her for the longest time.  Me being the family historian, of course I had to take lots of pictures!

She seems to love it, so we will definitely have to make it a regular family excursion :-).

7 month state of the Willa address

On August 11, Willa turned 7 months old!  I am very late in posting this, so hopefully I will accurately recall the details of her achievements by that date :-).  `

Willa continued to sleep through the night perfectly.  My parents were with us for the week when she turned 7 months, and they helped me to let her cry it out before falling asleep at night, and to get her in a regular nap schedule in her crib.  She also started to hold her sippy cup with both hands independently, and started munching on baby crackers that dissolve quickly.  She also regularly feeds herself using a mesh bag and mashing fruit with her gums in a way that prevents her from trying to swallow large chunks.  I am very proud of her growing ability to eat on her own, but she still nurses a few times a day and a little before bed, so she's definitely still my baby :-).

On the 11th she still had only two teeth, but since then she has sprouted her  "baby fangs," her top two lateral incisors.  Her hair hasn't seemed to get any thicker or darker, but it still looks red in the sun!

Watch out, she bites!

So our little one continues to grow strong, and we are so proud of how smart and accomplished she is!

A pickin' we will go!

On July 13, Willa and I were in Crozet as part of Ethan's first birthday weekend.  Since she was just getting started on solid foods, I decided it would be fun to go peach picking at Chiles Orchard to let her taste how delicious freshly picked fruit can be.  Of course, I took my camera and worked very hard to get true shots of her picking fruit.  Of course, Willa was intent on doing her own thing, so I had to stage a couple of these, haha!

 As she always is when confronted with something new, she was *quite* skeptical of this little fuzzy fruit

 The leaves however, were endlessly entertaining

But quite bitter....

Mommy tried to coax her into grabbing the fruit, but she didn't quite get it

 

 But she enjoyed herself no matter what crazy pose I tried to take!

 Although not as much as Ethan, who powered down a peach while he waited

At home, I gently mashed up one of the softer peaches for her, and she slurped it down so fast!  

I think we have discovered her new favorite food :-)

Celebrating the Fourth of July (a very late post)

First, apologies for the delay in publishing these photos!  Where I once was able to blog at least once a day, I am discovering that I am excited if I remember to post once a month now.  It's terrible, and I sincerely apologize to those of you that read this!  That being said, here is a little something about our Fourth of July celebration this year :-).

We were lucky enough that Katie, Sahil, and Lark came to visit us for the holiday again this year, so it was even better than a day of grilling, sunshine, and parades would have been with just us.  The weather ended up being perfect, so we started the day by enjoying a local park (The Bog Gardens).

We dressed in our patriotic best, Willa chomped her carrier and got bored quickly

It's a long system of wooden walkways that takes you by a lake through a forest area.  Lark and Sahil noticed that it looks a lot like Endor, which made them enjoy it just a little more, I think!

They looked for speeders and ewoks the whole time!

The outdoor festivities continued throughout the day with Lark, Katie, Willa and I playing in our neighborhood playground.  While Lark had a great time with the plastic playhouse and the slides, Willa snoozed away in her carrier on me.  I'm very excited for the days when the two of them can cavort together, but for now it was nice to be able to sit and savor the feeling of her sleeping on me.  By random chance a local candidate for city council arrived for our neighborhood parade while I sat quietly with Willa, so I asked him about the start of the parade.  He told me a full forty five minutes before I thought it would start, so we hurried home so that we could get ready to attend it with everyone.

The Kirkwood parade is a neighborhood tradition that dates back to the end of World War II when a street called Independence Drive was populated by veterans making good use of the GI Bill.  Four families on the block decided to dress patriotically and parade up and down their streets with bicycles and wagons to mark the occasion.  Since then it has been an annual tradition and gets a little bigger each year.  With the Republican primaries for local government seats coming up soon, this year was very heavy with politicians.  As it turns out, the city councilman I spoke with earlier in the day was mistaken and we ended up being extremely early for the parade; interestingly, I think his mistake was deliberate because he had a large set-up of food and supporters meeting before the parade.  Perhaps he was trying to get us to come too early, have too much time on our hands, and hear his message?  

Anyway, I digress.  Here are some cute pictures from the parade:

 Katie and Lark got a prime seat

 Willa was confused by the concept of "selfies"

 Then she took this photo of the sky. It may have been an accident, but baby's first photo!

All of the floats were lovingly made with a patriotic theme, and most threw candy

 We will have to take this family portrait at this corner every year, the parade is a fun tradition!

My favorite picture of the day, taken as Lark waited patiently for more free candy

There was a moment when I was speaking to Jeremy's dad about our day, saying that we had just gotten back from the parade, Jeremy was lighting the grill, and Lark was about to run through the sprinklers that it hit me.  We had the perfect Fourth of July celebration.  Future celebrations will probably be compared to this one because we had such a good time.  To top it all off, Jeremy and I got to take in a movie later that day while Willa stayed with Katie and Sahil.  This was only the second movie we had seen in the theater since Willa was born, and it was a movie we were both very excited to see.  It was also completely deserted because most people choose to take in fireworks after dark on the Fourth.  Again, it was perfect.  We are so lucky to have great family that made it all possible!

6 month state of the address

Willa had her half birthday!  Our little miss is 15 pounds, 1 ounce (lower than my rough at home estimate, I'm terrible at those!) and 27 1/4 inches long.  This puts her in the 24th weight percentile and 93rd (!!) height percentile!  The doctor says she looks great, is hitting all of her developmental milestones, and was surprised that she already has two pearly whites!  We are very proud of how well she is doing.

This month has been marked by lots of new discoveries and adventures:

Sporting a Moroccan outfit from her godfather

She can stand for a little while after we prop her up!  The doctor recommended no more than 15-30 minutes of standing time a day for now, but she definitely impresses me with her balance during that time!

Why buy expensive toys?

She has also recently discovered that she, like many other little ones, loves the tags on things.  She can spend a nice long while chomping away at one, as seen here with my nursing pillow.  Forget those musical toys and ones with moving parts, she'll take a tag every day of the week!

Can I help you?

Finally, she also discovered that super attractive baby in the mirror that likes to follow us around.  She started to try to kiss it, and in this picture she seems to be letting me know that she is a little busy at the moment!  I don't blame her, she is quite kissable :-).

Willa continues to amaze us every day with how fast she is growing, and how much she is learning.  We couldn't love her any more!

Entering a whole new, delicious world

It's milestone time, the first solid food!  We served her some rice cereal mixed with breastmilk, and to no one's surprise, she was very pleased and ate it all!  It only took her a bite or two to get the hang of it, and most of it was actually swallowed.  She ate equally well with Jeremy and I, and will eat it runny, porridge-y, warm, or hot.  I'm very impressed with her and am excited to start on fruits/veggies when she's 6 months old!  Here's a photo array of that special time!

 I want what's in that bowl, you're not going fast enough, I'll just grab it!

 Slurping every last drop

 Mastering the lip purse to keep it all in

All done, very full, somewhat messy face, VERY messy tray!

So proud of our big girl!

Swimming part two

So I know I just did a whole blog post on her first time swimming, but I just had to share her second time too.  This time, Daddy got to come too.  Maybe it's because we were both there, or maybe it's because it was her second time, but this time around, Willa was much braver and sat by herself in the yellow floaty. 

Just chillin' like it's nothin'

As you can see, she has yet another ridiculously cute outfit, this one compliments of my wonderful Aunt Gail.  What's not to love about a perfectly coordinated hat, suit, and terry cloth cover up?

Close-up cuteness

She had lots of fun floating between the two of us in the water, and didn't ever seem scared.  She was very focused on her toys, and on avoiding getting splashed by the bigger kids doing cannonballs on the other side of the pool.

 Mommy, those big kids are getting very close!

Loving her toys

She did so well that we got to stay until we got all pruny, and let me tell you, the only way that tiny tootsies get cuter is when they get wrinklier!

I couldn't stop kissing them!

Our second time went so well, I'm sure there will be many more to come.  Our little fishie is progressing very well!

Getting her swimming legs

On May 31, Willa got to play in a swimming pool for the first time.

Seen here, getting her sniffer zinc-ed

My friend Audrey's mom, Karlan, who takes Willa for us sometimes, invited us over for a baby pool party at her townhouse complex' pool.  It was a perfect pool for little ones, 3 ft deep at either end and just 4 feet deep in the middle.  I was very excited to start her in the water at a young age, in the hopes that she will be comfortable in the water for life.  So I dressed her in the ridiculously cute suit and hat I got at a recent church consignment sale

Pictured: ridiculousness

bought her a yellow floaty thing for the water,

of which she was very skeptical

and set off with hopes of getting lots of cute pictures!  As you can see below, I think we achieved our goal!

She was the happiest swimming around with me holding her

By the end of the day she was relaxed in her floaty rings, playing with her chain link toy as happily as she would on her playmat.  Karlan took pictures of that time, so hopefully I will get copies soon so that I can share them here.  For now Willa is geared up for a long, swimmy summer!