Countdown to One!

It's been awhile since I posted an update on where Evelyn is at in the major developmental areas and with her turning one on Wednesday, I figured I had better catch up!

First she is definitely what we call mobile : ) She crawls all over the place and is getting faster and faster. She can pull herself up and takes steps holding my hands, but does not yet cruise on furniture. She can balance on her own for just a few seconds and is gaining confidence with that every day. She is far more distracting in my dance classes now! She crawls up to the girls when they are warming up and is becoming a nusiance! We break for the summer at the end of May, so if she just holds off on walking til then I'll be okay. If not then I am in for a lot of work!

She crawled late and I wouldn't be surprised if she walked late (average is 13/14 months). So I have to be all the more proud of her verbal skills. Warning, skip next section if you want to avoid classic mommy bragging ; ) I had to start writing down all her words because about two weeks ago I realized she was saying new ones faster than I could keep track! She is up to more than 20 now and Bard thinks she has also said a few two word phrases, "All done" and "What's that?" I'm not convinced, but who knows? Many of the words (light, yuck, kitty, go, and more) she says very clearly and there is definitely no mistaking them. Some you have to know what she is saying, "Co" is cold and she says it everytime we go outside because apparently spring has not hit the Northwest yet, as evidenced by more snow last Saturday! All in all I am so proud of her. The average 1 year old says maybe one or two words besides mama and dada so she is quite the genius baby! Oddly enough the one word I haven't been able to get her to say is please. Uh oh. ; )

She is eating really well. She is now completely off bottles and nursing and drinks her milk from a sippy cup like the big girl she is : ( She has started eating with a spoon (see video posted on facebook for just what a disaster this is) although I have to admit when I'm in a hurry I just feed her, which is bad, I know, but seriously, I am afraid she inherited her father's table manners! For the most part she has not become a picky eater, yet, but has more likes and dislikes than she used to.

I am not sure what she weighs or how long she is, we go in for her 12 month on Thursday, so I'll find out then. However, she has pretty much grown out of all her nine month clothes and is wearing mostly 12 month. They are a bit big on her, so she has room for growth. That tells me she is probably right in the middle range. We are ready to put her in her real carseat, instead of the infant one, as soon as I have her weighed to make sure she is over the 22 pounds she is supposed to be to "graduate"

Overall she is pretty healthy although she had a fever over the weekend, her first one : ( She had a diaper rash last week two, which was another first. I think they were both due to the fact that she has her second top tooth coming in and the two on either side are really visible too. Extra saliva quickly led to a runny nose and now she has a cough, which is pretty much her first on that too. Poor kid! The temp was low (101.3) and the cough is not serious, so I'm not worried. Her ear infection at 6 months is still the only time we've been to the Dr and I would like to keep it that way!

She still sleep really well and has never really backslid from that. I put her down in her crib and she goes to sleep just fine on her own. She does about 12 hours at night and then takes a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon. Although sometimes she gets up too early for me-I really need to start the day with Matt Lauer and a cup of coffee, she always wakes up in a good mood, so I guess I shouldn't complain!

Her favorite thing to do is still look at books, and now she is pointing at everything and either saying the real word for it or making up her own in some jibberish. She loves to say moo or whoo after I do when we look at cows and owls. What is it with kids and animal sounds?! She also loves putting abjects in something and taking them out, which is a common developmental milestone for this age. And just in the last few weeks has been able to make small towers, of 2-3 blocks, on her own and knock them down, which delights her to no end!

No separation anxiety yet either. Just last week we were at a friend's party and a total stranger held her for quite a wile and she didn't mind at all. She also hasn't fussed when I or Bard or my parents have dropped her off in Baby Garden at church. Knock on wood!

She does now get fussy if she can't get what she wants. Actually, I wouldn't call it fussy so much as downright mad! This mostly applies to my laptop and cell phone and has a particularly lovely yell that she gives off when I move them away. Let the battle begin!

Okay, last thing! She loves playing games like peek a boo and "How big is Evelyn?"-to which she responds by throwing up her arms! She loves being thrown up in the air and turned upside down.

Well, that's about all I can think of for where she is at on her first birthday. If you made it this far you must be a grandparent or just honestly think my daughter is absolutely adorable. Thanks!

Evelyn has had another first these past few days-you guessed it-being told no! For the most when she is doing something she is not supposed to, Bard and I use the phrase, "Not for baby." Because typically she is trying to grab something that she is not allowed to have (like my laptop) and we want her to learn not just no, but that some things are for her and some things are not for her! I also don't want to use no all the time for a couple of other reasons, one as a parent you quickly get extremely sick of this word! Two, you get even more sick of how quickly your child learns to say it back to you-and the more you say it the more they will! And three, I want to use it for when I'm really serious in the (partially vain) attempt to have it carry more weight than if I use it all the time.

The past few days have given me a very real reason to use the word no. As many of you know, we don't currently have a furnace due to the ever continuing project of finishing our basement, or what the Bible refers to as hell. Ha ha : ) So for 3-4 days we will be without heat while the furnace is moved to another part of the basement (I don't know why) and the duct work is all redone and put along the back wall (I don't know why.) We have two space heaters that we've been moving around and if we do it just right (minus blowing the circuit breaker four times so far) than the house stays in the low 60s, which is fine.

Now, I bought these two heaters just a short time ago and one thing I liked about them is that they declared they were "cool to touch." But I knew that Evelyn would definitely be testing that claim so I decided that I should try it out first. Liars! Cool to touch if you live in hell (the real one, not our basement) I was really irritated because now I knew I would have to keep a close eye on her because of course there is always a space heater in the room she is in. Nevermind the fact that she has a box of toys and a basket of books right in front of her, as soon as she was on the floor she crawled straight for the space heater (she was already late in crawling but she couldn't have held out two more weeks so we wouldn't be in this situation? What a rebelillious child!) I looked at her and loudly and firmly said, "No!" She stopped in her tracks and looked up at me. She started to crawl again and I repeated myself. She sat up, flapped her arms and said, "Aaaggghh!" And then turned and crawled the other way. Throughout the next few days this was repeated2 or 3 times, but each time she turned away after the first or second no and didn't go back and try again until much later (which, you may differ with me on but I believe that at this stage in her brain development it takes longer for her to form a habit than just several times so it would be too much to expect her to remember no upon just seeing the heater-it would have to be repeated several more times over probably a few more days before it became ingrained in her-disagree if you like : )) Since I wasn't seeing signs of the impish smile then followed by the action I was instructing her not to take, and since she turned away after being told no, I was congratulating myself on having an amzingly obedient child! For now anyway. Then I went into the kitchen for a minute and when I came out she was pulling the cord out of the wall and putting it in her mouth! I said, "NO!!!" And she dropped the cord, looked at me, and started to cry. Sigh.

We have a long life ahead of us.

Happy Saint Patricks Day!

A Few Sweet Moments

Sundays are a contrast around our house. The mornings are busy from beginning to end-getting to church, and then four hours of making sure the kids ministry is running smoothly leave me pretty tired by the time I come home. So the afternoons are lazy, nap-filled lounge times. Often Sundays are a blur-the first half, from about 8:30-12:30, I am so focused on my job and sorting out details and issues that need to be addressed that I just have minimal interaction with Bard and Evelyn. The second half of the day, I'm exhausted and Bard and I try to relax so it is a blur of being tired and just hanging out. But this Sunday I had two sweet moments that stood out and I want to remember them.

The first was in the morning at church. In between our two services I like to get Evelyn out of Baby Garden and hold her while I am greeting families. In our new location people enter straight into where we worship, so I am able to hold her and greet while enjoying the singing myself. She loves to hear the band play and kicks her feet (to the beat of the music). Today everyone was clapping during one of the songs and I watched Evelyn looking at them. After studying them she joined in clapping! We stood together for several moments, singing and clapping. I know without a doubt that God was smiling.

The second sweet moment was later that day. After nap Evelyn was playing on the floor, looking at books. Bard was studying on the couch and I was half-napping on the love seat. I looked over and saw the two of them just sitting and studying together. They were both so focused on their books, it was adorable! I'm so glad that she loves her books and I hope that this is the beginnings of many lazy Sunday afternoons where we enjoy good books together.

Chicken Curry in a Hurry,

Evelyn is finally at that great stage to where she can eat a lot of what we have for dinner. Now, this doesn't work all the time, because often she needs to eat before we are finished making dinner, but it's fun some of the time. She had spaghetti a few weeks ago and loved it, but we have her seen her happier than when she tried "Chicken Curry in a Hurry!"

Bard has this great chicken cookbook (of course he does!) and a lot of our dinner meals come out of it. The chicken curry has been a favorite of ours. It's really simple-just some curry, cumin, onions, garlic, with tomato paste and chicken broth. You just simmer it on the stove with an apple, peas and carrots and then pour it over rice or couscous. One dish recipes are my favorite : )

Anyway, we gave some to her the other night and she went crazy! She was flapping her arms and saying "yum yum yum!" the whole time we were feeding her. It was hilarious. She shrieked when I didn't feed her (we're working on please!) and I think she ate as much as I did!

She loved it the next day for lunch too, which was awesome. Looks like she inherited her mother's love for Asian food!

And yes, Bard found the curry in her diaper the next morning ; )

Yes, We Have a Third Tooth, and No, I Am Not Listening to My Pediatrician

On Friday, after months of waiting, one of Evelyn's top teeth is finally popping through! I thought she would be heading to kindergarten with just two bottom teeth : ) She was a bit fussy-just sensitive really-but slept fine, which is nice. It's so odd to see her take actual bites of food. Just the sound says "growing up" to me. My baby is definitely not a baby for much longer.

Now, on to Pandora's box. Last summer (actually on my birthday), the American Academy of Pediatrics changed it's longstanding recommendations that children between the ages of 1 and 2 drink whole milk and after 2 drink 2%. The new recommendations are for children to switch straight to 2% at 12 months and forgo drinking whole milk due to the childhood obesity epidemic. Now, to be clear, the recommendation is for children who are at risk for being overweight or who have a family history of heart disease or high cholesterol. However, I am not sure I know anyone who does not have some family history of heart disease or high cholesterol, so I think that pretty much applies to everyone.

At our one year appointment our pediatrician said quite specifically that we should start our children on 2%. I emphatically disagree and actually have already started giving Evelyn whole milk. Here is Pandora's Box, because I realize that I have many friends who are in the medical field and/or have very strong opinions on the health of their children, and may think I am wrong for not following this guideline. I welcome your comments, of course if you know me at all you know your arguments are more likely to make me stubbornly dig my heels in ; ) Now, it will probably surprise most of you (and you will either be relieved or disappointed) that I did not make a big stink about this to my pediatrician. But, it was the end of the day, I wanted to go home and watch LOST, and I honestly just didn't care! But, I'll share my reasoning with you.

The AAP is right to be concerned about obesity amongst children, it is truly horrible. And they state that the reason they have discontinued recommending whole milk to children, is not that they don't need the fat (fat is very important for brain development), but more because they are getting the fat elsewhere and don't need the added fat from whole milk. Well here is a duh moment for me. Instead of removing whole milk from our children's diets, wouldn't it make more sense to remove the ice cream, cheetos, and McDonalds? If I had to hazard a guess I would say the junk food is worse for our toddlers than milk is for them. Now, don't get me wrong, I love all those foods and in fact had two out of three of them just in the last week! However, I don't eat them often, I don't feed them to my daughter and when I do, it will be in moderation. There is nothing wrong with fatty foods. I've read the whole bible and although some rather embarrassingly large chunks of the old testament are a bit blurry, I'm fairly sure that sweets and treats are not a sin and won't send you to hell. I am a firm believer in chocolate cake, and since God invented the cocoa bean, I'm pretty sure He is too!

My guess is that the AAP, having said for years that children need to eat more healthy, having finally despaired and just decided to remove fat from children's diets any way they can. But it seems rather ironic to me that the underlying message is if we can't beat 'em join 'em. Okay, maybe not that extreme, but I do find it odd that as parents we should never stop telling our children the right thing to do, no matter how much they ignore us, yet here is the AAP doing just that! I know, I know, I have to live in the real world. But I can still disagree with the way it is!

So, Evelyn is eating dinner right now and enjoying her whole milk. Both Bard and I have parents/grandparents with cholesterol issues and heart problems. But Evelyn eats very healthy in every sense of the word. Most of the food she has is organic, no added preservatives, salt or sugar. She eats more than the recommended daily amount of fruits and vegetables, whole grains- in breads, cereal, oatmeal, and rice/soy cakes, and lean ground turkey or chicken. Her typical day is oatmeal with applesauce or bananas for breakfast, soy cakes for snack, some chicken with peas and bread for lunch, yogurt for snack, and chicken with peas, corn, and bread for dinner. Bard and I are not quite that militant but we eat pretty healthy, don't watch much TV and both have regular work outs and active lifestyles. Of course as she grows, if I see her developing a weight issue, I will adjust her diet and activities. I think it's sad that the AAP has to adjust what are perfectly fine guidelines just because many parents are unable to set good eating habits for their children.

Wow, I can see a lot from up on this soapbox, but I better come down now and go eat some cheetos!

A big fat crazy catch up blog.

Oops. Okay, I think my life is finally returning to normal so maybe I'll have a chance to blog a bit more! Work was crazy busy stress for a while, at worst I worked 46 hours in one week, which was just terrible. But last week was much better and since I'm sitting here blogging, this week must be off to a good start!

So, what have we been up to in the past month? Well mostly I've just been so grateful that Evelyn is such an easy going baby. I've carted her around everywhere, Ikea, home Depot, Value Village, and multiple coffee shops. She takes it all in stride and even gets excited when I start getting her ready. Yes, her little arms flap and she says "Go go go!" It cracks me up. She didn't seem to mind all the long hours I spent at the office either. Our church and office moved so I was there a lot packing, unpacking, cleaning, organizing, etc. I'm not sure why but somehow most of the stuff our church has accumulated in the past five years came under my jurisdiction to take care of and you just wouldn't believe what an odd amount of junk we had! Trust me, it's all gone now, I'm not really known for being a pack rat! Evelyn of course also helped test out all the new toys we bought and liked the plastic wrapping the best. All this while we listened to Cold Play and Slumdog Millionaire. She was rarely fussy and seemed pretty happy to be in different places with different people. The best was when I set up a pacnplay in the office bathroom, plugged in a stereo for music, turned out the lights and shut the door. She went right to sleep and stayed that way for two and a half hours! Now that is a good baby!

Other than being a trooper about work, she has been demonstrating some other fun habits. She is definitely a daredevil child. She loves to be thrown up in the air, spun around, and turned upside down, she laughs until she can't breathe-it's hilarious. She comes by it quite naturally cause as many of you know (sorry Melissa) I love scary roller coasters, they make me laugh out load!

Since she is almost a year old, we have hit some new developmental milestones that are fun as well. She has started drinking real milk (although still nurses/has some formula). That step seems so big to me! She took right to it and didn't seem to mind the difference at all. Unfortunately she has not continued to be so adjustable with other eating habits. She used to eat anything I put in front of her, but I can now see her developing a preference for food items with a certain taste or texture. She doesn't seem to mind slimy banana pieces, but won't eat pieces of tomato. However she loves spaghetti and dried tomato, so I think it's just the raw ones that bother her. She still eats really well, but there are other issues like that one which are just plain confusing to figure out!

She is also moving like crazy. Gone are the days when she would stay still while I changed her diaper. Now she seems determined to fold herself into a pretzel while I am trying to get a diaper on her before she pees everywhere! She has also discovered that it's much more fun to move all over the house than to sit one place. I never knew my floors were so dirty and it's impossible to keep them clean enough for her, she is just going to have to eat gross things and survive! And if I don't know about it, I'll survive too ; ) but nobody tell Bard cause he would freak out! : ) She doesn't crawl all the time but does a mixture of crawling, scooting, rolling, and the army crawl on her belly. I don't know why, but the Dr said they don't even consider crawling a developmental milestone anymore and she'll probably go straight from that to walking. Yikes. The funniest thing to see is that she loves to lay on her stomach and push up, so that she is just on her hands and tips of toes (yes, a man push up although I'll have you know I'm perfectly capable of doing them too!) She'll sometimes walk her hands back toward her legs so it almost looks like she is bending over and touching her toes. It cracks me up! I do love that even though she moves everywhere now, she is still often content to sit on my lap and play and she'll still sit on the floor and read books for quite a long time. : )

She has definitely not gotten quieter in the past month! She talks constantly and if you don't pay attention she will take it up a notch! She says several words now, hi and yay seem to be her favorite. Often when I go in to get her from her nap she'll say "hi yay hi yay!" over and over again when she hears me open the door! She also says, bye bye, sock, car (of course), yum, yuck, and book. And maybe more, I can't remember. We're working on please and diaper. She recognizes many other words and it's so funny to say them and see her stop what she is doing and pay attention to what we are saying. Not sure how long that will last though!

My favorite is experiencing different things with her. I love taking her for walks and reading to her. I love bringing her to the Y with me while I teach dance cause the girls love her and she loves them. I love watching her get excited when she hears Bard come home. I love seeing her face light up when she sees someone she knows (or doesn't know for that matter-no stranger anxiety yet, cross your fingers!) And I love playing new games with her and seeing how she'll respond to something different.

All in all, even with all the craziness, it was a good month because I love my family and am luck to have them.

Happy Eleven Months!