Still a Deadbeat Blogger

Wow.

I haven't blogged in 4 months! I am a total deadbeat!

So what has happened in the last 4 months? Well, there was Hurricane Ike, for one. That struck in September, right before Anna's 7th birthday, which meant we had to cancel her birthday party (again -- we had to cancel for Hurricane Rita 3 years ago) and head to points north so that we could live in a place with electricity. We spent several days with my parents, and then we went and stayed with Jimmy's parents for a little while. Being a refugee is difficult, even if it's only for a short time. I have a lot of sympathy for anyone who has to do it for longer!

Anna started the first grade and has been excelling. Her teacher is wonderful, and she usually comes home with great stories. She also got to go to Disney World with Nanny and Paw-Paw for her birthday, which was great for her. It was weird not being with her (Mommy, Daddy, and Little Sister were NOT invited on the Disney trip!), but it was a great chance for her to spend time with my parents and have a lot of fun!

We spent Thanksgiving with Jimmy's family and then visited my folks on the way back home. Caroline teased all of us while we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house because she kept acting like she was going to walk, and she never did. Instead, she waited until the first night we were at Nanny and Paw-Paw's house. Jimmy figured out that if he tied a sharpie marker to a string and let her walk holding onto that, he could let some slack into the string, and she would essentially be walking on her own. After a while, she got to the point where she would walk on her own, but only if she was holding the sharpie. It was like Dumbo's magic feather! Eventually, she got confident enough to do it on her own, and she's been walking ever since!

Today, we had Caroline's 15-month check up (a month late, since she turned 16 months today!), and she's doing great. We've been keeping track of her words over the last month or so, and even though she's nowhere near as verbal as Anna was at this age, she's still way ahead of "average" on speech. According to the doctor, she should be saying about 3-5 words other than Mama and Dada, but she's saying more like 30-35. She's also using sign language proficiently, and she can put together fairly complex sentences with her signs (ex: more eat please, here) and has started making up her own signs for things she is interested in (ex: when she wants to play "this little piggy", she points to her toes and then to her tummy). She weighs 25 pounds, which puts her in the 75th percentile for weight, and she's 30ish inches, which is 90th percentile for height. Her head is 95th percentile (I forget how many inches it is!).

Caroline's personality has really started developing by leaps and bounds over the last few months. She loves to play peek-a-boo, she giggles uncontrollably when she's tickled, and she has a great sense of humor and tends to laugh heartily at silly faces or noises. She is getting more independent in some ways, but she's still very much a Mama's girl in other ways. The more confident she gets with the walking, the more independent she gets, so I think things will get easier over the next few months.

We had some Christmas portraits done last week, so here are a few of those pictures. We temporarily misplaced our digital camera (I recently found it in a suitcase, so I guess we must have taken it when we traveled once), so I don't have many snapshots to share at this point. Notice that, once again, we got a shot of Caroline sticking her tongue out, so I had to buy it! It's become a tradition!

Enjoy!

And a few more!

I couldn't fit all the pictures in one post, so here are the rest of them!

New pictures!

In addition to the birthday party, I had birthday pictures taken last week. I figured it was good timing, since Caroline was about to turn one, and Anna will be seven next month. When we started taking pictures, it became very clear that Caroline will no longer just sit where you put her and smile. The minute I set her down, she always started crawling toward the camera, so after a few failed attempts, we just went for the action shots a lot of the time. Despite the challenges, we got some GREAT shots, and the pictures turned out really cute. Aren't my girls gorgeous?

One year ago today...

I gave birth to one of the two most beautiful babies in the world. Caroline is one year old today!

The last year has absolutely flown by. Caroline has grown and changed and developed such a cute little personality! She is pulling up and cruising the furniture now, and while she isn't walking yet, she can crawl at lightning speed! I just can't believe how big she has gotten.

I haven't measured Caroline's height recently, but I weighed her the other day, and she's almost 21 pounds. Not bad for a baby who started out almost 9 pounds and then dropped a pound and a half in the first two weeks! Looking back on all the challenges we had with nursing in the beginning, everything is sort of a haze, but I'm so glad we stuck with it. She grew big and strong on mama milk over the last year, and now I plan to slowly wean her down to just morning and evening nursing for the next year or so. She also eats about twice her body weight in regular food every day. I think she must have a hollow leg or something because she LOVES to eat!

Anyway, for her first birthday, I decided Caroline should have a princess party, and I made a cake. For those who know me well, this may come as a surprise, since I do NOT COOK! But I do a decent job of baking most of the time, and I did use a mix! Anyway, I bought a pan in the shape of a crown last week, along with some icing coloring so that I could tint the icing pink and purple. Thursday night, I went to frost the cake, and, since I wanted it tinted a soft baby pink, I barely tipped the container of coloring. PLOP! It still didn't look like that much, and in retrospect, I probably should have scooped some back out, but did I think of that at the time? Noooooo. Instead, I started stirring. And stirring. The more I stirred, the pinker it got. Wow, that's PINK! So I added another jar of white icing to dilute the pink.

I still ended up with what has got to be the pinkest cake in the history of cakes. It can be seen from outer space. It emits an aura that gives everything in the house a rosy glow (great for the complexion, BTW -- who needs pink light bulbs when you have the radioactive glow of the birthday cake?). And it stains everything it touches. My cutting board and mixing bowl will never be the same. Fortunately, it didn't stain the baby!

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give to you The Cake. You may want to avert your eyes, or at least wear sunglasses while looking at it:



Caroline was pretty excited about the VeryPink cake:



But when we actually gave her a piece, she just sort of picked at it a little bit and eventually used some of the icing to finger paint on her tummy. It's a good thing babies are washable!

Here are some pictures of Caroline playing with some of her new toys.

The baby doll that Nanny gave her:



And the activity garden play set that Jimmy and I gave her. She loves it!



And here she is giving her big sister, Anna, a big kiss! What a sweet girl!



More to come....

Crawling!

First of all, yes, I'm a deadbeat blogger. I've been meaning to post an update for over a month, but our digital camera has been MIA, and I kept thinking I'd find it and post some pictures. No such luck. I have no idea where it is. We finally ended up getting a new one, so I'll have some pictures to share soon!

Anyway, Caroline is still fabulous. Now that Anna is out of school, we've been doing swimming lessons and other summer activities with our friends. Anna is a little fish this year, and Caroline is also doing great! She loves the water and even holds her breath to put her "eyes in the water", as her teacher has us do in class. She's also a great leg kicker, and she likes to float on her back with her cheek next to mine.

Caroline's latest trick is crawling. Yes, she FINALLY figured out how to put one knee in front of the other! She's been on the verge for months, but last Saturday, I put her on the floor in the living room, and when I looked up, she had crawled across the room! So when she did it, she did it big! Since then, she's been all over the place and is also starting to pull up on furniture. Nothing is safe. We're going to have to get some baby gates up this week because I'm sure it's just a matter of time before she discovers the stairs!

We're currently spending the 4th of July weekend with Jimmy's parents. We spent most of yesterday hanging out with friends and swimming in the pool, which Caroline loved. Then we went to Aunt Tammy and Uncle Mark's house to watch fireworks. Caroline LOVED them! We were very close to where they were being set off, so they were pretty loud, but she never even looked scared. She just stared at them and said, "Oh! Oh!" At one point, she decided they were much prettier upside down, so she spent several minutes lying on my lap and hanging her head down between my knees. After that, she started giggling every time a firework went off. She was absolutely in hysterics by the time it was over, and so were we! It was way more entertaining to watch her react to them than to actually watch the fireworks!

After the fireworks, we waited for Daddy and Anna to play a little Guitar Hero, and while we were waiting, Caroline and I had a little "voice lesson". I would sing a scale or arpeggio, and she would sing, "la la la la" and then clap for herself. Then I'd sing some more, and she'd do it again. I just love it that she likes to sing! Pretty soon, we'll have a little family quartet thing going on!

I'm also remiss in getting her 9 month portraits taken. Between some unexpected expenses and a lack of time, I just haven't gotten in to have them taken. At this point, she's 10 1/2 months old, so I'm not sure if it's worth it, or if I should just wait for her one-year pictures instead. I'll probably play around with the camera this week and see if I can get some good snapshots and then just take her in next month when she's a year old.

Nine Months!

Caroline is nine months old today. Well, technically, I guess it was yesterday, since it's after midnight.

We went to the doctor on Friday for her well baby check up. She's now tipping the scales at 19 lb. 3 oz., which is still around 60% for weight. She's 29 1/2" long, which is still 97% for height. And her head is around 18", which is still about 90% for head circumference. She's nothing, if not consistent! Even though the pediatrician described her as "tall and skinny", she has some very respectable rolls on her thighs and arms. I keep telling her to enjoy them now because in a few years, rolls on her thighs won't be so cute!

Still no crawling yet. The other day, she got excited about a toy that was in front of her, and she got up on her hands and knees and prepared to throw her upper body toward the toy. But instead, she threw her entire body backward, and boy, did THAT make her mad! It took her a second to register the fact that she was now farther away from her toy, and then her face got red, her mouth opened, and she let out the angriest yell I think I've ever heard her make, all the while flopping her arms and legs up and down like a little fish. It would have been funny, if it hadn't been so pathetic! She wants so badly to move, and she can scoot with the best of them, but she just can't work out how to get where she's going without getting rug burn on her tummy!

One thing she has learned to do is to actually manipulate small things into her mouth. I keep giving her those little Gerber fruit puff things to play with, and she tried for WEEKS to get one in her mouth. Finally, last Saturday she did it, and she was so proud of herself! After that, she got better and better at it, and I'd say that now she has around a 50% success rate when she actually goes for her mouth (as opposed to dropping them on the floor and saying, "Uh-oh!"). I guess it's time to get serious about frequent vacuuming, since a baby who can put food in her mouth can also put other things in her mouth!

I'm planning to make an appointment for her nine-month portraits in the next week or so. In the meantime, I took pictures of both the girls for Mother's Day. I started taking pictures of Anna sitting in rose petals when she was about Caroline's age, and I continued the theme for the next several years. Last year, I never got around to it, but I decided to start it up again this year. So I took pictures of both the girls with rose petals this time. Caroline wasn't particularly smiley that day, but I think the pictures turned out pretty good, despite her somber mood.

I went to Walgreens.com and made an 11x14 composite with the pictures I got, and I really like the way it turned out. I made a copy for myself, my mom, and my mother-in-law for Mother's Day. I'm especially fond of the way the bright colors pop against the black background.

Uh-oh!

Caroline has had some pretty significant developmental advances in the last couple of weeks. One of my favorites is her newest word: Uh-oh! She doesn't say it consistently yet, but she does say it appropriately, right after she drops something. It has become a really fun game to drop things off of her high chair and say, "Uh-oh!" and then grin at us. We then have about 5 seconds to pick up the object and give it back before Her Majesty gets mad. I remember this game from when Anna was little, and fortunately, it was a fairly short phase. Good times.

She has also started giving kisses. Well, "kisses" is probably not the most accurate description. It's more like she's trying to eat your head, but it's still adorable. She started that about a week ago. I was kissing her cheeks (which are yummy and very kissable!), and she suddenly turned her head and laid a big one on my cheek. Fortunately, I don't mind a little baby slobber, and she just looked so proud of herself afterwards!

Another new trick: clapping. This one just started yesterday. Prior to that she would occasionally "clap" her fists together, but she hadn't quite gotten the hands open to make noise. Yesterday, she was sitting on the floor with her toys and just started clapping her hands and making noise. Again, she looked at me with a huge grin, obviously proud of her new accomplishment!

Still no crawling yet, but Caroline is trying really hard and manages to move herself, even though I can't always figure out how she's accomplished it! She's great at pushing herself backwards on her tummy, but even when she's sitting up, she manages to move herself around. Today, she covered about two square yards without actually using any discernable form of locomotion. She's also figured out the beginnings of how to pull up, and she managed to pull herself up onto her knees in her crib the other day.

Here's a picture of one of Caroline's "push ups". She has the basic idea, but she can't seem to get the arms and legs coordinated.



Here she is, happily playing with her toys. She has recently developed an ability to entertain herself for longer periods than before, so I can actually put her down for more than 5 minutes at a time. Let me just say that it is about time!



And here is one of her favorite new activities: taking things out and putting them back in again. Here, she had her whole basket of toys, which was fun, but it doesn't compare to the fabulous Stride Rite box I gave her a day or two later.



Big Sister Anna has recently taken an interest in the digital camera, and she got a GREAT picture of Caroline the other day. We may have a budding photographer on our hands! And don't you just want to pinch those chubby cheeks?

8 Months Old!

Where has the time gone? My tiny baby girl, who lost so much weight and looked so scrawny for so long, is a chubby, active 8 month old. Her current unofficial stats: 18 lb. 8 oz., which keeps her in about the 60th percentile for weight, and 28 1/2 inches, which is around 95th percentile for height. Her hair, which has always been abundant, has become a source of much hilarity lately. I keep it in pigtails during the day to keep it out of her eyes, but when I take them out at night, she looks just like one of those pencil trolls kids used to have:



Caroline has started talking more and more in the last month. She says "mama" and "dada", and she babbles a lot. She's also starting to recognize and use a couple of signs, including the sign for "milk" which is what we use for nursing. She's still eating solids once a day, and she shows a definite preference for fruit over vegetables. She still doesn't really "get" the sippy cup, and her tongue still tends to thrust out any food that is more solid than the pureed stuff that comes in the jars.

Still no crawling yet. She is getting better at scrunching her knees up underneath herself, but she hasn't gotten the forward momentum thing down yet. If I put her down on the laminate floor in the study, she can kind of slide herself around, though, and she always manages to get herself to any toys that are out of reach, so she's moving -- just not very efficiently yet!



Oh, and she now has THREE teeth! The funny thing is that she got the bottom two just about the time that Anna lost her bottom two. Now, Caroline is getting her top left incisor, and Anna is just about to lose her top left incisor. So we've figured out that as Big Sister is losing them, Little Sister is finding them! Unfortunately, now that she has teeth on the top and bottom, she's figured out how to grind them. Now THAT is a sound that will send shivers down your spine .

I don't have a good picture of Caroline's new teeth yet, but here's one of Anna's first lost one. Now that the second one is gone, she has a big hole in her head!



Speaking of Anna, she made us so proud last Sunday. The children's choir was supposed to sing in church, but Anna was the only kid who showed up. So she sang a solo. She did a beautiful job, and she didn't look nervous at all. When she finished, she just glowed.

Anna has also recently qualified for the gifted and talented program at school. This is a HUGE relief for me because her kindergarten situation this year has been less than fabulous, mostly because there are a lot of discipline problems in her class, and the kids like Anna who don't get in trouble all the time tend to sort of get ignored. They're starting GT instruction this week, and I think they cluster the GT kids in first grade, so hopefully the school situation will look up really soon!

We took the girls to New Mexico and Colorado over spring break, and they got to see snow for the first time. I got a few pictures, and I'll try to post them in the next day or two. In the meantime, here's a picture of my two sweet girls together!



And here's one of Jimmy and Anna goofing off with one of the baby carriers. It's technically a "toddler" carrier, and it's supposed to carry up to 65 pounds. Turns out, they're not exaggerating! Anna weighs about 50 pounds, and Jimmy said it was surprisingly comfortable to wear her. Not that he would want to do it for long, but I guess if you had a monster toddler or something, this would be the backpack for you!

Give me a break!

Most of you know that I am a die-hard baby wearer. I wore Anna in a sling and a Baby Bjorn for most of the first year of her life. With Caroline, I have discovered a whole world of baby carriers, and I've used slings, wraps, Asian-style baby carriers (the current favorite), and several other types of carriers. Both my girls have hated the carseat and/or stroller, but they've loved being up where the action is and close to Mama.

Well.

Consumer Reports just issued an article warning parents against baby slings on their Safety Blog (link here, if you'd like to read the whole article). Why? Because there have apparently been 22 babies injured in baby slings in the last TEN YEARS. Yes, that's 22 babies total, or an average of about 2 a year. Most injuries were related to user error and/or falling while wearing the baby. But Consumer Reports states, "For now, we think there are better ways of transporting infants including strollers, hand-held infant carrier/car seats".

Okay, let's examine this issue. First, Consumer Reports states, "Baby slings may be fashionable among Hollywood stars and other new parents." Never mind that mothers have been carrying their babies in cloth slings for THOUSANDS OF YEARS. So yeah. They're just the latest fashion trend. Second, there were 13,000 children under the age of 3 seen in emergency rooms last year because they fell out of strollers. THIRTEEN THOUSAND. In one year. This is only the kids who fell out of the strollers. That number doesn't even include the number of children who might have been injured when the stroller collapsed or who might have gotten tangled up if they weren't strapped in tightly enough.

So obviously, strollers are not a safer option. But let's examine carseats. Surely they're much safer than slings, since they're designed to keep babies safe in cars, right? Not so much. A quick Google search reveals that Evenflo recalled one of its infant carseats because the handle mechanism could suddenly release, spilling the baby onto the ground. This resulted in 97 injuries over a 10-year period -- far more than the 22 injuries reported from baby slings, and that's just ONE BRAND of carseat. There have also been babies injuried or killed because they were sleeping in the carriers without being strapped in tightly, and they slipped down and suffocated or got tangled in the straps. Oh, and since 85-90% of carseats are installed incorrectly in cars (that number includes the misuse of the harness, which is often left too loose or positioned improperly), the user error rate is obviously pretty high, even when just using them as infant carriers. Parents also tend to prop infant carseats into the child seat part of shopping carts in the grocery store, which can cause the cart to be top heavy and tip over, causing injuries. So adding all of these up results in a much higher number of injures resulting from infant carseat carriers than from baby slings.

Caroline has gotten too big for me to be very comfortable carrying her in a one-shouldered sling these days, so I don't use it very often anymore. Instead, we've gone to a variety of two-shouldered wraps and carriers. But if I have another baby, I will not hesitate to use the sling again. Yes, there's always the slight risk that I could trip and fall while wearing him/her, but that risk would be the same if I were carrying her in my arms (or possibly higher, since I wouldn't have my arms to break the fall), and I don't see anyone advocating that people stop carrying their babies in arms!

This is just one more reason that I have stopped referring to Consumer Reports when I shop. Between this article and their recent infant carseat testing fiasco (they had to rescind all the information they put out because they tested the seats incorrectly), I just can't take them seriously anymore.

New Pictures!

I finally got Anna and Caroline to the portrait studio to get their pictures taken together. They turned out SO GREAT! The photographer was fabulous with both of them and managed to get lots of great smiles from both girls. Caroline was in a great mood, and he managed to get Anna very comfortable and relaxed, which helped because her smile has started to look kind of fake in pictures lately.

As before, I couldn't narrow it down, so I ended up with a TON of pictures. Here are a few for your enjoyment. The first pose is the one that I chose for the large package with lots of sheets. If you'll recall, in Caroline's 2-month pictures, we got a great one with her tongue out. Well, she was in a tongue-sticking-out mood again, and I think this picture is just adorable!



We got a couple of other great pictures of the girls together:




And some individual shots, as well:





There were more good ones, but those are my favorites, overall. Maybe I'll post some more tomorrow!