3/23/14
Time flies when you're having fun. Lately, having fun has meant chasing Erica around as she's taken her first steps and pushing her toys around, and/or crawling everywhere with much more speed than a few months ago!
It's been about a month and a half since my last post, which has been way too long! Since my last update, we've gone through the typical motions of a booming and growing little girl. Each day, Erica shows us something new, or shows us a "new and improved" version of things she already does.
- She is a dancer! Whenever there is music playing; whether it's from a toy or the radio/iPod, she starts dancing. Dancing can mean anything from rocking back and forth, shaking her butt, or swaying. Regardless, it always gets going when the music starts.
- She is constantly on the go! She never stops moving. Whether it's her bedtime bottle and her leg is kicking, in the bath with both hands splashing, or she's pushing her toys around, crawling around the house, or trying to wiggle out of our arms while being held, she never stops!!!
- She's a talker. She's not saying much yet, but she's always babbling and making noises. In the car, we grunt back and forth to each other while I'm driving. Her favorite thing to say is "Ba ba" which is what our nanny calls her bottle, and so we all refer to it as such.
- She's smart. If she pushes her toys into an object and can't move it forward any more. She shakes at it to try to rock it free. If that doesn't work, she walk around the side of the toy and pushes it in reverse once she gets to the front of it. She's also learning her shapes...very slowly, but she can put some of her shapes into her play cookie jar.
- She loves her puppy, Lexi. She tries approaching her more often; whether Lexi likes it or not! She uses her lips to almost say "puppy", but it comes out as "puh puh." When we get home from being gone, Lexi gets a treat if the house isn't destroyed. Erica has started giving her these treats, and both girls seem to love it!
- She has a fun personality. She's always smiling and rarely crying. If she cries, we know she needs something, and she doesn't cry too often. Although, now that she's crawling, walking and falling more frequently, we've had a few more tears lately!
- She's becoming more independent/self-sufficient. She plays for 10+ minutes on her own at times. We put her in the sun room with her toys and do things in the kitchen, and she entertains herself. She has been holding her own bottle for several months now, but it is really nice that she can feed herself the bottle from the floor or in her high chair. She's also getting more into finger foods. Her favorites are string cheese, peas (which she refused to eat when we pureed home-made food), and blueberry bread. She has slowly started to try new foods, with mixed results, but she typically likes them better if she feeds it to herself first, rather than us getting it to her!
- She's very curious! She's constantly pulling out drawers and trying to open cabinets! We've installed door locks and handle locks on things, and have rearranged drawers in the bathroom to keep things out of her reach. Whatever she does, she's always looking to explore and discover new things. It's so fun to see her learn new things all the time!!!
Over the past month, we've also transitioned her away from mommy milk to regular whole milk. Laura successfully made it 11 months pumping for Erica. And the remaining milk we have in the house will get her to the magical 1 year mark, which Laura set out to achieve long before Erica arrived in our arms. Both with whole milk and mommy milk from the bottle, Erica has always been very easy to transition to new things. She had her first bottle with me almost 11 months ago, and she never had a problem with it! Her first time with whole milk, we mixed it with mommy milk at almost half and half, and she guzzled it! She never liked mommy milk when it was cold, but now doesn't want her milk heated anymore, she just prefers it cold. Along with moving towards real milk, we've also had her drinking more water. She has a baby nalgene bottle with a flip-up straw/sipper and she loves drinking water from it!
She's still a pretty, darn good sleeper as well! We put her down around 7pm every night, and she'll typically sleep until 7am or later the next morning. Some mornings she's up a little earlier, other mornings we wonder how late she'll sleep, but it's consistently around 12 hours on average!
Daddy successfully survived a week long work trip while mommy was out of town and left us home alone. Both Erica and I had a blast together, and Lexi did pretty well at keeping us all in line without mommy around. Some dads seem to be scared of having to babysit for a night, but I love having my time with my Little Nugget with no one around...it's the best thing ever!
Other than those things, it's been a pretty typical month since my last update. I'll leave you with a final story: Several nights ago, I decided to get Erica started on our nightly bath routine. However, that night, I mixed things up a bit. Instead of starting the tub with her help like normal, I decided we should get undressed first, and then get the tub going. So, while Erica was standing bare butt at the edge of the tub while it filled, I looked down and noticed she pee'd all over the floor! I screamed at the amount of pee puddling at my feet. Erica then screamed at my screams. Laura laughed from the kitchen. So, I had the little screaming girl sit in the tub while I rinsed her smaller tub and then started everything over again. I'm still curious as to who screamed louder and who was more scared. I'm not sure, but I think I win on both accounts!!!
Well, with that, I'll wrap this up. If you're still following this blog, thank you so much. I'll update this in just over a week when my Little Nugget turns 1 year old. Until that point, this has been the best 11 and a half months of my life, and I'm so happy I get to keep her in my life as long as I'm around! Thanks for all of your kind words and best wishes you've sent us along the way. We've certainly been super lucky to have a happy and healthy baby in our lives for the past year! Take care!!
