Family Updates

Pippa had her 9-month check up on Wednesday. She now weighs 18 pounds and 15 ounces. She's a lanky 2' 4.75" tall. It's funny how she went from being 99% in weight at 10 pounds 4 ounces at birth to merely 50%. The doctor is not concerned and neither are we. If you see her eat you would question where the heck it all goes!
Currently she is still just cruising and crawling but braving it by climbing up on things a little more and by taking her hands off the furniture to play with a toy.
We had a dog behaviorist visit us last Monday because Scooby has been showing some anxiety toward her and we have implemented his few suggestions. I'm happy to say we have completely different dogs. Scooby still avoids her but you can tell he is much more relaxed about it. I feel better allowing her to play on the floor when the dogs are around now.

01/18/12 - 9 months old

She's been teething for a while now and her upper tooth finally came in! Yay for a good night sleep. Then, as I was taking some pictures of her in the tub, I noticed tooth #4 popping through too! I can't believe how fast she is growing up.

Why do they love to chew on washcloths?

Notice her bottom right, another tooth barely popping through!

Liam has one more month of cub scouts until he crosses over to boy scouts! He will receive his badge and arrow of light next month. In a couple of weeks we are going to take him to a boy scout pack meeting so he can meet all the new kids. He also started participating in "Math is Cool" sort of a math bee type club that will compete sometime before school is out in June.

Dan is still adjusting to working the day shift but we all enjoy having him around on Sundays and he is much more awake and aware during any day. He has a great time with Miss Pippa while I'm at work.

I'm still waiting to hear the details of my job. Starting to have a bit of anxiety just not knowing and not being able to plan (as usual) but there's nothing more I can do. We should know in the next couple of weeks.

...and a Happy New Year!

Pippa turned 8 months earlier in December, we celebrated our first Christmas together and she is crawling faster than I can walk!

Pippa G at 8 months

Things have been good (and busy) in our family. Dan is still working the day shift and enjoying spending his days off all alone with his little girl. I am still telecommuting on a part time basis. There are some pretty big job cuts coming so for the first time in 12 years I am applying for other jobs. I'm not too concerned about my job getting cut but it's much better to be prepared just in case. Liam is enjoying every minute of his winter break. We have been to G6 Airpark with friends twice and he's done a LOT of sleeping (I'm jealous). Pippa loves having her brother around during the days. We had to put up baby gates because she discovered the stairs a couple weeks ago. She is exploring lots of foods and prefers to feed herself. My favorite is giving her sliced bananas and when she can't pick them up, watching her bend over and suck them off the counter. I should video that!

Opening Christmas Presents

 

Check out those pearly whites!

It's Almost Christmas

I know it's been a while since I've blogged. SO much has happened in our lives.
Thanksgiving was another fun weekend. Papa Don came over and we had turkey, potatoes, veggies, rolls and lots of assorted sweets. He watched our puppies (again) while we went to the beach to visit the other half of the family for the traditional turkey-stuffing-potatoes dinner.
Around that time, Pippa started crawling. You'll have to trust me because every time I try to get it on video she stops to stare at the camera. I do have a video of her standing (she pulls herself up now) and cruising - albeit slowly. I also have another video of her and Margeaux. I met Maggie's mom, Amber, in my "new mom's" group through Kaiser. We have done some mommy/baby yoga together but we recently met for brunch at one of my favorite places, Laurelwood Brew Pub. In the video you can see that Margeaux and Pippa are having a good time talking to each other.

Dan started day shift last week so I am now working in the office for the first half of the week while he is home with Pippa and then I'm home the last half of the week while he works. I can't say yet whether or not it's better, we have both been very sick this week with colds. Pippa had a bit of a stuffy nose on Monday but has been fine since.
Liam is still doing well in school and scouts. He's been the driving force for us getting our decorations up for Christmas and he is the first one to plug in the tree in the morning. Pippa just loves her big brother and is all smiles whenever he is around. We are reading "39 Clues" right now. I'm interested in the book so he's reading it aloud to me and I'm sure it's slowing him down but I think Pippa likes it when he reads too.

Christmas is coming up and we are hosting the whole family over several days.I need to start cleaning soon. :-) Happy Holidays!

Weekend in Bend

Thanks to Travelzoo we got a great deal on a weekend at Eagle Crest Resort in Bend. All four of us made the 3+ hour drive on Friday and stayed until Sunday. We went to the Petersen Rock Garden, another quirky garden/nursery place and spent a lot of time walking around Redmond and Bend. We had some good breakfasts and some fun days. The weather was cold and windy but Pippa loved being outside so much she didn't care. Liam had fun swimming in the resort pool and Dan enjoyed some hot tub time. I got a much needed massage. We had a great family time. Thanks to Papa Don for watching our puppies and making it possible for us to leave our home for a few days.

Just wanted to write all that really quick because I have some of the cutest pictures you will ever see...right...here...

Also, for all of you family following along, Pippa is still not crawling. She's very close but she can now get to a sitting position on her own. I went in her room the other day to get her out of bed and she was sitting up and waiting for me. We have lowered her mattress so once she starts standing, she won't be able to get out (yet).

Pippa at Kids' Club - waiting for Liam to get done with swimming

Pippa and Liam on Veteran's Day - stars and stripes swimsuit

Pippa and Mom at Petersen's Rock Garden in Bend, OR

Check This Out

Thought we would shoot a cute video for you since she didn't notice I had turned on the camera. What you get is her very first "ba" syllable (check out the tongue action) and her trying to crawl. She's getting better but as you can see she's even closer to sitting up from an "all fours" position. Here she is hamming it up for all of you!

Six Months Old

Pippa is now 6 months old!

Pippa at six months!

Our 6-month doctor appointment went well. She is 16 pounds 13 ounces which isn't much bigger than last time but I guess they grow slower at this age so the doctor wasn't concerned. She's also 2' 4" tall. She smiled and flirted with the doctor as much as she could...until she got her shots. This time she got three immunizations and the flu shot. I've never had a flu shot and I guess at this age, they get two. So when I take her back in for her second shot next month I will bring Liam with me and the three of us will have it done. Yuck.

She's eating like a horse! I made some teething biscuits yesterday and she loves them (so do the dogs). We are still able to keep up and make all of her baby food and it appears that "baby food" time is starting to go away now that she can eat pretty much anything, it's all about grinding it up first. I bought her some oatmeal baby cereal - we have only been giving her rice. She had some of that this morning and loved it. I am enjoying all the apples, pears and bananas as much as she is.

Well, she's now sitting up really well on her own so we have pulled out the playpen and we move it around the house. When I'm in the kitchen, I put her in it so she can watch me cook and play. I used to put her into a bouncy seat but she doesn't like that anymore. She's been on her hands and knees a lot and is rocking back and forth but has not mastered the crawl yet. She scoots backward and rotates on her belly to get where she wants to go. A friend at work gave us a walker and she loves it except that every time it moves forward, it scares her. Pretty funny stuff.

More tired than you can imagine

I'll keep trying to upload more videos but for now, this is my favorite new picture. She was taking a nap on a "daddy day" and he snapped this picture of her sleeping, yes sleeping. She napped for two hours like this. Before you comment, yes she was put "back to sleep" and yes we know there should not be blankets in the crib. :-)

Teeth Already!

Pippa turns 25 weeks old today! Almost six months has gone by and I cannot believe it.

She has recently cut two teeth. One came in on Saturday October 8th and the other came in today! They are her bottom two front teeth. I simply cannot get a picture quite yet but I promise (swear on my tooth marked finger) they are there. We had very little indication it was coming already, other than the drool there were no "typical" signs of teething. She does have some random outbursts of pain once or twice a day but the binkie helps.

She is sitting without any support and holding much more still within the last few days. We went to Woodburn yesterday to visit my grandparents who are leaving for California on Friday (snowbirds) and she sat up on her own and played a majority of the day. This weekend we are headed to my mom's house in Long Beach. It's a long drive (2.5 hours) but she hasn't seen her in almost two months! We will be celebrating Liam's 11th birthday a week early there with a little party.

The other interesting stuff is that I recently took a temperament test online through our Kaiser doctor. Check with your doctor about this quiz if you have a baby older than four months. It will help you to determine some main points of your baby's temperament and give you strategies for coping or helping your baby with their natural instincts. For example: Pippa is categorized as an "intense" baby. Meaning she is loud, makes a lot of movement, tends to be less patient etc. What I learned is that intense babies tend to eat a bit more than other babies because they are constantly burning calories even when they sleep because they move around so much. I also learned that touching an intense baby actually stimulates them more than other babies and can lead to more intense reactions. Meaning, if you put Pippa down for a nap, leave her there. I have a tendency to pick her up and cuddle her when she's crying but in reality it's just waking her up more and stimulating her in the wrong ways. So instead I stand by her crib for a moment and help with the binkie if needed then leave her alone. My several trials of this helped her go from a 30 minute nap time to a 2 or 3 hour nap! She's also sleeping much better at night. No random wake periods. We have also determined that if she cries when she wakes up, she's not ready. She always gets up in a good mood. It's been working wonders. It's so hard to just leave her alone but it's best for her.
Another part of that is intense babies don't like to be dressed/bathed/diapered because it inhibits their movement for short periods of time. So instead of doing things quick like I'm used to, I slow down the process and she's enjoying it much more. She doesn't cry when I dress her anymore and I think it's because I give her time to flail her limbs after each movement. It takes some time to get ready for the day but it's worth it to have a happier baby. I'll leave you with the latest picture taken today.

Arms are out because she wants to be picked up, not for balance.

25 weeks old!