Felicity at 11 Months

Felicity turned 11m old on Saturday. We spend the day up the shore.

 

Felicity is getting big. Her personality blossoms everyday. I love the bottom picture of these three because it shows her conquering what to her was a mountain, a steep incline of rocks at Iona's beach. 

She took what I declared her first steps on Friday (Aug 21st). (I know she probably took some steps before that.. but not that I saw!!) Her body is getting strong. After a couple weeks not resorting to co-sleeping I tried to bring her into our bed recently on a rough night and realized how toddler like her body has become.

I mean it shouldn't be a shocker, she is taking steps, standing on her own, squatting, climbing stairs, climbing onto the couch... those muscles are developing. Yet, its always a shock to realize how much she has grown. The 12 month clothing I started putting her in around June are starting to look full.. maybe even small when it comes to full length pieces. We are buying 18m clothing for her fall/winter wardrobe. 

Back to her personality though - this girl knows what she wants. At meals, she will tell us exactly what she wants by pointing and "maah" and clapping and more pointing. Today at lunch she had everything we had except lunch meat and made it clear that was what she actually wanted. She knows what toys she wants, where she wants to go, and she does it. If you stop her from doing it, she becomes a rag-down collapsed meltdown. 

She likes books... though its questionable whether she wants you to read one to her or she just wants to open it to different pages herself. She likes phones and my kindle, whether or not they are turned on. She likes duplo blocks and is trying to learn to put them together. She is really close to being able to put two together, just not quite coordinated enough. She can stack wood blocks on top of each other (and enjoys doing this). She loves laundry and peekaboo and mimics the sound of the phrase "there-she-is" quite well. She mimics a lot, both actions and  language. Its hard to tell whats immediate mimicking and what is her trying to actually use words appropriately, but her language is definitely coming a long. In terms of actions, here is an example. We were in the upstairs bathroom and I was changing Benjamin's diaper while he stood up. Both Ben and I were using wipes to clean him off. Meanwhile, Felicity was off with her own pack of wipes taking them out of the package one after another. We finished cleaning him and Ben sat down to put on a new pullup. Felicity crawled over with a wipe and started to wipe his leg with it. It was extremely adorable. 

Felicity loves music. She responds to music almost instantly these days. I often sing her to sleep (Tin Soldier, When I'm Gone, 1000 Years, Under the Quarter Moon, Let it Be..). If a song gets turned on or comes on during tv watching she will start rocking or bobbing her head. 

She is at the stage where she makes the cute adorable scrunched up smile face. 

She still doesn't have any teeth and anytime she is fussy we guess that she is teething. We have been guessing this for about 8 months now. 

That is all I can think of right now. Next year is the big 1 year old!

 

Felicity at 10 Months 10 Days

I have now fallen victim to forgetting how fast things change TWO months in a row. On August 3rd, when I posted the last "late kid update", I started to write the new update. I thought it was going to be the "11m" update. I mean, it was only three weeks early.

But of course, in the life of baby, three weeks is ages.

So....

Felicity at 10 months 10 days

How fast does this little girl change and grow?

In the couple weeks she has started to really try to walk and stand. Before she seemed afraid to let go, even though she could remain upright if she did so, she just did not want to let go. Now she will let go, or try to kneel and stand without aid, or stand while vaguely leaning on something with her shins. She wants to learn to balance and walk and move like us.

I love to watch her play. I like to see how her little brain is learning. She actually plays with toys now instead of just banging them together or eating them. She likes to take magnets on and off the dishwasher. She will put toys (such as megablocks) into the Tonka dumptruck bed, filling it up. She rolls the dump truck. Yesterday, she lifted the dumper so it was up, and then experimented with putting items "in" the truck (between the cab and lifted bed). She tried the DVD remote, and when it made a clanging noise, as it was big and awkard to fit in, she went crazy clang clang clanging it every which way. She likes to take things apart. When we have Mega Blocks out, or foam puzzle blocks, I build things as fast as she unbuilds them, though she has also started to show interesting in building, for example, handing me two puzzle block pieces together, and then when I attach them, handing me a third and watching me attach it, etc.

This girl likes to eat. She still is getting breast milk several times a day both from the bottle at daycare and directly from the source. On top of that she loves meal time. Her favorites are blueberries, cottage cheese, shredded cheese, puffs, baked beans, olived, pickles, and pretty much everything else we have tried. She originally did not like bananas, but has since changed her mind. She likes all of the random casseroles and pasta salads we have given her. She likes pizza. She likes food. DH says that she would eat forever if you just stayed at the table and kept putting things in front of her.

Sleep wise is really hit or miss. She has slept through the night a handful of times but it is extraordinarily rare. More common is waking 1-2 times a night to eat. Usually if it is two times a night, the first is very close to my bedtime (like 10:30-11:30pm) and the second is really the middle of the night. She occasionally has a really bad night where she just does not seem to want to stay asleep at all. On these nights, all bets are off. I do attempt co-sleeping sometimes when she gets like this and its hit or miss. Sometimes she sleeps peacefully nestled in my arms, other times she thrashes and whines and  its a total disaster. I still am much more rested than I was with Ben at this age, because his sleep was even worse.

She knows the word book. If you ask her "do you want to read a book?" or "get the book" or "can you hand me the book?" She will look around, find it and hand it to you. A lot of the times she just grabs it back and tries to close and open the pages, but now she is getting to the point where she will let you read it and she will pay attention. She seems especially drawn to a small little book called "shapes" and we have even caught her mimicking the word "triangle" from it.

Late Kid Updates

How about an update on the kids that is long overdue?


At the beginning of July I started a post about Ben being 3.5 yrs old. I never finished or posted it... here is what I had:

Ben turned 3.5 yrs old on Sunday.

He is not a toddler really anymore, besides perhaps the diapers. He is a little boy.

All of Ben's favorite things involve water. He still loves pirates, and he is obsessed with pirate ships (the reign of the Bowy Rodger has continued... though somewhat lessened). We had a period of avid Octonauts play (a BBC kids show about underwater creatures). Sometimes he just pretends to BE an underwater creature, most specifically, an Octopus. Our whole family is Octopi. Felicity is a baby Octopus named Inky.

Unsuprisingly based on the above information, Ben's current "lovey" of choice is a stuffed Orca whale. He picked it up at the Park Point Garage Sale. We walked into one of the sales and there was a whole table of stuffed animals. Ben zeroed in on it right away and asked if he could get it. I said yes because it was like $.25. Then DH and I were browsing. DS started to wonder off. I told him to come back so we could pay for his whale and the sale owner, who was nearby, said "oh he can have the whale," At which point Ben turned and said "Its an ORCA" lol. He has since named it Splashy.

There have been phases where Ben has been very difficult. Typical three year old stuff. I think we went a good month where he ate ONLY corndogs. But, recently things have been a bit easier again. He has started eating more things, and listens better. He still is a three year old though, so of course there are difficult moments. One particular issue is sibling stuff, of course. He plays too rough with Felicity, or intentionally does things he know will upset her, like this morning he blocked her crawling path when I asked him not to (she was trying to crawl to me). That sort of thing. Hugging her so hard she is tackled to the ground, removing her hand from the table when thats the only thing allowing her to keep her balance, etc. But he does love her. We just have to remind him to be gentle gentle gentle.

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And, on 7/23/2015 I started a post about Felicity being 10 months old (as of 7/22). Here is what I wrote:

- She is pulling up on everything and now she will walk holding just ONE Hand, but she still just does not want to let go to stand independently

- She has not said anything that I would consider "her first word" but she mimics so many sounds. Most impressively is her attempts at copying the phrase "There She Is" that we use when we play peek-a-boo with her.

- Her favorite things in the world: Cell Phones, Pacifiers, Mom, Water (swimming, bathing, splashing, drinking) and Laundry

- She is quite good at fine motor skills, picking things up, and getting them to her mouth, no matter how small.

I did take a picture of her on 7/22, at Wednesday night at the races, playing on the turf at East. I hope to add it to this post shortly.

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Both kids have changed a ton in the time since I wrote these respective updates, and I will try to do another update for them here in a couple weeks when Felicity hits 11 months (OMG my baby is growing up!)