Random thoughts.

I can't believe I've neglected to write since before Leah was one.  I feel like a lot has happened since then.  I'm going to write some stuff down, mainly so I can read it and remember some day.

She had a small birthday party, with our neighbors, some friends, and my parents.

She dressed up as a bee for Halloween last month.  She sat in front of our storm door playing with candy.  She was absolutely adorable.  She still carries stuff around in her pink pumpkin pail that we bought her.

She's 16 months now, running around, and talking more and more.  She took her first steps a few days after she was one, started walking more than a few steps around 13 months, and was walking everywhere rather than crawling at around 14 months, which is when she moved up to the toddler room at daycare.

I gave her milk last night, and was very surprised to get a "thank you" in response.  It's so cute in her little voice.

Her favorite phrase is "uh....oh" (sometimes while throwing things on the floor which really isn't a time to say uh oh, but oh well).  She also recently learned to say "wow" and attempts to say "diaper" and "ball."

She's getting more and more fun by the day. <3

6 more days...

Until my sweet little girl is one.  I can't believe it.

She hasn't started walking yet, but loves her Stride to Ride dino.  So glad I bought that toy.  She seriously will play with it for hours.

She's doing well at daycare.  The highlight of my day is getting there, watching her get all excited, and then waiting for her to crawl quickly over to me so I can pick her up.  Seriously, just melts my heart.

She's still nursing a lot.  We started working on replacing the morning nursing today.  I gave her a snack instead, and she didn't seem to miss it.  Makes me a little sad, actually.  I don't plan on weaning her completely yet, but I do want to be able to quit pumping at work.

We introduced whole cow's milk on the 4th.  She seemed to like it.

I just can't believe how quickly she's growing up.

Behind. Again.

I always knew I couldn't blog.

May was a great month, I would say.  My husband's father and stepmother came up for his graduation ceremony and got to spend some time with their granddaughter.  They hadn't seen her since she was a newborn.  That weekend, Leah's first tooth finally came through.  It was a bottom tooth.  Now she has one bottom tooth and one top tooth, on opposite sides, which looks kind of funny. :)  Looks like the other top tooth is about to join in, though.

My mother also came to visit, as she does pretty much every month.

 I had my first Mother's Day.  We didn't do anything fancy...just went to Bob Evans to eat, and my husband bought me a pretty necklace to celebrate my first year as a mother.  Sometimes it still seems crazy to me that I'm mama to a sweet little girl.

At the end of May, we also took her for her first trip to the local zoo.  I don't know how much she appreciated the animals, but she really liked the little boy laughing at the sea lion feeding. :)  The weather's getting better, so we should be going outside more.

We took her to the park yesterday and put her in the swing.  I don't think she was too impressed.  I took some pictures, and she was clinging to the swing.  We also put her on the grass.  Her reaction was hilarious.  She was holding up her arms and shifting about like she didn't want to touch it, haha.

Finally, last week, we also switched her to her convertible carseats.  Seems like such a milestone.  For some reason, it makes me sad she's no longer in the carseat I chose for her while I was pregnant.

And next month she'll be one.  Just crazy.  Still can't wrap my mind around that one.

Leah is 9 months!

Or she was a couple of weeks ago.  We had her 9 month appointment today at least.  She's at 50th percentile for both length and weight, and 35th for head circumference, which is about where she's been.  She did not like going to the appointment at all.  There was a lot of crying and flailing and screaming.  As soon as we left the exam room, she stopped.  Silly girl.

She started daycare last week.  A few days in, she already came back with a cold!  Blah.  I knew daycare would result in colds, but no one told me it would happen that fast!  She seems to be adjusting okay, though.  The first few days, she was super sad.  When I picked her up in the afternoon, she burst into tears for a couple days.  Her thought process isn't "I'm so happy to see you!"  It's "Why are you over there?  COME SAVE ME!"

Today I picked her up, and she was sobbing hysterically.  Not sure why.  I think it might have been because I was a little later than usual, and she got moved to the other infant room, which she hasn't spent much time in.

She's learned "Mama!" I love it.  Totally melts my heart.

Leah's a crawler!

She's been working on it for about a week. I stay home with her on Monday afternoons, and she crawled a tiny bit (about 2 "steps"). She's been trying to get the motion down since then.

Today, she crawled across our living room! Unfortunately, it was because she saw the cables for the TV and wanted to play with them. Ick. Looks like we have some baby proofing to do!

Lots of change going on...

Since Leah has been born, my husband has been staying with her during the day while he takes night classes. Unfortunately, or fortunately however you look at it, he's graduating soon. This means he is going to return to work...which means Leah will be going to a center. It makes me sad. She'll be going a couple weeks from now. *sigh* He'll be working Tuesday-Saturday, which means she'll spend four days in daycare. We've been looking at centers, and I think we've finally settled on one.

On to funner things...Leah's newest trick is getting from her tummy to the sitting position. She first did it on Friday. The sad thing is I was home, and I missed it! She was on her tummy, and I looked away for a few moments. I look back, and there she is, sitting. UGH! I can't believe I missed the first time even though I was right there. However, she did it again today. Yay!

She's also working on crawling. She's moved forward a bit, but hasn't quite got the hang of crawling. She mainly just rolls to get where she wants to go.

Sometimes it still hits me...

When we first moved into this house, I dreamed of the day that we would put a baby in the room next to our bedroom. Sometimes I still can't believe that the day I dreamed of is here. There is a sweet little girl who sleeps in that room.

We'd pass by the hospital, and I'd dream of the day we'd get to go there and leave with a baby. We have done that.

Tonight, I brought my baby to the Open House at work. That's when everyone gets to bring their families to the facility. A couple years ago, before I was pregnant, I told my husband that maybe someday we'd get to bring a child to it.

Sometimes it still hits me that I'm a mom and that my biggest wish has come true. I wonder if it'll ever stop amazing me.

Leah is 7 Months

Sweet Leah turned 7 months last week. Unbelievable. Seven months just seems so big. I know it's not really old in the grand scheme of things, but wow. I would at least classify her as an older infant.

She's doing well, and eating more food. She still only eats roughly 4 ounces a day, but it's okay. I want to go slower anyway because I don't want to wean her before a year, and even then, it'll probably break my heart. Seriously can't stand the idea of weaning her.

Right now, she loves the two Fisher-Price cars my sister bought her for Christmas. She enjoys rolling them across our floor. She also enjoys banging the rings she got from her godfather against the floor.

We bought her Lady and the Tramp for Valentine's Day...not at all for ourselves, of course. Just for her. :-p

I asked my husband just now if he wanted to add anything that Leah's doing to this blog entry. His response? "She's cute. Cutest baby ever."

Solids

We started giving Leah rice cereal on January 14th. I really wanted to get to six months of exclusive breastmilk, so I am pretty excited that we succeeded! :) Anyway, we stuck to just the cereal for the first week, and she seemed to get it, so we moved on to squash.

The look on her face was priceless. It looked like she was thinking, "What the heck?" However, squash seemed to grow on her, and we moved on to broccoli.

Broccoli is how I learned I am a fail in the kitchen. We got a Magic Bullet for a wedding present (2 and a half years ago). I have never used it. My husband prepares all the meals. So I thought, "Hey, how hard can this be?"

I steamed some broccoli and threw it in there. It wasn't working. Ugh, what am I doing wrong? After awhile, I realized...there should probably be some liquid in here. Yeah, I'm dumb. You need liquid to make a puree. So I put in some water and thinned it out. It worked! Yay! I later learned most people actually use formula or breastmilk. Haha. Oops. Having a child apparently does not suddenly improve your kitchen skills. Oh, well.

Anyway, I gave her some and she promptly spit it out. Then I realized I forgot to put a bib on the baby. Yeah. I am a baby food fail. Oops. Well, that was fun to clean up.

Since then, the broccoli's grown on her. I also gave her some carrots last night and she seemed to like it.

I am a blog slacker..

No updates since November? Oops. Here's an update for Christmas. Only took me a month...and a few days.

In December, we drove to Arizona. Yup. Drove. It was a long 4 days. On the way there, we got caught in a snowstorm in Texas. I seriously said Hail Marys in the back. I kept thinking if we died, that we'd be one of those sad stories where people would say, "Oh, that's sad...there was a kid in the back." We ended up staying in Tucumcari, NM since the interstate was closed. Anyway, lesson learned. We're never taking that trip again. If we go to Arizona, we're flying.

To give you an idea of how bad it was, I'll share this story: we could barely see anything, so my husband was following the car in front of us. We ended up in a picnic area. Yup, that's right, we exited the freeway without even knowing it.

Leah's first Christmas was fun. We brought her to Mass at the church we were married in. We saw several people there we knew. We dressed her up in her cute Christmas dress, and she got lots of compliments. :)

We saw several friends in AZ...a few we hadn't seen since high school. We ate lots of yummy food at some of my favorite places: IN-N-OUT, Sweet Tomatoes, Boston Market. MMMM.

Overall, it was a great time. However, next year, we're thinking of doing Christmas properly by staying home, having a tree, decorating the house...we'll see.