Fun things!

I see you looking at me mommy!
Enough about sleeping, Katie is doing all kinds of fun things these days.
She is such a great eater,
*** sorry on last thing about katie sleeping. I'm thinking cus she was up so badly last week that she is teething so i'm on the look out for some new teeth to break through. we have been living on those teething tablets which seem to help some to calm her down. I guess she is just going through a phase and we are trying to work through it as a family but goodness it has affecting all of us!***
She is eating all kinds of things. We are getting ready for her 9 month appointment at the doctors next week and so i'm trying to fatten her up ;) we give her a little of whatever we are eating usually and also at least one tub of puree food each meal. breakfast she usually eats one tub because i nurse her in the morning about an hour before breakfast, lunch she eats at least 1 tub but usually closer to 2, and dinner she eats a tub of meat and one veggie tub. plus finger food at every meal.
Breakfast she usually eats a fruit puree and then some banana pieces that i cover in cheerios so she can pick up the pieces or pancakes if i make them. she loves them. I usually save some in the fridge for the next day but something about day old pancakes she can't pick them up as easily so she doesn't eat them if they aren't fresh. smarty pants ;)banana covered in cheerios. one of her favorites

Lunch she eats mac and cheese puree or something with pasta cus its a carb or sometimes i give her something with mix grain or wheat pasts or something like that plus another fruit or maybe a veggie puree. finger foods... humm either puffs, or some bread or toast (she loves bread. when we go to restaurants she grabs across the table for the bread basket!)
Dinner she eats one tub of meat puree which is so sick! and a veggie puree. Finger foods she eats for dinner are usually a veggie like peas or carrots, we tried cauliflower but she wasn't a an. we also tried hamburger meat the other day and she didn't like that. we have tried pasta pieces but she kinda choked and we tried chicken last night and she wasn't too sure what to do with the strange texture.
we have recently tried stage 3 gerber jars of food which are like purees but have some texture or "lumps" in it. its gross but its next for her so we have tried lasagna with meat sauce which has balls of pasta in it. she spit the balls of pasta out somehow eating the puree part. then we tried broccoli with carrots and cheese and she spit ALL of that out, then the past few nights we have tried green beans with rice and she hated that. so... i have friends who say they skipped stage three all together cus their kids were eating real foods so i'm thinking we try what i bought at the store but after that i'm not buying any more.
We had guacamole last night and i dipped my finger in it and gave katie a taste and she went crazy. i went to dip it in again and she grabbed my hand and tried sticking all my fingers in her mouth. thinking they all had guacamole on it.

She is so funny with peas. When i give her peas after her tubs of puree i put a bunch in front of her on her high chair and she will sit there no matter how long it takes and eat every single one. Sometimes i feel like its an hour. I know its not but she is so cute. she will eat each one. Unless she isn't hungry, in that case she will just squish them by hitting the high chair table and bouncing them off onto the floor which makes a fun game for me trying to find each one before it gets squished into the floor. She loves this new game of dropping things on the floor from her chair. I give her toys to occupy her when i'm making her dinner and she drops each toy on the ground and i of course pick them up but i just realised she does it on purpose as a game. i catch her laughing sometimes when i'm down there picking them up.

Something else kinda fun katie started doing yesterday is handing us things. She picks something up and puts it in her mouth, chews a little (teething... gotta love it) and then hands it to me. well she puts her arms up with the object even if i'm in front of her and i say katie may i have that please and she will hold it out and try her best to release when her had is over mine. it is soooo cute. i caught some cute photos of it last night. She hands me everything. Small things, like balls, blocks, bath toys which by the way are her favorite cus they are squishy and she can chew on the heads of any animal they make to go in the bath much easier than a teether which are usually circles or rings. ( although she loves links, the rings you hook toys to things with.. oh she loves chewing on those.) thank you for your penguin bath toy katie!
this morning she handed me cheerios and did it very well. i even opened my mouth and she fed one to me and then i fed one to her. it was really sweet

I put up the coral i bought before christmas to put around the tree cus we thought for sure katie would be crawling and we didn't want her to get to the ornaments and all the needles. we finally set it up last week and katie likes it i think. i tend to get in there with her cus i like being with her but i have to leave her alone in there a little more often so she gets used to it. but at least she doesn't hate it. I decorated it a little cus i thought it was boring ;) hehe
Bri and Katie watching cartoons in the coral

thanks for the ribbon decorations. i love pretty ribbons!

back to the grind!

Well, after one night of sleeping through the night, Katie was back to her good old self. Thursday night I was up with her a few times, even nursed her in the middle of the night to get her back to sleep. the new thing with this monitor though is I let her cry even longer because I can see her. Something about watching her cry makes me feel less anxious about running in there to help her. Makes me realize she isn't hurt or in trouble, no one is in there taking her (strange fear of mine... lol) and that she is just fine but upset. It' actually kinda neat to watch her on the monitor, don't get me wrong... watching her cry is awful in itself but to see her crawling around and finding her paci on her own makes me more comfortable in knowing she can do things be herself. We are still working on laying down. she can't do it very well on her own. When she sits up in the middle of the night she has a very hard time laying back down. I actually caught her on the video sitting up in her sleep and then falling back over into the side of the crib (glad we put the bumper back up) it was so cute. It was like a drunken sailor. wobbling around. U know when you are so tired and u are sitting up on the couch and u start to nod off and u kinda catch yourself from side to side from falling. that's what she was doing until she landed flat on her face. she was fine but i did have to run in there cus she woke herself up. so sad :( but kinda cute.
I am letting her cry more. Bri and I just sit in front of the monitor looking at it and watching her. its awful but at least we are watching it together . Makes me less mad in the middle of the night. lol . i feel like if i have to be up with her he can sit here and watch her too. he fell asleep watching the monitor thursday night. HA HA but at least he was trying to participate.

so much for a new schedule but...!!!!

humm. well i was supposed to start this new schedule on monday and sunday night katie was up from 3-530. so needless to say she was asleep till 9 that morning. monday night she was up till 11 and then woke up 3 times and got up at 830, tuesday night she was up from 1-2 and then from 4-530 and by wed night i just said forget it because tuesday she didn't take any naps and i thought for goodness sake this new schedule can never start till she gets back on waking up around 630... hell i would have even taken 730 but once she is up after 730 in the morning there is no way she will be back down for a nap. hopeless as i was feeling wed afternoon bri arrived home with a little gift from a co-worker. A video monitor! It was awesome! We have never had a monitor, sound or video cus katie's room is next door to ours so i just run in there when i hear her. i never sleep well these days so i hear her every move. As i set up the monitor that evening and told bri that katie had given me no morning nap and 1 hour in the afternoon (oh... and we had put her down for a cat nap from 530-6pm so we could eat dinner and she was being a bear and it was to early to put her down for the night. we haven't done that since she was little) we finally got katie down around 930. ughhhhhh as i watched her in her crib on the monitor i prepared myself for another awful night.

***Really quick i just want to mention the reason i was starting this new schedule was cus katie wasn't sleeping well at night. her day time schedule was great. i loved her sleeping at 11 and then 330ish cus that means from the time she wakes up from her morning nap i have till almost 4 to do things with her. however since she was not sleeping during the night(BUT not usually as bad as this week as been for sure) i felt the need to change it as best as i could. however i want to mention through the last 4 days of hell Katie has consistently gone down between 1030 and 11 and then again either around 330 or 4 for her naps regardless of how awful she slept or when she woke up in the morning that day. so she IS on a schedule its just not the right one.***
Alright now back to our first night with a monitor. I set it up, fed katie, rocked her to sleep as i usually do. (even though i know thats not good.. thats something else i have to change. eventually) i layed her down and she started to cry. now i have let her cry all week cus i just can't handle it. i try and try and try to keep her quiet for bri cus i know he needs to perform the next day but after being up with her from 3-4am quiet i gotta let her cry and work it out on her own. we only let her cry 10 minutes before going in there to check on her and on monday night, the second of hell week it seems she got her leg stuck in the rails and twisted around so when i heard her cry go from a simple whine to a scream i raced in there to find her leg caught. the next night we put the bumper back in. I was feeling so defeated. I no longer wanted to deal with this, I just wanted to curl up in a ball and let her figure it out on her own. 9 months without sleeping will do that to ya. I'm so tired of not sleeping!!!! ahhhhhh say a prayer for me please.

AHHHHHH long story short... sorry, KATIE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT ON WED!!!!! That first night with the monitor i didn't even need it. It was amazing!!!!!!! She woke up at 130 just got a paci but i do not count that as waking up. she didn't even really need it i just woke up and saw her stirring in the monitor so as a preventative from her waking up i just ran in there and handed her the paci on her chest so i didn't have to listen to her scream in a matter of moments.
It was so strange waking up at 630 and looking at the clock. I thought humm did bri get up in the middle of the night with her??? HAHAHAHAH makes me laugh just writing that. he never hears her before I do. If she cried, I was gonna hear it. WOW she slept through the night. How amazing. Hoping she will do it again tonight. but if not, I now have this monitor which makes me feel better about knowing what she is doing in there and not needing to race in to check on her.

Sorry forno photos these last few entries. I'll get there ;)

starting new schedule

tomorrow we are starting a new schedule. currently katie's schedule is...
-6ish she wakes up and i nurse her back to sleep in bed with me till 830-9ish which is great for me cus i get to sleep in!
-9ish or whenever she wakes up again we do breakfast
-1030 i nurse her in hopes that she will go down for her nap
-by 11 she is hopefully sleeping for her morning nap
sometime between 12-130 she wakes up and we do lunch
then after lunch i have time to do errands and anything else because this is her awake time during the day
-by 330 she gets fussy so i nurse her
-by 330-4ish she goes down for a nap. sometimes its for 45 minutes sometimes its till 530.
-we do dinner at 6 every night
-bath after dinner
-nurse her again before bed usually at 730
-she is usually asleep by 8 or 830. unless she is having a bad night and then she doesn't go down until 9 r 930. this happens at least twice a week.

now i understand this schedule isn't the norm but at least its consistent for the most part. however i just finished reading a book on sleep habits that tells me that my baby will sleep better at night (which i desperately need help cus katie is a horrible sleeper at night) if i change the schedule a little. so starting tomorrow I'm going to try and follow something like this

-6am when she gets up, I get up! ughhhhh rather than nursing her back to sleep so i can sleep in with her. which i LOVE
hopefully when she gets up i can nurse her and keep her up rather than rock her back to sleep. gonna be harder for me than her i think. by keeping her up I'm hoping she will do everything earlier throughout the day
-breakfast will be at 7
-by 9 i'm hoping i can nurse her and 930 down for a nap maybe 10ish. dunno we'll see
-then by 1230 she will be up
-lunch at 1230
-130 nurse
-2 nap. (this book tells me her nap should not be later than 3pm. (some days katie doesn't' go down till 4!)) hopefully she will wake up from her nap by 4 and we can do
-dinner at 530 (rather than 6)
then get to bed by 730.we'll see!!!!
i can't figure out when i am going to do errands. when can i take her out and not have her fall asleep in the car seat. i feel like this schedule chains me to the house. with the schedule i'm on now katie has from lunch time to 330ish to go around with me to the grocery store, playdates, etc. with these new times when am i supposed to do things? after her 2:00 nap at 330? till dinner. like i'm going to get anything done during rush hour! ughhhhh i'm still learning but this is hard!
WISH ME LUCK!

bonk!

Katie is getting so much better at crawling! I can't believe she learned just one week ago and how much she is improving. she is crawling for longer periods of time, learning to drag things while crawling to a sit up position so she can play with a toy, and (I think)realizes she can crawl to me or bri rather than just to a toy. We can always get her to crawl to a toy but only once today she came to me when i called her.
Last night we had an awful night, she was up from 1-330am because she slept from 330-6pm as an afternoon nap so she was all messed up. I know i shouldn't' let her sleep that long but i hate the idea of waking a sleeping baby because its so hard to get her to go down why would i wake her up!
Katie is pulling up on everything! The couch or me or her play table and today i noticed her standing with one foot flat. we had a friend come over and her baby is just starting to stand flat footed so maybe katie saw that and thought she would give it a try ;)
She also picked up crawling through her play table after her playdate with callie, who is a few days older than she is . Its so cute to see them together. We have a few playdates with callie a month. They are really starting to love each other ;)

Tonight Katie was crawling down the hallway which we have started to do to tire her out before bed time and she thought she would stop and take a break at the bathroom door. She ended up grabbing the wall, which of course has no grip and trying to stand, when that didnt work she went to the molding of the bathroom door and tried grabbing it and whoops! she slipped and bonked her head. Pretty bad i must say. She immediately started wailing and bri picked her up and saw a big bump on her head. It was so sad but she was ok. We were watching her so closely after to make sure nothing was changing and bri was super cute saying ; "mary she isn't sitting up as much..." lol it was just cus it was 8pm and miss katie had only slept for 30 minutes this morning and an hour afternoon nap.
Hoping she will sleep well tonight after her bad night last night and not too much napping going on today. we'll see. recently she has been struggling with this sitting up thing. she literally sits up in her sleep and then realizes she is sitting up and can't get back down before she wakes up. humm wonder how long that's gonna last???

lowered the mattress

we had to lower the mattress after we found her standing in her crib on wednesday. now that she knows how to crawl, she likes hanging out in her crib because she can all of a sudden get from one end to another and play
but when it came night time she was not a happy camper!

The first night she woke up at 4am and managed to crawl to the edge of her crib and begin to cry. when i came in, she was looking down the hallway with both her feet and hands hanging out of the crib slats. it was sooooo sad i just had to snap a photo cus it broke my heart but was so cute.

All of a sudden she can do so much and she just hasn't gotten used to it. the past few nights i have found her crying in her crib sitting straight up. this is also a new trick, sitting up from laying down position. now she sits up in her sleep, or very close to sleeping and she hasn't figured out how to lay back down. i'm not sure how to teach her that but she needs to learn because I don't know how i'm going to keep going in her room every time she sits up to lower her back to sleeping.

jan 12, 2011

today was a great day! Katie learned to crawl on monday and by this morning, wednesday, she was discovering things and doing things she had never done before. it was like a switch flipped and she could do all kinds of things. She is pulling up on things like her crib, her toys, the couch, table, me... everything! it truly is amazing! We had one of the best days together. She was full of life and curiosity and was reaching for things she has never reached for. where is that noise coming from??

I found myself once again taking tons of photos and documenting every move she made. I know things will change so quickly so I wanted to make sure I took photos of every new thing she experienced.
She is crawling much better than two days ago. it really is amazing! I know I keep saying that over and over but the things she can all of a sudden do just blow my mind.
Today my cleaning lady was here and i showed her how katie could crawl. she LOVES katie and because she sees us every week she has become part of katie's life. katie knows her better than most of my friends simply because of the frequency of visits. Anyway, i put katie in her room in the crib for a second and left the room, Corina, my cleaning lady, walked in and saw katie and i heard her call me. I came in and Katie was standing in her crib! She had never done that before! I looked at Corina and said, "did u help her" and she looked at me like.. you crazy woman why would i help katie get up like that... It was so funny. she didn't' help her ad katie managed to pull herself up. It shocked us both. I can't believe she is crawling and pulling up. Looks like it's time to lower the mattress tonight!!!

katie crawled today!!!!!

Today, monday january 10, 2011 Katie crawled for the first time. she has been working so hard to crawl for the last few weeks and today she did it! Oh it was the most exciting thing she has ever done! She was so proud of herself she started screeching after she did it. I of course caught it on video. I had a funny feeling she was going to crawl today so I carried around the video camera and just waited for the right moment. Oh I can't believe she finally did it. It made me kinda sad when she crawled (after my initial excitement of course) time is going by so quickly. She is growing up so fast. She is going to be standing soon I just know it! She doesn't pull herself up on anything yet but I'm thinking she might soon once she gets this crawling thing down.

zoo!

we took katie to the zoo today and it was super adorable! She couldn't see much but when we saw the elephants she definitely could see them. they were huge!!!!
after we went to the zoo we took katie to Old Ebbit Grill. For the first time we sat katie in the high chair at a restaurant. it was super crowded so the poor thing had to wait forever for a table but once we slipped her into that high chair she was a happy baby! It was like a new found world of freedom, not being strapped to the high chair at home or in the car seat.
it was so cute. we have recently started feeding katie more solids like pancakes in the morning which she LOVES and bread with lunch so since we were out, after i was done feeding her the baby food we gave her some bread pieces from the table.
she thought she was such a big girl grabbing the pieces. i still give them to her one by one cus she hasn't figured out portion control yet (so little of us have) and she stuffs her mouth sometimes if i let her.
since we just started giving her pieces of food bri didn't know how big the pieces needed to be so when i let bri feed her he gave her a piece that was a little too big. as soon as i said oops maybe that's a little big, before he could grab it off the table katie swooped in and snatched it and it was in her mouth so fast i couldn't believe it. I started cracking up and bri's eyes almost fell out of his head. he thought she was going to choke or something. but of course she was fine and we jsut giggled about how much of a little piggy katie has become since i started giving her solids. that baby will eat till she is blue in the face!

on the way home i snapped this photo. her eyes were just sparkling.


she was pooped after her long day. isn't she just precious ;)