Bipedal Preambulation

Catching up with a few pictures

It's been a busy summer here at raising hill and I've been terrible at keeping this blog updated. Here a few photos to show what we've been doing:

Mei-mei takes a stroll with her wagon while her brother waits (not-so-patiently) for his turn. (Note: I've also realized that his fingers go in his mouth whenever I get the camera out -- unless he's specifically asked me to take a picture. Hmmmm.)

 

Mei-mei frequently displaces Cowboy from his bed while she rolls around and tries to do somersaults. However, she makes it up to him by giving him one of her "head-butt hugs".

A rare hug from big brother. She looks as surprised about it as I was.

1.  Z was very excited to wear his favorite pajamas on "Pajama Day" at preschool. He wanted me to take a picture of them, so he did the same cute little stick-your-knee-out pose he does every time he asks me to photograph an outfit. Chris does this exact pose when he tries on new pants. I half expect Z to say, "How do these look, honey?"

2.  Ahh, summertime in Seattle.  Heading out for a Sunday walk.  Of course, after we walked a few blocks in pouring rain and got thoroughly drenched, the skies cleared, the sun came out, and we looked ridiculous in our rain gear.

3.  Little Miss still loiters around the house, but now her range has increased because she no longer needs to hold onto anything.  She’s also started taking a few tentative little steps, but she’s not fully walking yet.  I know it’s coming VERY soon though!  Time to get her some shoes.

One year later, and you still look great in red

Happy 11 months to my sweet girl!

Stop that!

You are absolutely adorable, Little Miss, but you still need to stop this "standing up" business.  And that cruising thing you’ve started to do, moving from the coffee table to the couch to Cowboy?  That needs to stop too.  I’m not ready for my baby to grow up, so you’re going to have to stop this toddler-like behavior.  (Also, your big brother is not very happy that you can reach most of his toys when he puts them on the couch to keep them away from you.)

Happy 10 months, Li’l Miss!

How has the time gone by so quickly? My little Miss is already 10 months old today!

My precious girl, in just 10 months you have added so much joy and sweetness to our lives.  Everyone comments on how happy and content you are, and it’s so true.  You are always looking for a smile and you kick and screech happily when you see Daddy, Z, or me.  Lately you’ve been a little shy with strangers, but in spite of gripping my hair or neck fiercely, you still offer a small grin to anyone who smiles at you.  You have gotten very vocal (and LOUD – people are often surprised at the volume a tiny body like yours can generate) and have started making noises that sound an awful lot like words (“hi” in response to my greeting, “ma” when you want my attention, “moe” when you want more food).  You’re not crawling yet, but you are moving very quickly around on your belly.  You also do a lot of rocking on your hands and knees, so I know that crawling is just around the corner.  You are generally happy to eat anything, although you’re still not a big fan of chunky textures.  You love to watch your brother and try to play with whatever toy he has (and he’s very good about giving you another toy to play with before he takes his toy out of the room where you can’t follow him).  You like to turn (and chew on) the pages of the books we read to you, and you especially like “Goodnight Moon”.  You are very curious about things you can hold in your hands, and you turn them around and around to check out all their sides before putting them in your mouth.  You are very patient about your somewhat inconsistent nap schedule (you get a later nap 2-3 mornings a week because we have to take your brother to preschool or other activities), and you have been sleeping 12 hours through the night since you were 9 months old.  You are happy to ride in whatever stroller or carrier we put you in, but you’ll only nap in the Phil & Ted’s.  We moved you to the big car seat a few weeks ago, and while I am still getting accustomed to it, you adjusted quickly.  You are very social and hate to be left behind in the play room if we are doing something in another part of the house, so you belly-crawl to the gate and chew on or shake it while yelling for someone to come get you.  You’ve perfected your supersonic screech, and I’m sure dolphins and dogs around the world look for earplugs as you practice your echolocation skills.  You got your first two teeth when you were 7 months old, and seem to have decided that two are enough for now.  You are showing more and more of your feisty, extroverted personality every day, but the primary quality that shines through everything is your sweetness.
You are growing up so quickly, and I cherish every moment I get to share with you.  I love you, my sweet girl!
 
*Yes, I realize I use the word “sweet” a lot in this post.  I tried to come up with another adjective, but “sweet” is really the one that describes my Little Miss best of all.

Stop this nonsense, please

 

And by “nonsense”, I mean the whole “getting up on your knees and rocking back and forth, just moments away from taking off at a full crawl”.  It’s already enough of a challenge keeping an eye on you as you pull yourself around the house (very quickly, I might add) on your belly.

9 month stats

 

Little Miss had her 9-month check-up this morning with the Dude.  As we suspected, she’s quite a Skinny Minnie (or a supermodel in training)!  She weighs 14lbs 11oz (-3rd percentile), she’s 26.75” long (25th percentile) and her head is 44.6cm (70th percentile).  I guess that actually makes her a bobble-head, doesn’t it?

Even though she’s quite thin, the Dude isn’t concerned.  He said that as long as her growth is proportional (i.e. her height and weight are increasing at the same rate), she’s fine.  Babies often hit a plateau around 9 months.  He did suggest that I increase the amount of fats in her diet, so I will start the Ben and Jerry’s introduction soon.  We went through the same thing with Z, so I’m guessing that’s just how we grow babies around here.

First day

My sweet boy went to his first day of preschool today!  He’ll be going two days a week at least through the summer, and will probably increase to three days a week in the fall.  I was nervous about his first day, but he, in typical Z fashion, was excited and completely unfazed by the idea of starting something new.  He likes to recite “to-do” lists (“Wake up…change diaper…go downstairs…eat snack…wash hands…get Mei-mei…GO PLAYGROUND!”), and every list ended with “GO PRESCHOOL!” this morning.

I wasn’t sure how the drop-off was going to go, but it was super easy.  I introduced him to the head teacher, Miss Aida, and he immediately started exploring.  She took his hand and showed him where the play area is and he happily trotted off, calling back, “Bye-bye Mommy I love you!”  So that was that.  He was good to go and it was only 9:02 AM.  It reminded me of how I agonized for weeks over when and how to wean him.  Before I got around to actually doing it, he decided on his own that he was done with nursing and never looked back.  He’s like that.

When I went to pick him up at 1 PM, Miss Aida said that he had a really great first day and was very happy.  He wanted to explore a lot so they helped redirect his attention, but she said that he was cooperative and didn’t melt down at all.  They went on a nature walk, which he really enjoyed, and the first word on his daily report sheet was “busy”.  Yep, that’s my Z!

9 months in, 9 months out

Happy 9 month birthday to our little Miss S!  Mei-mei turned (turns?) 9 months old at some point between today and tomorrow.  (How exactly does one celebrate a monthly birthday if one is born on the 31st and there is no 31st day in the current month?)  I can’t believe she’s already such a big girl and I’m a bit nervous about what’s just around the corner:  mobility.  Right now she moves around using a combination of belly crawling and rolling, but knowing her determination (especially when it comes to getting to her big brother’s toys), I expect to find her crawling, and then walking, soon.  And next thing you know, she’ll be asking to borrow the car keys.

Mei-mei has had a hard couple of weeks leading up to her 9 month birthday, but she’s a trooper!  She had the stomach flu for a solid week (I had it for four days and felt like I’d been hit by a truck, so I can’t imagine how terrible she felt), then her brother dropped a train on her head, and then she hit one of the most fuss-inducing developmental milestones in her first year.  After getting to the point where she could sleep through the night (6 PM – 7 AM) about 2 of every 3 nights, she entered the dreaded “9 month sleep regression” stage.  She’s back to waking up once in the middle of the night and is now having trouble taking naps during the day as well.  Hopefully we will get through this stage quickly!

On the fun side, she is babbling up a storm.  She keeps up a running commentary to herself while she plays, and she grumbles loudly in her crib while she is refusing to nap.  (Considering how much her brother talks, I’m a bit worried about how anyone will get a word in edgewise around here.)  She also snuffles while she grins at you.  I love this.  Sometimes she breaks into a full snort, which makes me laugh, which then makes her snort again.  It’s adorable.

She’s still nursing 4-5 times a day and eating 3 solid meals as well.  So far she hasn’t refused anything I’ve offered her, although she did break out in hives after I gave her avocado.  I’m going to try avocado again in a few weeks, but for now she fills up on pears, carrots, peas, squash, sweet potato, green beans, zucchini, chicken, rice and quinoa.

I’ve been keeping her in the infant car seat because I’m not quite ready to give up the convenience of the grab-n-go baby.  However, I suspect that her 9 month check-up will verify that she’s outgrown the bucket seat and needs to move into the full-size car seat.  Bye-bye portable napping apparatus!

Anyway, enough Mommy babble and on to more cuteness!  Here’s a video of the little Miss Chatterbox from today.  Happy 9 months, sweet angel!

Happy Birthday Chris!

Sequence: Peek-a-boo

Mei-mei often looks serious in photos because she only smiles or laughs when she can see my face.  Since I use a DSLR most of the time, I am hidden behind the camera unless I focus first and then try to look up without moving.  Since I am one of those people who steers my bike into the middle of the street if I turn around to look over my shoulder, you can imagine that looking up without losing focus is not my strong point.  However, sometimes I manage to do it!  Here is a sequence of photos I took today.  I started off behind the camera for the first picture, then I looked up for the second.  I continued to alternate like that (doing my best impersonation of a groundhog), so I was behind the camera for every other picture and looking at her for the pictures in between.

If you look closely at the open-mouthed grinning pictures, you can also see that she’s cut her second tooth (bottom middle, right next to her first tooth).  Soon she’ll be able to eat all of the food that Z keeps trying to share with her!

Sitting pretty

Mei-mei took her own sweet time learning to sit up by herself (she finally got the hang of it right before she turned 8 months old), but now that she’s a sitter, she’s the cutest sitter there ever was.  She’s also a big fan of trying to make motorboat sounds and sticking her tongue out.

Duck, duck, goose

Not to be outdone by Easter eggs, plastic eggs and chocolate eggs, Mei-mei simultaneously joined the egg-stravaganza and accomplished another milestone:  her first goose egg.
Mei-mei is a big fan of Z’s toys, and she particularly likes the toys with pull-strings.  One such toy is his wooden clown car (see pictures below).  Until yesterday, the clown car was stored on the top shelf of the bookcase.  It’s since been moved to the bottom shelf, now that we’ve discovered that she can reach the pull-string and pull it down onto her own forehead.  It raised a pretty good bump and left a bruise, but in typical baby miracle-healing fashion, after 10 minutes she was as good as new.  And ready to tackle that clown car again.

What do you need to eat pie?

Why, teeth, of course.  So in honor of pi day, Mei-mei has cut her first tooth!  Anyone who has experienced her jaws of steel will understand why I’m a bit nervous about this development.  When she was born, the lactation consultant said, “She has the strongest clamp-down reflex of any baby I’ve met in over 15 years of doing this job.  You, my dear, have the pit bull of babies.”  And now my (sweet, adorable, darling, lovely) pit bull baby has teeth.  Great.  I was kind of hoping that she wouldn’t cut any teeth until after she weaned.

Now available in 3D

After nearly 7 months of existing primarily in a horizontal plane, Mei-mei is very close to inhabiting vertical space as well (this is just a really geeky way of saying that she’s sitting up)!  Kind of.  She’s still very bendy and she supports herself with her arms, and if her head moves anywhere off of the z-axis she tips over, but it’s a start!

In addition to sitting up, she’s already an expert at rolling over.  She rolls her way around the room pretty quickly (she’s usually got her eye on a toy), so I have to keep tabs on her before she disappears under the couch.

This is starting to feel dangerously close to mobility.  I’m not sure I’m ready for that, and I know Cowboy isn’t.  He’s already got his paws full just trying to stay out of Z’s way!

Half-y Birthday!

Dear Mei-mei,

I can't believe you're already six months old!  You have been such a joy to get to know these past months, and I can't wait to learn even more about how you think and feel in the coming years.  Since the day we met you, you've been such a calm, contented baby, happily watching your brother or catching our eye to give us a huge grin.  Even though you still nurse like a pit bull, you have been a sweet and patient girl in every other regard.  You watch us with those startling blue eyes which are so full of curiosity, innocence, and sometimes, steel (you can make it VERY clear when you think I'm being ridiculous).  When I hold you, you grab onto my face, neck, hair, fingers -- whatever you can reach -- and snuggle in.  You coo and babble and you laugh if you see one of us laughing (especially your brother).  You rarely complain and can be consoled with a cuddle or a song when you are unhappy.  You put everything into your mouth, although it seems that your favorite thing to chew on is cloth (a blanket, towel, your cloth dolls, your clothing, my clothing).  When you are tired, you suck on your thumb and curl your fingers around your nose, then cover up your eyes with your other hand.  When you are excited, you kick your legs and screech happily.  I keep trying to take pictures of the top or back of your head so that I can remember your bald spot and fuzzy little noggin, but you always crane your neck around so that you can see me.  So instead, I'll remember how you always want to see what's going on and make eye contact.

I am so proud to be your mother and I am honored that I get to help you grow into a fabulous and strong woman (although my more immediate focus is to help you grow into a fabulous and strong sitter-upper -- you're still a folder-in-halfer when it comes to sitting up by yourself).  Thank you for joining our family and for being my sweet girl.

Love,
Mama

Slumber party

It’s been busy around here for the past week, as Papa and Grandma Hill have been in town visiting.  I’ll try to update pictures and this blog soon, but I had to do a quick post to announce that Mei-mei slept for 14 hours straight last night!  Of course, now that I’ve mentioned it she’ll never do it again.  But it gives me hope that someday I will be able to sleep for more than 4 hours per night.
Z, on the other hand, has been having a really rough time with sleep.  He’s always been a great sleeper (13 hours at night plus a 2 hour nap), but in the last several weeks, his night sleep has gotten terrible.  It started out with him simply being exhausted during the day (rubbing his eyes and asking to go “night night” at 10:30 in the morning), and we assumed it was because he was having to deal with his sister screaming in the middle of the night.  So we moved her out of their room temporarily, in order to help him catch up on his sleep.  Now she’s sleeping well, but he’s having trouble falling asleep and he’s getting up earlier and earlier in the morning.  During the day, it’s clear that he’s completely sleep-deprived (red-rimmed eyes, on the edge of a meltdown all day, wanting to take his nap or go to bed really early, falling asleep in his car seat or on the couch) but we can’t figure out how to get him well-rested again.  We’ve been putting him down for his nap and bedtime earlier, but he talks and kicks in his crib for a good hour before he finally falls asleep.  He’s not sick and we can’t see any molars coming in, so we’re at a loss.  We just hope that eventually he’ll get back on track.

The tipping point

The tipping point, originally uploaded by Wenmei.

Mei-mei: 4 month check-up

The little Miss had her 4-month check-up today!  Everything looks great with her and she's growing right on track.  She's 12 lbs (10-25%), 24.5" long (50-75%), and her head is 41.25cm in circumference (50-75%).  She's almost the exact same size as Z was at 4 months (she's 3.5oz heavier and her head is 1/4cm bigger), but she falls in the higher end of the growth charts than he did because she's a girl.
Mei-mei had to get her next round of vaccines as well, and she was very brave about it.  She screamed when she felt the first poke, then cried angrily at me (she has this very effective "yell-cry") for about 45 seconds before she calmed down.  She fell asleep within minutes of being strapped into her car seat and seemed pretty comfortable for most of the day.

Then came the evening.  Chris was playing basketball so I was on my own to put both kids to bed (normally, I feed Z dinner while Chris gives Mei-mei a bath, and then I nurse Mei-mei and put her to bed while Chris gives Z a bath).  I had everything lined up so that I could get Z started on his dinner, quickly give Mei-mei her bath before Z finished eating, then let him play in his playroom while I nursed Mei-mei and put her to bed.

Of course, Mei-mei was having none of that.  She started whimpering while I was getting Z's dinner ready, and escalated to a full-on scream in less than five minutes.  When I picked her up, she felt warm, so I took her temperature to find that she had a low-grade fever.  When I took off her outfit to get her ready for her bath, I saw that her entire leg was red and inflamed from the shots.  She was screaming in pain, so I gave up on the bath, gave her some infant Tylenol to help with the pain, nursed her, and put her to bed at 5:30 PM (an hour earlier than her usual bedtime).

The entire time I was doing this, Z sat in his high chair (he'd already finished his dinner) and watched.  He waited patiently until I came back downstairs from putting her to bed, and said, "Awww, Mei-mei cry.  Mei-mei boo boo cry."  Then he told me that his toe hurt and he wanted a Band-Aid too (he'd seen the Band-Aid that Mei-mei had on her thigh from the shots).  What a sweet boy.

So we made it through one more round of shots!  Her next round will be at 6 months, and the Dude suggested that we get her the H1N1 vaccine at that point as well.  Otherwise, she looks just great and is a sweet and healthy girl.

2 year check-up

Today was Z's 2-year check-up with the Dude, and it was pretty uneventful. Now that he's such a big boy he gets to weigh-in by standing on the scale, and his height is measured by standing against the wall. Granted, both methods are a bit less accurate due to the inherent wiggly nature of a 2-year old, but he weighed in at 28 lbs (75th percentile) and measured 34" tall (90th percentile). He doesn't get his head circumference measured anymore; it's just considered "huge".

The Dude gave him the once-over and pronounced him perfect, which was no surprise to me, of course. He's very healthy, he's gaining weight well, he's got the normal bumps and bruises expected on the shins and knees of a toddler, and his language development is great. He was very well-behaved during his exam, sitting quietly on my lap while the Dude listened to his heart and lungs, shined a light into his eyes, and checked his mouth and ears. And he very sweetly said, "Bye-bye Dudah" when the Dude left the room.

Even more impressive was Z's behavior during the next part of the exam: his seasonal flu shot. He didn't even make a peep when the nurse poked his thigh. He just requested to listen to "Jee ho" on my cell phone.

The best part of the check-up was the fact that it was timed very well, and we were able to slip under the radar and get a much-coveted H1N1 vaccine for the boy! The clinic had just received a handful of doses of the spray vaccine that day, and they were only giving them to children between the ages of 2 and 4. Since we were already there for our regular appointment, the Dude sent us to get the vaccine -- free of charge, no line at all. After reading about how parents have been standing in lines for 4+ hours around here (and sometimes still not getting the vaccine), I feel very lucky that we were able to get Z's first dose. We'll have to go back to get him a second dose in a month, but hopefully by then there will be plenty of vaccine and it won't be such a struggle to find.

Now I just have to find a way to get the vaccine myself -- I fall into the high risk category too, since I am the primary caretaker of a child under the age of 6 months. At least the prospect of standing in a long line by myself isn't as daunting as the idea of standing in a long line with a very cranky 2-year old.

I'll end with a moment of extreme cuteness. Today was a sunny day, so I took both children for a walk. I was wearing Mei-mei in the Baby K'tan and I pushed the Phil and Teds while Z walked next to me.  Z stopped walking and just stood in the middle of the sidewalk watching me.

Mama:  Do you want to ride now?

Z:  No.

Mama:  Do you want to keep walking, then?

Z:  No.

Mama:  Well, what would you like to do?

Z (rocking side-to-side):  Dance!

Oh how I love that boy.