Ten

Wow, here you are 10 months old. I think I say this every month, but the time is just flying by. You are officially a total chub at this point. Now that you are on formula and solids your weight has jumped right back to the 90th percentile! Your thighs are just luscious. =)

You had your 10 month old well check and they did the Denver on you. You did pretty good on the social section, but you don't wave bye-bye which 80% of ten-month olds do. You are a couple of months behind in the language and gross motor section, no words other then da-da-da, which you use for everything, and you aren't pulling yourself to stand yet. That is no surprise. Your sister was "late" on crawling, walking, ect. too. You did awesome in the adaptive section, scoring at about the 13 month level. The nurse said she has never seen a baby put the block in the cup as fast as you did. That could be because your favorite toy involves putting balls into little slots. You sit and grin and laugh and plunk the ball through over and over. You are very skilled at picking things up and moving things around. I don't worry about all this, I know you're cruising along at your own pace and you'll get to the walking and talking soon enough. It is kind of interesting to think about it from a personality angle. You definitely like manipulating the world around you! Emily made the observation after your appointment that your eyes were following Dr Bartlett's stethoscope the whole time he was examining you.

You are such a sunny, smiling baby. You have decided you are done with baby food and only want to eat big people food. The problem with that is you still only have four teeth! So, we have been experimenting with chunks of things that dissolve easily. It's hard not to have a carb heavy diet this way, because the other thing is, you like a lot of variety. We can't get away with feeding you the same thing day after day. You'll eat three bites of green beans and then spit them out until we offer you something else. So opinionated already!

You love your big sister and she loves you too. she gets frustrated sometimes when you get into her stuff, but she loves to make you smile and no one can make you smile quicker then her.

I love you baby girl. Everyday holds more delights with you in our world!

Nine

You are nine months old sweet thing! Where is the time going? You are such a little chunk now, it's getting hard to carry you around. You celebrated starting your ninth month by getting your top two front teeth. That brings you up to four chompers! You are glad to have them too because baby food is getting really uninteresting to you. You watch others eat with rapt attention, smacking your lips, but when you're offered a bite of your food, you clamp your lips shut and turn your head away. I can't say that I blame you, but there is the whole choking factor to consider. We are experimenting with different kinds of food to offer you. You love cut up banana and (shhh) French fries.

We celebrated your first Christmas and it was pretty fun. You were of course initially more interested in the wrapping paper then the gifts, but you quickly developed a love for your Care Bear. It is so cute to see you snuggle up to it.

You are so mobile these days. You can get from sitting to lying and then back to siting again. You don't crawl so much as slide, but that doesn't slow you down at all. Soldiers could take lessons from you. You pull yourself all over the house, sliding along on your stomach. Some day you'll figure out that those legs are good for more then just the occasional extra leverage and steering.

You are mostly a cheerful little girl. We can always tell when it's nap time, because that's the only time you're cranky. You love being able to chase the kitty and try to involve yourself in anything big sister is doing. Both of them are going a little more crazy the more mobile you get. I've noticed that Emily has gotten very bossy this last month. She's going to keep you toeing the line. We are starting a new year and I can tell it's going to be so much fun! I love you!

Merry Christmas

Here's wishing you a Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful day, with ample opportunity to relax and enjoy your families.

May God give you a blessed New Year!

Christmas is Coming

I wanted to write some posts in anticipation of Christmas, but it just didn't happen. Things have been busy and I am left with this strange feeling that somehow Christmas already happened, but at the same time I can't believe it will be here in three short days. It doesn't make sense, but hey, it's how I feel.

Too alleviate this feeling a little I'm trying to just stop, look back and see what we've done during the "Christmas Season" to lead up to the big day.

We got our Christmas tree. Emily could actually help decorate it this year. That was fun, although she really likes things to be clumped together. This year between school and church she has added three homemade ornaments to our collection. She is such a little perfectionist. She brought home two ornaments from school yesterday. After searching the whole tree she couldn't find a spot that met her requirements, so she just decided to leave them off. Even Katrina got into the action a little.

We made a gingerbread house. Emily says this is her favorite thing about Christmas. She is her Father's daughter, since she had to make it look exactly like the picture on the packaging. (No, it wasn't homemade gingerbread, so sue me) She was a little sad Grandpa wasn't here to help her this year.

We made Christmas cookies. According to Christoph it's not Christmas without iced sugar cookies. Emily had a ball cutting out shapes and then choosing colors of icing and applying them ever so carefully with a butter knife. She also got flour down her entire front making them.

We took Emily shopping and let her pick out presents for some of her friends and one for Katrina. This was a little overwhelming for her (too many choices) but she did like helping to wrap them and deliver them.

Emily got to go see the Nutcracker for the first time, along with Christoph and I. It was fun to watch her watch it. I think she liked the dance of the snowflakes the best, although I would say the Waltz of Flowers was a close second. Of course she is three, so there were some interesting moments toward the end, but overall it was positive.

We have also been doing advent. We missed a Sunday and it hasn't been real structured, but we have done way better then before since this year we actually got the candles and pulled something together. It's nice to have a very specific time to focus of Christ, even though I try to be conscious of why we are celebrating all the time.

Hmm, I do feel better. We have done a lot! I'm also sensing a theme. Emily is WAY more involved this year. She has an idea of what's going on, wants to help with everything, and seems really excited. She is such a little sweetheart. I know this is Katrina's first Christmas, and I am happy for that, but really at her age, she could care less. She's happy just getting some wrapping paper to shred.

Even more fun things are to come. Tomorrow we get to go see the Nativity movie, Sunday is Italian dinner at our house and then Christmas day of course. We are also going to go to Zoolights in Portland with Christoph's cousin and her husband next weekend. So, even though our days are full and life is feeling a little hectic, Christmas is so fun!

Crazy Eight

Wow, I can't believe the last month is gone already. Obviously it caught me by surprise and that's why this post is twelve days late. I was debating skipping this month and combining eight and nine, but I know if I wait November will just be a blur in my mind's eye.

So little Bee, here you are, eight months old. You are getting so big. Literally; you weigh 21 pounds now! You know what that means, no more infant car seat. Your sister got moved into a booster and bequeathed you her old seat. Emily was a little sad at first. but she seemed to get over it pretty quickly. You, on the other hand are not completely thrilled with your new upright position. It is much harder to fall asleep in the car these days.

Your first tooth broke through on Nov 18th! The second one is taking it's sweet time to join it's mate. It is just under the surface and should break through anytime. I think you look a little funny with just one tiny white tooth peeking out when you smile. It will look more balanced when there are two.

You are a busy little girl. You like to grab everything that's in reach, and if you can't reach it you squirm and roll and scoot until you can. There will be no stopping you once you start crawling little girl! Considering what a grabby girl you are, and how little you are, you have an amazing grasp of what the word "no" means. Even if it is said in a calm quiet voice you immediately stop what you're doing and get this little pouty look on your face. If it is said at all forcefully you burst in to tears. So, you are very obedient, but not happy when you don't get your way.

Overall, it has been a month of firsts. First tooth, first Thanksgiving, first snow, first time in a big girl car seat. I'm looking forward to your first Christmas! It will be fun to see if you get excited about ripping wrapping paper or not. You are such a little cutie and I am loving every second of watching you grow up. Every time I turn around some kind of subtle change seems to have happened. I love you precious girl!

Happy Thanksgiving

Yes, I realize this is two days after the fact, but Happy Thanksgiving anyway. I hope anyone reading this had a wonderful day full of family, feasting, and fun. We had a great day and got to play in the snow! We have spent the last three Thanksgivings with our friends the Hoffmans. The have a 19 year old tradition of having Thanksgiving dinner at Cooper Spur which is located at the base of Mt Hood. The food was delicious, and it was really nice not to have to cook or clean anything.

It varies from year to year if there is snow or not, but this year was a good one. It started snowing on our way up there and continued to snow all through the meal. I think when we left there was a good three inches of snow on the ground. So, in addition to it being Katrina's first Thanksgiving, it was her first snow. This year Emily is old enough to really enjoy the snow too. She was having a blast. About now you are probably wondering, "Where are all the pictures?" Therein lies the painful part of this whole story. Christoph grabbed the batteries fresh off the charger, put them in the camera and figured we were good to go. When we got there, we discovered that the batteries were dead. So, no pictures of Katrina tasting snow, Emily's first snowball fight, Emily's first snow angel, the beautiful scenery, you get the idea. To make things even worse I somehow left the video camera on during dinner, draining that battery, so we couldn't even film the excitement.

Oh well, I tried to take lots of mental pictures and be thankful that we were all together and having lots of fun. If it doesn't snow in Corvallis this year we'll just have to go on a day trip and bring extra batteries!

I'm Mean

I work as a nurse in a children's clinic. So, a big part of what I do every day is give kids their immunizations. Of course they always cry, and it is the part of my day I like least. On the other hand, I know it's only a momentary pain and that they will get over it pretty quick. After I give the shots I usually leave the room ASAP so the kids can get comforted by their parents and not have me there reminding them of their suffering. Or making them afraid something else bad is coming. Sometimes I get dirty looks from the kids, but usually they are focused on Mommy or Daddy's hugs. Last night, however, was a first. This cute little four year old gets his shots, then he is standing on the table getting his hug and he looks over his parent's shoulder, points at me and yells, "You're mean." Ouch! You gotta love this job.

I just have to get up on my soapbox for a second. Two of my biggest pet peeves at my job are:
A. When parents walk in to the clinic saying, "You're going to be mad soon," "Oh you're not gonna like this" and "You won't be so happy in a minute." Why not just keep a positive attitude and let the kid judge the experience for themselves, instead of telling them at the very beginning that they are going to hate it!
B. When parents don't give their kids any warning that they are getting shots, pretend like everything is so great, and make the nurse do a sneak attack. That just seems twice as mean to me. The kid is all happy and then suddenly it's like, "What the heck just happened!"
Are these the only options for doctor's visits? Where is the balance? How about just explaining what's going on. It's fun to see the doctor, he listens to your heart and looks in your ears. We get to see how much you grew. Then you have to have a few shots. It hurts, but it keeps you from getting sick and then you get stickers! Maybe even a trip to get ice cream. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think an informed child can cope better. In the long run, visits to the pediatrician help them learn that sometimes life hurts, but the rewards are worth it. :)