10 months

10 months 

January 12th weight: 19 lb 10 oz back up to the 64th percentile!

Someone is on the verge of talking! There have been a few isolated incidents :) Once was when she was poking Finn in the eye and saying "eye", and the other time she said what sounded exactly like, "hi dada!" as Luke walked into the bathroom. It often sounds like she says Hi, so we will see if that's what it really is! Mostly, she points and says "Uhh! Uhh!" until we figure out what she wants. I also think she has said "mama" a couple times!

She identifies nose, mouth, and eyes on me while she's nursing. 

She pushes up to her hands and knees from her belly and look so close to crawling! She can also push backward from that position to her knees occasionally and can straighten her legs out. Once, she sat up from lying on her back by rolling to the side and pushing up like we practice! Time to drop the crib mattress! She is finally showing an interest in pulling herself up too. 

Favorite foods: cheese, broccoli, pomegranate seeds, chicken apple sausage, ravioli, beans

Dislikes: green beans, being spoonfed instead of finger foods 

She is starting to understand pretend play - she now pretends to talk on the phone using whatever is near her when someone says hello. Ahhhh-dorable. We had never introduced the concept before Christmas (when she received a few toys that included phones) and within a week she has mastered the concept. 

Over the week of New Years she is really gaining strength and working toward pulling up and standing unassisted. I'm actually a little worried, in a good way, she won't qualify for Early Interventions now! 

Her separation anxiety is improving as is her fear of loud noises and motors (blender, food processor, vacuum) but he nose blowing still puts her over the edge ;)

She shows so much more interested in her books during story time, but has also decided she loves chewing and eating her board books. 

Speaking of chewing, she has five teeth now - she got her second front tooth (December 28) and her fifth tooth overall (next to the left front tooth) on January 1st. I don't think I mentioned it last month but her 3rd tooth, left front, came in November 28. 

Christmas was incredible and deserves it's own post. This little girl was spoiled rotten and is so loved! 

Sleep. We have made huge strides! She sleeps through the night many nights now, but also still wakes on a regular basis. Bedtime is around 7, later if she had a late nap, and earlier if she didn't nap enough. She almost always wakes between 5 and 6 to nurse, and goes back to sleep until 730 or 8. She has been waking between 1030 and 1130 at night and there's a 50/50 chance she can go back to sleep on her own. Naps are 1-2 hours, usually around 10 and 230. 

9 months

9 months

18 lbs 6 oz

28"

In love with her puppy

We got our first set of family pictures back!

Another cold and her third tooth just before thanksgiving

First Thanksgiving!

Playing peekaboo and showing her belly

First Christmas tree hunt! she kind of hated it hahaha

Hanging her first ornament with papa

Learned "so big!" And/or "touchdown!", and clapping whenever someone says "yay!"

We successfully (well, whatever that means) sleep trained Evie! We started at 3 days shy of her 8 month birthday. It took one bad night of crying, about a week of unpredictable wake times and naps, and then she was regularly sleeping through the night! Her naps also extended, and she started napping for 3.5-4.5 hours a day (morning, afternoon, and a catnap if needed between 4 and 5:30). I try for the 2-3-4 schedule (those are the number of hours of awake time between sleeping) and it is working better as she gets older. Sometimes she won't make it for a full two hours in the morning and sometimes she still needs that evening catnap, but at least it gives us something to shoot for! We've experienced a sleep regression once she hit nine months, but we are working through it! 

Evie's nine month checkup was a little more worrisome than usual this time. She dropped from the 68th percentile to 54th, only gaining 1 lb and 4 oz in three months. We are working to add more healthy fats to her diet and will do a weight check in January. Her gross motor skills are also fairly delayed which is a pretty big concern for me. I'm pretty positive that she just has some low muscle tone in her lower half, probably because she's spoiled and lazy! Seriously though, I am kicking myself for not forcing more tummy time and standing but I know I shouldn't. I think a lot of it is her personality because she is very clingy and a pretty high needs baby. We are experiencing severe separation anxiety and it's not helping anything! Our pediatrician went ahead and referred us for an early interventions evaluation which will happen at the beginning of next month. I'm appreciative of her proactive stand on this, because I know many doctors would wait until 12 months before acting. Doing the evaluation at this point can only be beneficial to her and myself as well, for help in learning more ways to motivate her. 

8 months

Evie's highlights: 

Learned to give kisses

Rolling over more, including in crib after waking

Babbling - Ga, ba, s sounds

1st Halloween

Discovered her shadow

Started dancing and head bobbing

Sleep training

Chatfield pumpkin festival 

Hanging out where mama and papa got married!

Fell in love with the swings 

Pumpkin farm with Carter

Evie's pumpkins! 

The chicken before Boo at the Zoo

Visited the Children's museum with papa

Evie Brooke - 7 months

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How is it possible that 7 months have gone by?! In this time warp, she will be odriving next month, I'm sure of it. This was a huge developmental month for Evie! 

We FINALLY rolled over on our own! She did it in the bathtub of all places, twice, right after she turned 6 months. She has since then rolled a few times from belly to back, but not often! She also loves grabbing her toes now when she's on her back. 

 

We started solids! She's obsessed with food of every kind so far. We started with sweet potatoes, oatmeal and banana and have just continued to add everything we can think of. We do mostly purees but introduce tastes of things we eat - rice, a smashed bean, little bits of chicken, pizza crusts, etc. She eats avocados by the slice instead of puréed, unless I mix it with something for her.. We've also done baby led weaning style eating for banana and hunks of meat.

Commence the onslaught of messy food covered baby pictures: 

First bites of sweet potato

Not too sure, but ended up loving it

Papa feeding her some oatmeal

BLW Bananas

BLW avocados and pancakes

She sticks her tongue out with her mouth wide open every bite!

French fries off Mama's plate

Fresh tomato from Oma's garden!

Okay what else? She's sitting up on her own! It happened really fast - over the course of about two weeks she went from nothing to 20-30 minutes playing while sitting. She tips over occasionally but it's pretty rare nowadays. 

We took another trip to the omits ins, to Snowmass, this time for Papa and Uncle Bryan to run the Tough Mudder. It was a blast! She did really well, and had her first gondola ride! 

She has become so aware of her actions and reactions now. She learned to fake laugh and fake cough - I would probably say she fake cries as well, since she's taken to crying and screaming for attention, especially if we leave her sight! 

Sleep. Oh sweet sleep. Evie has started sleeping on her belly - cue the anxiety. This started because we were letting her sleep on her side because she like to have her butt patted to fall asleep in her crib. Then she would cross her leg over and eventually started just preferring her belly. This actually helped her to start sleeping longer stretches once we got the okay from our pediatrician. We feel better about it now that it's been going on for a month. 

We also started sleep training just a few days before she turned seven months. We are I going with the most gentle style we thought would work, so there's no cry-it-out and we are with her the whole time. We've been working on cutting back the number of times she nurses each night (it was every time she woke, 4-10 times a night) for all of September. Our plan is this - we now wait 3 minutes (this will be extended to 5 then 10 eventually) before going into her when she wakes. She has a planned nursing session between 3-4 a.m. which I go directly in to her. For every other waking, Luke always goes in first, and it relieve him after 10 minutes if she's still up. Luke will come back in after another 10 minutes, and if she's still awake after that, I nurse her or help her get to sleep no matter what it takes. We figure after half an hour awake, she's too stressed and awake to go back to sleep with out a lot of help. It's only happened once though! The first night was pretty bad but since then, she usually falls back asleep within the first 10 minutes with Luke. As of October 8th, she usually wakes only 3ish times now, and has put herself back to sleep within those first three minutes a few times. Here's the best part - one glorious night, I only had to go in once to nurse her at 330 and she slept until 730 in her crib! That's twelve hours people!!!

The other major news is that this little chicken got her first two teeth the week before turning 7 months! Teething = hell. She was congested and stuffy over the weekend, woke up still yucky and with a MAJOR diaper rash (her first) Monday morning. I checked for a tooth that morning and found nothing, then that afternoon I felt a tooth! She got the left one first, and then felt yucky all week. I didn't expect it, but found the second tooth Friday!  I then felt like a jerk for starting sleep training her while she clearly was teething, but I actually think it helped because she was really sleepy all week and it probably helped make it easier. She even took an hour and a half long nap once! Ha, oh the little things. 

Other firsts: high chairs and shopping carts! Ponytails! She took a bottle from mama! She held her OWN bottle! She likes sippy cups and straw cups with water! 

Favorites: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom before bed, Finn, papa, playing with a mirror, other babies, waving, rattling/ shaking toys, and food!

Dislikes: if Mama leaves the room, being alone in general, tummy time, loud noises and motors (trash trucks, blender, vacuum, motorcycles, etc.)