The Chair

Oh, the chair.  It's been through a lot.  Gabs and I have spent many many wee morning hours feeding in that chair together.  The chair has a small rip on the side pocket from where I squeezed it so hard during one of the first few painful nursing sessions.  It's the chair Gabi took each of her "monthday" pictures in on the 12th of each month (once she was able to sit up).  And now it is purely a jungle gym and a dangerous source of amusement for Gabi.  She jumps, scales, bounces on in, and [inevitably sometimes] falls off it.  Oh well.    We really should move the chair out of her room to make space for more toys, but it's hard to part with!  It continues to stay there and is one of Gabrielle's favorite things.

She will always run up to it and get quite annoyed that her teddy bears are sitting on it and she isn't.  She will rip them off of the seat and wait for me to help her get up there.  Luckily she isn't big enough to climb on the chair herself.  When she is, will probably be the point that the chair goes away for a while :) 

And once she finally gets off the chair she runs to her crib!  She's been obsessed with her crib lately.  I have a feeling that someday when she has a sister or brother she is NOT going to be thrilled about sharing her old stuff :)

Oh, that's why....

We figured out that it's not just pure drama coming from an opinionated toddler.....the poor sweet pea has started to cut her molars :(   The other night she has the exact same symptoms as when she was cutting her other teeth - crying during bottles and waking up in the night crying.  She was drinking her bottle of milk right before bed (yes, I know we need to nix the bottle soon) and suddenly started screaming half way through.  As she was lying back screaming her little head off, I noticed a big tooth poking through toward the back of her mouth on top.  Yep, that's a molar.  Poor baby!  We put her to bed, and she ended waking up around 10:30 that night....sitting up in her bed half asleep whimpering and crying.  We gave her some Tylenol and she was able to go back to sleep. 

We can't see way back in her mouth very well, but she has at least one molar coming through on the top.  She still has just 7 other teeth - four on the top and three on the bottom. 

I read up a little bit on molar teething in toddlers and it says that molar teething is so much worse because it is much more painful as well as coupled with tantrums toddlers already have.  Lovely!             

Birthdays, Babysitters, and Babies!

A couple of weekends ago we headed up north to sweet Emmett's first birthday party!  He really is such a sweet, smiley boy and he really enjoyed his party.  Gabi had fun too, but she doesn't have the concept that it's not her party every time she sees presents.  Haha...we did our best, but Gabi "helped" Emmett unwrap a few things too :)

Emmett is almost exactly two months younger than Gabrielle, but he is several inches and pounds bigger.

Gabi didn't sleep the entire way up (a two hour drive), so she was pretty beat about a half hour into the party :/  Stubborn little thing.

He was such a happy little birthday boy!

Gabrielle has pretty much given up on all of her toys as of late.  She has no interest in them.....she will still look at her books, but other than that she just wants to run around and get into trouble with things around the house.  To go along with that, however, she has started having outlandish tantrums over silly things.  If I don't let her get on the couch, for example, it results in a tantrum so dramatic that I just have to lay her on the ground and let it subside.  Drama.  That is our life right now.  She is very personable, sweet, and energetic most of the time but she really is getting dramatic with these fits.  There is a lot you can do to help a 14 month old be a  reasonable little person....but you can't make them perfect. 

Her "schedule" has been a bit messed up as I have started back with work again.  She was consistently sleeping from 8:00 to about 8:00 everyday.  Now she's waking up at 5:45, 6:00, 6:30, 7:30....who knows.  The first day back with her babysitter was a bit rough.  She didn't eat anything except for her little yogurt cup and only wanted to sit in her car seat in the middle of the living room floor.  Getting her out of the car seat and intog her jacket to go home took both me and the babysitter.  Nuf said.  She definitely wasn't bad for the sitter....just not quite herself.  She was much better the next day and was very good for my parents this past weekend.  Nick, Jason, Corinne, and I went to Bittersweet skiing on Saturday and had a blast!  We dropped Gabs off on our way out and she spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa.  Nick has skiied since he was a little boy and he wants to start Gabi in ski school with she is four or five.  I figured I needed to get my skills up and running before Gabi starts!  Haha! 

Sunday we went to church again - our second time....we missed last week because Gabi decided to wake up at 5:45am that day and then was back down for a nap by 8:30am.  She was the only tot in daycare this week at church but did very well.  She doesn't have any problem leaving us - she's just a social little girl! 

And here is a picture of Gabs with faux-hawk :) 

Her hair is still pretty sparse, but a few strands she has are getting long!

It's also getting to be baby time again!  Haha - no, not for us!!  For our friends!  Two of my good friends from college are expecting babies.  Jess is having a little girl in June and Becky is having a "surprise" in about a month from now (her husband's family didn't want to know what it is, so they have told a select few people [I know!] but it's definitely not public knowledge).  Love it!

Verbal Skills - 14 Months

Here is a little montage of Gabi's words so far at 14 months.  She doesn't have the best pronunciation in the video, but you get the idea.  She says her words the clearist when she is quite passionate about the subject - aka - she spots a dog walking down the sidewalk and points and shouts "DOG! DOG!"  Asking her to say words on command....not so much.  Haha.



She just added "hi" today.  She has sort of said it sparingly for quite a while but today I caught her looking at herself in a full-length mirror saying "hi" over and over again to her reflection.  She's been able to easily say "hi" on command the rest of the day! 

I'm very proud of my little lady!

Our Baby Can Read!

Yes, our baby can.  Dog.  That is the one word she can say really well and she can also read it.  Grandma Billie bought her the Your Baby Can Read system when she about three months old.  It comes with movies, books, and flash cards.  We look at the books and flash card sometimes, but obviously those aren't overly exciting to a baby.  G has watched the movies since she was very young and really enjoyed them.  That is the only TV she watches and I have always used that time (whether she was watching the movie in a bouncy seat, exersaucer, or now free to roam) to get some stuff done while she was entertained. 

Gabi was watching her movie on Friday and I was upstairs.  Well, Gabi came up to see what I was doing and I brought her back down to her movie and watched it with her for a minute.  The word dog appeared on the screen and Gabi said "dog dog!" and pointed to the word, then they said dog and showed a picture of a dog afterwards.  Gabi can READ the word dog all on her own!  I was so excited! 

I'm not sure how long she has been able to do this, since I don't sit and watch the movies with her :(  I always hear her saying some words and having fun with the movie...but I don't observe enough to notice that she actually read anything without other prompts until today. 

She is loving the movie more and more all the time.  She nods her head yes and no with it, they say rattle and she will go find a rattle of her own, she claps to the music, and is now learning to stomp her feet with the "if you're happy and you know it" song.  It's so funny - she lifts up her left leg really high and stomps it on the ground.  She needs a little more coordination before she just stomp both of her feet on command I guess :)

She is growing up so much and her language is continuing to develop.  She definitely says "dog" very well.  "Cat" has a few forms - "itty" "kee-ee", and "at" all mean cat now.  She also says "dad" very well in reference to Nick.  Mama is not happening at this point.  I guess she knows that she doesn't have to impress me for me to still be gaga for her :)

She is in the process of learning blue, green, bread, light, and book.  That's all I can think of right now.

14 Months....Tomorrow

Our sweet girl will be 14 months old tomorrow and she is crazy as ever!  She shakes her head yes and no to about everything, and we're not quite sure if we like having a child with an opinion. 
"Gabi come here"
:: shakes head no and runs the other way::
That pretty much summarizes it.

We read the same books over and over everyday.  She has tons of books, but she tears through the pile to find the dog book, Goodnight Moon, B is for Bear, and animal touch and feel books.

Gabi can now do monkey tricks without you having to actually teach her.  She just understands so much, you can try and tell her something to do and she'll usually do it.  Hmmm....recent favorites...
"Gabi your hair is a mess...comb your hair"  She reaches up and smooths her hair
"Gabi bite your foot"  She sticks her whole foot in her mouth (that one was particularly funny when we tried it!)

Chewing on cheese stick.  This gets messier than you might think.

Gabrielle had tons of fun with one of her boyfriends, Daxon, this weekend.  They had quite the time together and I even chased Dax around for a few minutes to try and get a couple of pictures of him.  He looks like such a tough guy, but he is really quite a sweetie. 

We've had lots of snow lately which has really hindered my new found love of letting Gabrielle run herself ragged outside.  She isn't really big enough to play in the snow so we've been pretty much confined inside the past few days.

We've gone to the library as much as we can and she has so much fun at the playgroups there.  When we get there and I get her coat off, she gets so excited that she runs in place and squeals - so cute.  She definitely isn't a mommy's girl when we are at fun places like that.  She loves to explore by herself and is perfectly content with playing by herself with the other kids.  She could care less if I'm there! 

That brings us to another new thing.  Nick and I tried a new church this past weekend.  We tried a few back when I was pregnant but once we had Gabi it was just too much to try and go out to service (first with a colicky newborn, then with a crazy crawler that absolutely required two naps per day).  The place we went was new (to us) and it had a beautiful nursery.  I wasn't sure before we went if I was going to leave Gabrielle in the nursery, but we arrived early and they showed us around.  As we went to check out the nursery Gabi's eyes lit up and she squirmed to get down.  She ran over to all the toys and was oblivious at that point if we were there or not.  We decided to leave her there and Nick and I enjoyed the service in peace.  

After mass we went to pick her up and when I peeked in the room I saw G standing by a toy with her paci in her mouth and her blankie clenched in her fist.  Oh boy.  I asked the attendant how it went and she was like "Oh, she did ok.  She kept trying to run out of the room so we had to close the door.  She cried for a few minutes when we did that, but she got over it pretty quick."  Nick and I both know better and we can assure you there was nothing quick or quiet about that situation.  Haha, she made it through and I think she had quite the time.  G was definitely ready for food and a nap at that point, so we went to IHOP and then home.  It was a good morning and we will for sure go back!
 

A decent pic of the white one and the brown one next to each other..........

Wordless Wednesday - Black & White Bath

 

Nods to Us

We've finally tried to actually teach Gabi to nod her head and she picked it right up!  It is still very primitive and unpolished but she does it.  It is so funny to watch her big uncoordinated head bob up and down :)  I'll ask "Gabi, do you want a cracker?"  ::Nods head yes::  "Gabi do you want to take a nap?" ::shakes head no::  So funny!  I've started to try with the "pleases" too....once and a while I can get her to say "pa" and nod her head yes for a cracker.  It's a start!

She seems to be trying with her words too.  She very loudly says "Dah!" and points to the dog every time she sees a dog in the house (which in our house is OFTEN) or on TV or in a book.  She also says "at" for cat.  I'm teaching her book too.  Since she brings me a book to read her every two seconds I figured that would be a good word for her.  She is getting it and saying "baw" when I say book.  She is really making the effort to try and say words when I ask her to, and of course she still babbles gibberish to herself all the time too. 

Now we just have to get her to add the last consonants onto the words she knows!  Hmmm....how to make her do that?  No idea.  Just keep practicing I presume.

Nick, Gabi, and I had a nice afternoon on Sunday.  We went to the Children's Museum and then out to lunch afterwards.  G had a ball at the museum, as expected, and really got wore out.  We spent some time in the infant/todder room first.  There was a big tower with plexiglass walls, slides, kitchen stuff, and all sorts of toys.  There is also a big water table/river type thing but we'll wait until Gabs is 2 or 3 before attempting that.  Gabi is pro at going down the stairs all by herself now.  She climbed with stairs up the tower, banged on the plexi walls, and then sat down - turned around - and slid back down the stairs on her tummy without any help from us.  That was the most exciting thing for her....because it's not like we have stairs at HOME or anything....hahaha....  We walked and walked around the rest of the museum too, though most everything else was for bigger kids.  Gabi had a ball just walking and walking wherever she wanted and we just followed.  She was so funny though - the museum building was very old and whenever the floors transitioned from wood to tile she would sidestep or even crawl over the transition.  Thumbs up for being cautious, I guess?

We had all had enough after a while and went out to a late lunch.  Gabi was walked out and hungry at that point, so it made for a great lunch!  She sat very nice and wolfed down food as fast as she could.

I used the "walked til she's worn out" approach again today.  It was sunny and not *bitterly* cold this afternoon, so I got a hat, coat, and mittens on Gabi and took her outside.  We had so much fun walking up and down the sidewalk!  She loved the walking of course, and she pointed at everything she saw "dat...dat!".  I would say the word and she would try too.  I got quite cold and eventually took her inside.  She wasn't a fan of that, but went right down for a nap.   :) 

Standing on her chair and eating my lens cap....pure heaven.

Baby locks are good.

Looking for dirt under the rug.....probably found some.

It's 2011?!?

Yes, it's the new year but here's a delicious memory of Christmas..........YUM!  Seriously, I couldn't get enough of these.  Just a Rolo melted in a pretzel with M&M's on top.

 

 Gabi got her first purse from cousin Hannah! 

Then we had a quick freeze before everything melted on New Years Eve....

Caresse was in Michigan for the holidays, so some of us were able to get together and go wedding dress shopping with her!  We went to the same place I bought my wedding dress (loved both the store and the dress) but our experience wasn't that great this time around.  The consultant we got was kind of a loon and they pretty abruptly told us our appointment was over and we had to leave after trying on about 7 dresses.  Oh well, it was still fun and Caresse got an idea of what kind of dress she wants.  We had fun visiting and that's all that matters! :)

Caresse got to "meet" Baby Temelko who's about 16 weeks cooked. 

I got a new Speedlight flash for my precious Nikon from Ron and Billie for Christmas!!  You'd think a flash would be a no-brainer but goodness....just as I thought I was getting the hang of this stuff, that flash sure knocked me down a few pegs!  It will be fun figuring that thing out!  Here was one of the first practice shots with it (that actually looked decent....by pure chance).

I got Nick's lovely cold that he had over Christmas, only it seems to have hit me about twice as hard.  I was (and am still sort of) quite miserable so we just stayed in on NYE.  Gabi was double fisting it and having a swell time though! 

"Alright Gabs, you can drop something anytime now......."

It's 2011.....oh my!  How about some resolutions?  I guess there are a few goals for this year, but nothing cool enough to be called a resolution :)