Teeth can be a pain (18 Months minus 1 Day)

The Empress’ mouth adventure keeps on rolling.  We’ve been waiting for the 8th front tooth to come in, but it has been kind of tardy in arriving.  Therefore, we were totally surprised when Auntie Jenn told us she had seen two molar points in Zoe’s top gums while tickling her.  Sure enough, when we checked, we found two boney points emerging from her top gums.  This brings the tooth count up to nine.

Zoe is also starting to add more words to her vocabulary.  She has started to say her name, which is very cute, as she will usually say it as a chant.  So we get to hear “Zoe Zoe Zoe” coming towards us as she carts around her toys.  Very adorable.

Mama and Daddy also got a hand-held shower attatchment to make it easier for Zoe to shower with us on the mornings she needs it.  We have had it for like a week, and she has had two showers with it.  Already, she has grasped what it does, and is helping.  It hangs at just the right height to shower her, and she has started grabbing the handle and spraying herself.  It is very entertaining.

 

That’s all for now.  More to come later.

Walking Baby! (17 months old)

Once again, I suck at updates.  The little Empress tends to change very fast, and it is kinda hard to keep up.

 

We are now up to 7 teeth, with the 8^th one pushing its way through.  Teething is a very odd thing from the parental point of view.  I would expect it to be painful all the time and then just stop after the teeth come through, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  Zoe gets occasional moodiness, punctuated here and there by bouts of crying or anger.  It always takes a while before you can identify what is wrong unless she manages to tell you.

 

Zoe is now walking as well.  The impetus for her to start walking was the desire to carry large objects.  Smaller things would fit in her mouth, but for large objects she needed her hands.  Thus she learned to walk. J  That’s my kid.  She can walk and fast walk, allowing her to cover disturbing amounts of distance at a moment’s notice.  She is very sturdy on her feet, though not always attentive.  She has a tendency to watch other things while continuing her forward motion.  This has lead to a number of entertaining mishaps, usually involving walls.  At day care she takes baby yoga, which has given her a couple of yoga poses that she does for fun on occasion, and also the ability to squat down while leaving her feet flat on the floor.

 

Empress Zoe has continued her independence streak, and still much prefers to do things when she can.  She walks with us around the house, many times leading the way to the places we tell her to go.  She knows what she wants, and can live up to the redhead stereotype when denied her desires.  She is getting tall as well, which means the day we have feared has arrived.  On her tippy-toes, she can reach the door handles.  This wouldn’t be so bad, but we have the lever-style door handles, which means that she can open them just by pulling down on them.  This means we need to determine which doors to baby-proof, and determine how to keep her out of the areas we don’t want her to go.  So much fun.

 

Zoe understands complex requests (ex: Zoe, please get your shoes and take them to mama) when she feels like it and pays attention.  She really enjoys her shoes, specifically the taking off of them.  We recently went up another shoe size (again) to 6, and had Zoe war her new shoes.  They were a little big, so we asked one of the teachers at daycare if they had noticed her having any problems with her shoes.  Their response was ‘Nope.  She took them off and started chewing on her socks like she usually does.’  That’s my kid. J

 

The Empress is working on her words.  She still tends to truncate or mis-pronounce most of them, but she is working on it.  She can also now identify her nose, mouth, and eyes.  We are still working on ears. J  She is also very polite, adding please to most things or just saying please if she doesn’t know how to convey what she wants.  It is very adorable, and totally won over Grandma when visiting for Aunt Lisa’s graduation.  She also very much wants to help with the chores, by putting her cup away after food, picking up things from the floor she doesn’t think belong there, and such similar.  It is really awesome, and now if only her parents could learn to do the same things.

 

That’s it for now.  I will try to load another update much sooner rather than later. J

Busy Parents are bad at updates (14 months old)

Firstly, I would like to apologize for not updating in so long.  Many many things have been happening, and I dropped the ball.  Lets go through it month by month:

Month 11: Zoe spent a lot of refining her traveling skills.  She expanded her distance and crawling skills, trying to see where all her new skills could take her.  She liked the fact that she could reach stuff on her own, and generally did her best to get to everything.

She also got to traverse to Wisconsin to see Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Amy, and Auntie Lisa.  She did pretty well on the plane, though she really didn’t like traveling.  It took us a while to be ok with being picked up by Grandma and Grandpa, but by the end of the week-long visit we were ok with being held by either of them.  Of course, in classic baby form, the most interesting toys were the tupperware pieces in Grandma’s kitchen.    She had tons of fun though, and was looking around for people afterwards, clearly missing people.  Such is the way of the Empress.

More to come

The Saga Continues (10.5 months old)

It has been a crazy time for the last few weeks.  Here are the updates on Empress Zoe:

The Empress is very comfortable with moving around now.  She motors around as she will, can handle terrain obstacles (there is a step up between our formal living room and our formal dining room, which she navigates with ease), and can stand up using local objects.  Walking does not seem to be too far away.  However, as with everything she does, Empress Zoe has her own style.  When she wants to change the direction she is looking while sitting, Zoe has figured out that she can use her heels to pivot.  This leads her to turn on her butt like a gun turret, using her legs to spin her.   She has also started testing objects to determine if they are stable.  If not, she will attempt to push them until they stop moving, understanding that this will sometimes make the object stable.  It is something absolutely brilliant that she worked out entirely on her own.  Lastly, she enjoys being chased.  While she is crawling (only after she has already started crawling, trying this while she is sitting still just makes her confused ), Spock or I will come up behind her, hitting the ground heavily to either side of her.  She then speeds up a little, and starts giggling.  If you don’t catch her by the time she reaches her destination, she looks very confused.

Empress Zoe is now a proud possessor of Teeth (that’s right, plural).  She has her two bottom front incisors.  The first broke skin about 2 weeks ago now, and the second came through last weekend.  This has lead to some very uncharacteristic unsettledness and irritability, but we’ve made it through.  Now however it seems another one is coming in.  We are not sure where, but we are guessing the front top incisors will be next.  Most of the time, she is fine, just a little cranky.  Nights have kinda sucked though.

With the advent of teeth, Zoe has incorporated solid foods in with her diet.  String cheese, diced fruit (bananas, pears, and peaches thusfar), little baby meat sticks, peas (though we do not like peas), cheerios, and yogurt have all traversed this baby’s mouth, and she is loving it.  She will put off eating softer foods as much as possible, and tries to avoid the bottle, just so she can have more.  These teeth also came in just in time for Thanksgiving, and she got to try turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, and jellied cranberry.  She loved it all.

We started her on swimming lessons about a month ago.  Classes are on Saturday at the local YMCA.  Thusfar we have been to 3 classes (we missed one due to diaper rash), and we are doing pretty well.  She takes to the movements pretty decently, and kind of enjoys herself, but she doesn’t have a lot of patience for it.  It’s the start of a long road, but we’re doing ok.

As a side note, it is hard to get a baby gate that will block off a Christmas tree. 

Some things just confuse me

This past weekend, Spock and I put up a babygate at the top of the stairs.  With the Empress being mobile, we are trying to get everything baby-proofed appropriately, and this was at the top of our list.  We went out and got an appropriate gate (metal, adjustable to the correct width) for like $50.  Distinctly cheaper then a trip to the hospital, but not a drop in the bucket.

In unpacking and installing this gate, I found it to be well thought out.  The package included temporary feet that you can attach to keep the gate generally level while you are attaching the screws, templates of the latches  so you could determine where they were to go without trying to support the whole system, pre-attached hinges on the gate itself, and a general simplicity to how it was constructed.  Smart people, right?  Clearly, they’ve thought this through.

When attaching it to the wall, I found a stud and attached the hinges using the screws included.  Spock and I went through the whole process (which does take some time, simple or no), and are finally attaching the latches (also into a stud, of course).  We are having a lot of trouble getting things to line up.  First one part fits, then it doesn’t, then this other part doesn’t, and so on.  We finally decide that the top latch is sitting too loose, and needs a longer screw.  Luckily, these things are designed for wood screws, so we have some lying around.  The latch is screwed firmly into place, and we feel proud of ourselves.

That’s when we realized the hinges were shifting whenever we opened the gate.

In all the testing of this product, in all the trials and experiments they have done, it seems it never occured to them when they included 1 inch wood screws that a common thickness for drywall is 1 inch.  I have to say, I’m impressed.

After replacing all the screws with 2.5 inch wood screws, I can safely say that the gate is now operational, and actually attached to something that’s not pressed powder.

Moral of the story: There are bugs in every testing system.

The Empress is now 9 months old

… and very accomplished for her age.

 We have now started to crawl!  Zoe is soooo happy to finally be able to get to all the things that she’s interested in, and Spock and I have been running herd on her to keep her out of everything she shouldn’t have.  It started with sitting up, and then last saturday, we were at a housewarming party, Zoe got set on the floor to play, and she crawled across the room (of course, it was to the fireplace tool set, so an interception happened prior to achieving our goal).  Now she is moblie on a whim.  We hadn’t finished baby-proofing yet, so she’s only being allowed to crawl with intense supervision for a while.  In order to figure out what needs to be baby-proofed in her room, I just took her in and set her down on the floor. Then I watched, interceeded where necessary, and took notes.  Many were things I had thought of prior (like putting the trash can and diaper bin behind a baby gate), but she did offer me a few surprises (I had totally forgotten about the doorstop with the rubber tip until she started playing with it).  I am so very happy she is moving now, it makes playing with her even more fun.

 The Empress also really likes books.  Her current favorite book is ‘That’s not my Dragon’, given to her by Grandma and Grandpa.  It is one of those textured books, and she really likes the feel.  We read it 6 times last night.  However, we can’t read our way to sleep, as we get really excited when she sees books.

We have started waving.  This is used for both saying hello or goodbye (when we feel like it), and to express that she wants something to end (it is really cute when we are holding her and get sidetracked.  She’ll start waving because she wants to leave, it’s hilarious).  Zoe will also raise her arms when she wants to be picked up, and can pick up things with her forefinger/thumb.  This is really cute until she pinches you.

 On top of all this, Empress Zoe has also expanded her vocabulary.  Here is the current list:

‘ah-da’ or ‘ah-da-da’ = Daddy
‘ah-ra’ or ‘ah-ra-ra’ = Mama
‘doh’ = Dog

She also has started babbling, especially when she is playing. It seems like she is having her toys talk, which is absolutely adorable.  She learns at an astonishing rate.

 No teeth yet, but we can see the gums filling out, and her smile has changed to include space between the gums for teeth.

All in all, she’s astounding.

Those pesky days just keep on going

Empress Zoe turns 8 months today.

I find this kinda weird.  It seems like a long time, but each month goes by so quickly.  I guess we should get used to it though.  I hear the rest of her life goes by like this too.

She is adorable, with a huge smile.  She’s recently started in on two jars of baby food, in addition to her rice cereal.  She loves it, though her favorite food is still apple sauce.  The Empress has only had one type of meat thus far, turkey and gravy.  It definitely earned the Zoe stamp of approval, which seems to consist of wearing it like war paint.  Along similar lines, she is starting to help with feeding herself, in that we are teaching her to reach out and grab the spoon to put it in her mouth.  It takes a little longer, but it is more than cute enough to be worth it.

We also upgraded car seats this past weekend.  The previous seat was getting too small, so we’ve moved up to the next one.  It still needs to be backwards facing though, which makes it kinda a pain in our car.  We’ve also run into the problem of trying to shield the baby from sunlight, now that she doesn’t have a handy canopy we can close.  We’ve added the baby shades to the rear windows, but our main issue comes from when the Sun is coming in the back window.  We’re still trying to figure out what to do with that.

The Empress has apparently crawled a little at home and at daycare, but Spock and I have yet to see it.  Any time now, those gears will engage, and she will go wizzing off around the room.  That should be tons of fun. J

This Saturday, we join the YMCA J

7 month update

And another month goes by…

Zoe is growing  very fast.  Last dcts visit (about 2 weeks ago) put her at 16 lbs and 26.5 inches.  She kept trying to eat the dct’s equipment while he was using it which was hilarious.  She is healthy, and growing just on schedule.  All the dcts are very impressed with he progress of strength and coordination — but honestly, I wonder if they just say that to all parents?  Not every child can be ahead of the curve.   Just a thought.

 But from all the stories I have heard from other parents, Zoe is the perfect baby.  She is sleeping by 9 most nights, through the night til 7 if we let her.  She eats, then wants to play a bit.  ON weekends, LC and I just lay in the bed with her in the middle and play for a bit.  She loves it.  HUge smiles all around.  One morning, LC was dozing a bit and Zoe discovered that he had hair on his chest.  Well, that just had to be grabbed and of course, yanked towards her mouth.  He wakes up, she coos and smiles up at him while pulling the chest hair.  I about died laughing.

 After that is a baby snooze, some more milk and play time again!  About noon she gets some cereal that she scarfs down.  Literally, you have to be quick about putting food back on the spoon as she loves solid food.  Also, none of this, “watered down” cereal, it needs to have texture and be solid.  Honestly, we have had very few problems with solid food, at 4 months, she was ready and anxious for other food besides milk.  As it is, we limit her at each meal. 

 Then some more play time, usually sitting while playing with block or hanging out in her exersaucer.  Shes a doll in the car or when we are at the store.  We have started taking her to the market on Sundays where LC has a front carrier (like a bjorn) to hold her in.  She just looks around and is happy as can be.  A couple naps and some play time later, at 7 she eats one can of baby food and a 1/2 bowl of cereal (like real bowl, not baby bowel).  Then some more play time, and 9 hits, we are out.  Even sleep time has become easier, since after 3 minutes of rocking, I can put her in the crib, she smile up at me, and then put herself to sleep.  I think she just like the cuddle time before bed and then she is fine with sleeping.

 Nap times can be painful because she wants to play (esp with mom and dad on the weekends) and she is not consistent with how she needs them.  Somedays, two 10 minute naps are all she needs, somedays she need three hour naps.  We are learning though.

 As for movement, she knows the theory of crawling, but gets really frustrated that she cant make it happen.  She tries really hard, then will relax, suck her thumb and try again, but after a while she gets whiny about it.  Doesnt scream but just cant get why its not working.  its not working because she is not lifting her butt up, but I dunno how to show her that.  She is getting closer though. 

For walking, she has the standing down when holding onto something, but she keeps wanting to let go with one hand to grab stuff and then falls.  But its her new favorite thing, to stand while holding onto fingers or the couch.  I live in fear of her walking.  Guh!

 That was the quick update!

 I need to go dig out pictures of the family to send to daycare so she can look at them during the day

Just Passed 6 months

Have we been at this parenting thing for that long?  Empress Zoe turned 6 months on 7/12/07, and it just seems to have flown by.  She is no longer the (admittedly cute) unresponsive lump of flesh that just wanted to eat and sleep.  Now she does not like to go to sleep if she can help it, and her favorite thing to do is interact with people.  She likes to sit up, and is starting to try to put herself in that position.  She can grab things easily, and has just recently discovered that her toes can reach her mouth.  She likes faces, finds baths to be relaxing, and does not like to be put to sleep, only to be helped to sleep.  She’s her own little person now.  It’s really cool.

 Foodwise, we are still on breastmilk for most of the day except dinner.  Dinner is solids, and the discovery of new tastes.  We started with Rice cereal, which still makes up the majority of the meal.  We preface this with a container of the Flavor of the Week.  We have thusfar done Carrots and Peas.  We started Bananas, but it happened to co-inside with the latest cold.  She got diarrea (spelling?) and we weren’t sure if it was the sickness or the Bananas.  We’re pretty sure it was the sickness (diarrea was going around the daycare), but we’ve held off just to make sure.  We’ll try Bananas again a little bit later.

Solids have lead to solid poop, which is kinda cool, kinda not.  Yay less spread out mess, but we need to remove the stool from the diaper if we can for the diaper people, so our garbage stinks more.  It’s a trade-off.

She’s making noises and sounds, especially when tired, which is kinda fun.  We’re waiting to see what her first word will be, and in classic parental fasion, trying to influence the outcome.   We’ll see.  She has a great laugh though, and is ticklish under her chin and on her floating ribs.  That is no end of fun.

 She’s still sleeping though the night, which is a blessing.

Oh, and she’s still cute

Still here in goo goo land

Been a while (AGAIN) since an update.  Lots has been going on, so pretty busy.

 Daycare:  Zoe is now going to daycare which she loves.  She gets such a smile when she sees Noor, who is her main caretaker during the day.  I love Noor, she has been taking care of infants for over 30 years and that woman is amazing.  For the most part, the kids are all happy and playing, and when one or two start crying, Noor seems to know exactly what is wrong.  its pretty awesome.

 On the work front, I am way busy.  I usually do work from 8:30 to 4:30 (including working while pumping) and then more from 9 to midnight.   Unfortunately lately, I am seeing little of Zoe from 6-9 (when she is home with us) because she takes a nap when we get home, and so do I.  Mine goes til 8, and she is up for an hour before its bedtime.  I think I need to cut the nap out of my schedule, but mebbe I will just make it shorter.

 I think Zoe was trying to wave goodbye to me today at the daycare, but it could have just been a hand flailing

More lucid updates later