9 Months!

And another belated monthly post... oh well, better late than never I guess!  Kiera is definitely more of a handful now that she is mobile, but we just love it.  What a FUN age!  Joel and I literally say to each other about 10 times a day, "She's the best" and "I just love her SO much".  Being a mom is the best thing ever.  : ) 

Kiera had a 9-month doctor's visit so we have stats...

Weight: 19lb 7 oz (50-75th percentile)
Height: 27 inches long (25th percentile)
Head Circumference: 17 inches (25th percentile)

Here's what she's been up to...

She is still wearing size 3 diapers and a mix of 6-12 and 12-18 month clothes.

Kiera had her first taste of wasabi this month, NOT intentionally!  We went out for sushi and while we were chowing down on our dinner, Kiera decided that the bright green wasabi looked tasty so she stuck her finger in there to grab a taste.  Joel noticed right away and grabbed it and swept it out of her mouth and I'm pretty sure I scared her by jumping up and grabbing her more than the wasabi actually hurt her mouth.  Only a few moments of crying and she was over it.  Phew!

She is definitely crawling now!  She is ALL over the place and can crawl from room to room.  If we leave her in one room and go to the next she likes to follow us.   And she is so proud of herself.  : )

When she goes to sleep at night or down for a nap, she loves to open up the plantation shutters next to her crib and look out into the courtyard of the condo.  She will usually look outside for awhile before laying back down and going to sleep.  Joel commented the other day how hilarious it must look to the neighbors across the courtyard to see a baby standing there looking out.  haha  She still sleeps ~8pm-7am or so and takes two 1.5 hour naps.

She LOVES to talk and makes all sort of vocalizations.  She loves to imitate noises she hears like trains, coughing, clicking noises, animal noises (she can do a dog & a cow), and just babbling.  She still loves to say mama the most!  Along with the happy vocalizations she has started to vocalize when she's not a fan of something.

Her absolute favorite thing to do is walk around the house holding onto your hands.  She would do it all day if we let her.  She pulls herself up and is cruising around holding the furniture but much prefers holding your hands and exploring the place!

She has mastered drinking water out of straws and sippy cups.  We started with one of those straw cups where you can squeeze it to help make the liquid go up the straw, but she showed us within a day that she was capable of doing it herself and the normal straw sippys were just fine.

She is eating lots of finger foods.  She would prefer to eat anything with her fingers to eating baby food from a spoon.  And she still loves to pick up small things off the floor and try to eat them... requires frequent vacuuming!  She still uses both hands to eat, but we noticed that she often picks up food in both hands and then closes the right one into a fist, continues to use the left one and then at the end of the meal there is inevitably some food hiding in the right fist.  : )  She is on the same eating schedule with milk 4 times a day and 2 solid meals.

She likes to stand on her own for short periods of time.  Once she is stable next to her table or holding onto something she will let go and see how long she can stand alone. 

She started waving and clapping which is absolutely adorable (but can be hard to capture on film)!

She is really enjoying the touch and feel books, although she really likes to taste them!  So strange, but she likes to lick or bite the dog's fur, etc in the books!  What a goofball...

And finally, she cheered on the Green Bay Packers to a Super Bowl victory!  She got lots of use out of her cheerleader dress (it was her Halloween costume)!

8 Months!

(You may have noticed Kiera's obsession with standing up constantly by the 8 month photos!)

Sad that this blog has come to be only monthly updates!  I hope I can change that soon and start making fun posts with videos, talk about our favorite things, and even some non-Kiera centered topics now and then!  One day...

But for now... Kiera is 8 months old!  The changes and strides she has made in the last 2 weeks have been AMAZING!  Here is what she has been up to...

- She has learned to get into a sitting position on her own from her tummy or back, and from there quickly learned to pull herself up to standing.  I had NO idea how big this milestone was!  For three nights after she learned to sit and then stand up in her crib, she woke up screaming in the middle of the night... for a long time... We looked in the video monitor and she would be sitting or standing in her crib, half asleep and very upset.  The first night I was convinced she was sick as this was NOT Kiera-like behavior and I actually let her get up for the day at 5:30am.  Not fun for momma.  But after doing some reading and close Kiera watching, I discovered she was just trying to master her new skill!  Thankfully it only took her three days and she is back to normal Kiera, sleeping all night without a peep!  Phew!  However, now whenever we put her in the crib to sleep she stands up and explores for quite awhile before settling to sleep.  She has also learned to open the shutters near her crib to look outside.  : )  She has started the beginning stages of crawling and can somewhat get where she wants to go (to retrieve a toy, etc) between crawling one "step", rolling over, lunging forward, etc, but she much prefers to stand up and get a little assistance to walk where she wants to go.  She is obsessed with standing up!  Anytime she is anywhere near me she grabs for my hands to use to pull herself up.  She loves to get her balance and then let go and see how long she can stand there alone (only about 10 seconds or so right now).  She also LOVES her little music table!

- She is really enjoying Peekaboo and knows where to look for you and tries to lift the blanket or peer around the corner to find you. 

- She is getting much more attached to me.  She has been a little fussy with light crying in the mornings when I try to leave or hand her over to the nanny or grandma Barb.  I have to work hard to distract her with toys so that she forgets that I have handed her over.  Makes me feel sad (but I guess a little good at the same time)!

- She has learned to kiss!!  It is the cutest.thing.EVER!  When you say kiss or make the kissy face/noise near her she opens her mouth and presses it up against yours.  Slobbery, but simply adorable! 

- She is loud!  She loves, loves to talk and yell.  Mama and baba are the most frequent phrases and she makes the cutest excited breathing noise when you get out her favorite books.  She also loves books and turning the pages!  Her current favorite is The Twelve Dogs of Christmas (I know Christmas is over but she still loves this one).  She is working on bye-bye and uh-oh and has her own version... buh buh and uh without the oh for now.  : )  We are working on Dada, but she just replies with Mama for now!

- We love love love coming home to Kiera at the end of the work day.  She greets us with a giant smile, squealing and kicking her legs.  It warms our hearts!

- She is so interested in whatever we are eating and she enjoys trying anything we will let her sink her teeth into!  She is still having her 4 milk feedings/day with a lunch of fruit/oatmeal and a dinner of veggies/rice (2 oz oatmeal/rice and 1/2 container of fruit/veggies), but loves to snack on bananas, pears, bread, and Gerber puffs.  She still loves to chew on apple slices in the mesh feeder and loves it when we let her take her own small bites from the bananas and pears.  She has also become quite proficient with her pincer grasp and likes to pick up small pieces of food with her thumb and index finger and feed herself.  For awhile she would pick them up and then forget they were in her hand before she could get them into her mouth, but now she's got it down.  We are pondering adding another meal and decreasing the amount of milk in her bottles from 6 oz, but may wait to talk with the doctor at her 9 month visit before making any major changes.  The nanny noted that Kiera wasn't always finishing her 6 oz bottle at the 11am-ish feeding after her fruit/oatmeal, so we just decreased her 11am bottle (the one with her morning meal) to 5oz when I am at work.  She also likes her sippy cup and drinks water, although probably only an ounce-ish each day.  She has been using this cup for a couple months but now drinks out of it more frequently and is learning to pick it up and hold it on her own.

- She also loves to practice her pincer grasp with any little tiny, dirty things that grace the floor or her rug!  Yuck!  We have to vacuum frequently.

- She is down to two naps a day, one around 9am and the other around 2pm, both generally 1.5 hours.  She is sleeping ~8pm-7am at night, sometimes 8am on the weekends when we aren't up making noise getting ready for work in the morning.  Yay!

- She really understands certain signs (we do sign language with her for certain things) and words!  When you say/sign milk, she pumps her little legs and gets very excited, and if you don't provide it quickly from that point she may get mad!  She also knows the sign/word eat, which we do before her solid meals.  She also knows up and if you reach your hands out she lifts her arms or grabs them to pull herself up.  She seems to understand other words like momma, daddy, baby (for her baby doll), bye bye.

- She is still wearing a size 3 diaper and 6-12 month clothes.  Growing so fast though and I don't think they're going to make it to 12 months.

- She loves mirrors!  We have a lot of them around here and she gets so excited when she sees herself and her momma in the mirror!  She makes her adorable excited breathing noises and scrunches up your nose!

- She went to her first Rose Bowl!  Ridiculous, but she actually needed her own ticket!  She is a lucky little girl with a Badger Rose Bowl (too bad it wasn't the Hawkeyes!) and an upcoming Packer superbowl appearance (that she will not be attending!) in her first year of life!  She was an angel at the game.  She just hung out and eventually laid her head on my shoulder and took a nap towards the end... what a sweetheart.

7 Months!

With every month that comes and goes I think to myself, I think this month was my favorite month yet!  Kiera just keeps learning and growing, becoming more of a little person, with such a fun personality starting to show. 

Here's what she's up to at 7 months:

- She has 8 teeth!  Yes, eight!  The bottom two are fully in, the top two are about halfway there, and the other four are very small but definitely through the gums.  She has handled it quite well with only a two days of un-Kiera-like behavior right before they appeared.  She loves to chew on things, including fingers if you let her, and those babies are sharp!

- She is all over the place in her crib!  When we lay her down she goes from top to bottom, side to side, and back to front to side laying.  She frequently sleeps on her tummy or side now, though we still lay her down on her back.  She is sleeping from ~8pm to 7-7:30am and takes her 2 to 3 naps a day. 

- She is wearing 6-12 month clothes with a few 6-9 month items mixed in and a couple pairs of 3-6 month pants still fitting.  She is wearing a size 3 diaper and we still prefer the Pampers.

- She is still eating 4 6oz bottles (still breastfeeding; she gets breastmilk bottles while I'm at work) per day about every 4 hours along with a morning and evening meal.  She has oatmeal and fruit in the AM and rice and veggies in the PM and she generally still likes it all, though tends to finish her fruit a little more frequently than her veggies. She always wants to try what we are eating and when its something she can gum we sometimes give her tiny tastes.  She is getting better at drinking water out of her sippy cup but actually drinks more out of my water bottles.

- She definitely shows when she is excited by making noises and kicking her legs!  One of our favorite things is watching her wake up on the video monitor and then watching how incredibly happy and excited she gets when we walk in the bedroom to get her up.  Another favorite: her excited reaction of squealing with delight when we get home from work...the best!

- She loves to stand up!  Whenever I am sitting near her she grabs onto my hands to pull herself up.  She is not crawling yet but pushes herself backward, can roll all over the place, and prefers standing whenever possible.  She could be one of those babies that decides not to crawl and goes straight to walking.  I am trying to enjoy her relative immobility while it lasts!

- She is such a trooper!  She is so easy going and is happy to tag along anywhere.  We love her flexibility.  Thank you Kiera!!

- She thoroughly enjoyed helping us decorate the Christmas tree and loved looking at all the lights and ornaments!  She also enjoyed sinking her teeth into the bows on the presents.