Five

It is hard to believe that our beautiful baby girl turned 5! For some reason five seems like such a momentous number...maybe because it signifies such big changes, with Kindergarten (yikes!) coming up this fall.

We have definitely seen such huge changes in Amanda this year. In the past twelve months, she has shot up in height (although her weight has stayed pretty much steady), and her hair had grown almost to her waist until we cut it just after her birthday. She has also become a very competent reader and is well on her way to reading short chapter books. Her vocabulary is amazing; she picks up on new words in conversations and then uses them until she's figured out the right context. She's also remarkably perceptive for her age and the conversations we have with her are definitely not what we ever expected for a 5-year-old! Her writing and drawing skills have improved immensely; when we flipped through her preschool album at the end of the year, it was neat to see the early versions of her own name compared to the later ones. She has a great imagination and loves playing complicated make-believe games...sometimes we are in trouble if we don't follow along with all the convoluted rules! We were also so proud of her at preschool this year – she was the only new child in a class of 10 kids, the rest of whom had all spent the whole year together last year. She adapted remarkably and made a lot of new friends.

One of the best things about Amanda's 5th year has been seeing her adapt to the addition of Sam to our family. It's hard to believe that a year ago she was still an only child! We have been so thrilled to see what a great big sister she is – patient (for the most part), excited to see Sam growing and changing, and always instructing him. It's so much fun to listen to her talking to him. Now that she's reading she also loves to read him stories. For his part, Sam adores his big sister and we fully expect his first word to be some version of "Amanda"!

Of course Amanda is also a typical 5 year old in a lot of other ways too; all too often we get glimpses into what our life will be like when she hits her teenage years. She is definitely capable of giving us a lot of attitude on a fairly regular basis! She also has meltdowns over seemingly small things, especially when she is tired or hungry.

We could not be more proud of our beautiful, crazy, funny, smart girl and the person she is becoming! We love you Amanda!

(Music is Evermore by Alison Krauss, which I blogged about here.)

10 Month Sam Update

Wow, once again it's been awhile since we've posted! Here's a quick update on Sam as he has just turned 10 months old (ack...where has the time gone?!?).

We posted at 8 months that the big news was mobility...well multiply that by 10! By 9 months Sam was crawling very well and pulling himself up on almost anything (even a flat wall). Now at 10 months he seems very close to walking. He walks very well holding on to only a single finger (even if we're beside him and not behind him), and we can see that he really doesn't need it; it's just a security blanket at this point. He can stand for several seconds not holding on to anything, as long as he doesn't notice he's doing it! As soon as her realizes he's not holding on, he sits down on his bum or grabs onto whatever is in front of him. He can climb stairs - he doesn't do it at our house as the staircase is big, but he loves the small 4-step stairs at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Some more exciting news...Sam is signing! He has a definite sign for "more" (although it isn't the normal one that we taught him...he's kind of made up his own sign) and he's using it whenever he wants to tell us anything. So we're working on "milk", "diaper change", "food", and "water" (and a few others thrown in as well). Hopefully he will pick up some more signs soon so he can communicate with us even better! But we are thrilled that he's even doing any signs at this point - Amanda didn't start until after her first birthday. Hooray Sam!

Other Sam stuff:

• He loves to wave! And he knows the word, because if we ask him to wave at someone he'll do it even if we don't demonstrate!
  
• He still loves books, and is very good at turning the pages on his own.
  
• He continues to eat well, although all new foods are greeted with an extremely dubious face. But we haven't found anything he absolutely won't eat (knock on wood). He has also finally gotten the hang of finger foods...we started introducing some cheerios and small pieces of cheese, etc. just after 8 months and it's only in the past few weeks that he's really gotten the hang of it. Of course, now he wants to put everything in his mouth, including bits of yuckiness that he finds on the floor. Oh well...comes with the territory!
  
• He is a really happy baby and treats us to random laughter at regular intervals. He has a funny laugh, kind of a barking "ha, ha, ha" noise, and he loves to laugh when others are laughing. Sometimes he makes us feel extra-funny when we tell a joke and laughs at it!
  
• He definitely has a mischievous side. When we put him down he will automatically go for the one thing in the room that he's not supposed to touch. He also loves to crawl up onto the fireplace (strictly forbidden) as soon as I have my back turned, and has come dangerously close to turning off the computer a number of times by pushing that lovely power button on the front!
  
• Despite starting out a lot fairer than Amanda did, he has taken after his Dad and sister in automatically turning 50 shades darker as soon as he gets into sunshine, even with super-powered sunscreen on. Oh well, at least he will hopefully be like Amanda and not burn!

Some photos to share:

Hanging out in his booster seat at 8.5 months:


Total blackmail photo - nice outfit dude!Around 9 months:


9 month photo - 18 lbs, 4 oz and around 27":


A nice family shot on Mother's Day (9.5 months):


Playing with some friends at Babyeats, 9.5 months:


First time at the pool (9.5 months):


Sam signing! 9.5 months:


Getting into mischief, 9.5 months:


Eating cheese and demonstrating his funny laugh, also 9.5 months:


Big boy at 10 months! About 19 lbs, 6 oz and just over 27" long:

Sam At 7 Months

A snapshot of Sam at 7 months (well, plus a bit)...


Oh come on, how cute is that?!?

• In the last month he has become much more pleasant! I suspect that he just plain wasn't getting enough to eat before, and now he is (a post for another time, perhaps). It's like night and day. He is much more smiley and laughs more often, and the long crying jags in the middle of the day are pretty much over.

Smiley Sam! He really does exist!

• He is also finally starting to gain some weight! At 6 months he had barely doubled his weight, making him borderline failure-to-thrive (see "not getting enough to eat", above). But now he is happily packing on the pounds and getting chubbier by the day! He is finally graduating out of his 3-6 month clothes.
  
• This kid sooo wants to be moving! He loves to be on his feet, and will "walk" if you hold him upright (I don't remember Amanda doing this until quite a bit later, but I could be mistaken). He will also pull himself upright if we put him somewhere he can do it, like in his crib next to the bars. He isn't yet crawling, but he sits totally unassisted for long periods of time and has learned that he can "bounce" himself forward. He can make pretty good tracks this way! In the last couple of days he has also figured out how to do continuous rolls and has been rolling around the living room floor. Oh oh!!
  

Sitting up in his favourite spot in the living room, with his toys.

• He loves food! He has already graduated to eating 3 times each day, and at every meal he eats about 3 tbsp of cereal, give or take, plus at least one frozen cube of something else. So far he's tried cereal (rice, barley, and oatmeal), fruit (banana, peach, and avocado), veggies (carrots, butternut squash, yams, broccoli), and meat (roast beef, tilapia, and turkey). He's not a huge fan of anything the first several tries, and has a lovely classic "yuck" face that he makes, but after awhile he'll eat most things on their own. Still not a fan of any kind of meat, though.
• He adores books. I remember Amanda always liking books, and she's even an early reader, but I'd say Sam loves them even more at this age. He has already figured out how to turn pages...not every time, but if he persists he manages to do it. He babbles away to the book and makes all kinds of interesting noises!
• Speaking of speaking, he started out babbling several months ago, but now seems to have moved onto strange guttural noises like hard g's and weird little huffs. I don't remember Amanda doing this...will be interesting to see what comes of it!
  

Chattering away, as usual.

• His sleeping is pretty terrible. Considering he started out so promisingly in the sleep department, we thought he'd continue in the same way, but no. Around the time he started solids he also started waking up consistently in the middle of the night (usually around 1–2 am, but anywhere from 11:30 pm to 4:30 am) and flat-out refusing to go back to sleep on his own. He will quite happily sleep if someone stands next to his crib touching him, or if he's held in a chair or on the couch, or if he comes to bed with us. But otherwise, no way, no how. For various reasons we decided not to deal with this over the past month, and since we'll be in Disneyland next week, there didn't seem to be a point in doing anything until we get back. Hopefully we'll be able to get him back into some kind of regular sleep pattern soon. On the plus side, he's dropped his nighttime feedings, so it's just a matter of dealing with the clinginess issue!
  
• He surprisingly looks quite a bit like me as a baby. I wouldn't have noticed it, but my mom pulled out an old photo of me at 3 months and the resemblance is pretty striking. I will have to borrow that photo and scan it in next time I'm over at their house!
• We have been signing with him for a few months – just simple signs like "diaper change", and now that he's eating, "more" and "all done" He already seems to be trying to sign! In the past couple of days he brings his hands together in front of him in a rough approximation of "more" while he's eating. It will be fun to see if he picks it up in the next while!
  
• Still nothing on the tooth front, although he is sooo drooly and his teeth obviously bother him quite a bit.

Lovely drooly baby.

• Things Sam loves: having his back scratched (he crunches up his shoulders and just melts); being tickled; This Little Piggy; the bath (he really, really loves the bath and gets super-excited every time we put him in it!!); spending time with Amanda (his face literally lights up when she is around, and she continues to be amazing with him); looking at pictures of babies (we found a great book called Baby! Baby! that he is crazy about); a lovely pink plastic comb that he seeks out above all other toys.

Of all the toys he has to play with, he picks the plastic comb??

• Hmm, what else? He has a very funny little giggle – almost more like a chuckle. He's still a little shy around anyone other than me, Jeff, or Amanda, but he's getting better at being with other people and has been successfully babysat (i.e., little or no crying) for a few hours at a time. We are loving getting to know him and discovering his personality as it emerges!

Our beautiful boy!

Sam at 4 Months

Not the greatest birthday portrait, but seeing as how it was already 2 days late, I didn't want to wait any longer! I didn't weigh Sam for his birthday, but I did it about 10 days before he turned 4 months and he was 13 lbs, 10 oz and 24" long. Much smaller than Amanda at this age (she was 16 lbs, 1 oz and 26" long at 4 months). Not that I'm complaining!

A snapshot of Sam at 4 months:

His pleasantness during the daytime is much improved, but he still has his moments. ~ He has learned to blow bubbles and loves to show off his new skill at every opportunity!

Consequently, he is drooling like a madman. I am now having to put bibs on him during the day - I NEVER had to do that for Amanda! ~ The tradeoff for daytime happiness seems to be less nighttime sleep - he is only sleeping a 4-6 hour stretch now, but I'm really hoping it will improve soon to his previous 8-10 hours! ~ It's hard to be sure, but I really think there might be some tooth action happening on his bottom gums. He is very intent on chewing on his fingers constantly.

He is a pretty serious baby and doesn't smile a ton, but when he does smile, they're big and beautiful!

He is refusing the bottle, but we are trying valiantly. Tonight I had some limited success with the Adiri Nurser. ~ He absolutely adores his big sister. ~ He resists naps wholeheartedly, but if I catch him at the right time, I can usually convince him to nap now - except they generally only last 20-30 minutes. ~ He is really strong in the neck and shoulders, but hates being put on his tummy. ~ He has a really bad temper! If he is mad about something, he turns purple and shakes with rage. It shouldn't be funny, but it kind of is! ~ He loves his Sophie the Giraffe and Little Green Dude, who travel with him all the time in his car seat. ~ He is getting pretty good at reaching for things with purpose - today he even managed to get his soother back in at one point! ~ He has made our family feel complete, and we are pretty crazy about him!

Saturday Acquisitions

Newly acquired by Jen & Jeff: almost $300 worth of paint and paint accessories. Now we will really need to get moving on painting our kitchen and upstairs! Ack! (I should note that we will get 30% of the paint cost back, since Home Depot had a mail-in rebate...but we probably won't get it for 6 - 8 weeks). I hate buying paint - how does anyone ever know that what they're buying will work?? It gives me serious stress.

Newly acquired by Amanda: a serious case of whininess (is that a word?). She's been really great lately, but I guess we all have our bad days and today was not stellar. However, by evening she was in a great mood and chatting up a storm in the car on our way home from Home Depot.

Newly acquired by Sam: the ability to blow bubbles! Thanks Jeff for teaching him that one. Now his normal drooliness has been amplified by about 10X.

Newly acquired by Jeff: a MacBook, for school (yeah right, just for school). Jeff and Amanda have been having much fun playing with its cool features:



Newly acquired by Jen: sadly, not a new computer. However, I have inherited Jeff's old laptop and will finally have an upstairs computer of my own! Not that I couldn't use the laptops before, but they were never set up for me. Now I can sync my iPod and have all my programs installed upstairs! Whoo hoo! Yes, it's sad what makes me happy...

Sam Update

I am happy to say that we seem to have turned a corner with Sam! For the past three days he has been much more pleasant and I'm wondering if his grouchiness over the past couple of weeks has been due to the cold he's had. It didn't seem like too bad of a cold until the last bit, when the cough got really bad, but I know I had the same thing and my throat was quite sore. So maybe he just couldn't figure out why he felt so lousy? Regardless, I'm really hoping (knocking on wood here) that we've seem the last of super-grouchy Sam for awhile.

He has even been taking some naps, although they're not as frequent or as long as I think he needs them to be, and nighttime sleep has improved (although we're still not getting the same 8-10 hour stretches...more like 6-7 hours usually). I'll take it! The most important thing is that he's much more happy, smiley, and talkative during the day and there's a lot less screaming!

And in other Sam news...drum roll please...he rolled over today! Twice! I admit he doesn't get nearly the amount of tummy time he's supposed to, partly because I'm just rarely organized enough to fit it in, and partly because he hates it and screams bloody murder after about 5 seconds. But today he did roll over tummy to back twice - both times right after I put him on his tummy. Both times I also put him back on his tummy right away, at which point he got really irate ("really, woman, if I WANTED to be on my tummy I would have stayed there!").

And a dose of Sam cuteness for today...(actually this photo is about 10 days old, but we have been woefully negligent in our picture-taking lately!):

As Promised...

Here is a short video of Amanda reading from her Bob Books. Unfortunately I can't remember how to make the videos last longer than 30 seconds, but you get the idea!

Reading Star!!

We've been working with Amanda for quite awhile on reading, but it's never been a huge thing - we wanted her to come to it on her own, rather than forcing it down her throat. She has known her letters and the sounds they make for a long time, and she was starting to read simple things well before her fourth birthday. We also bought some Bob Books, which are great first readers, and would practice with them once in awhile. However, she would get very easily frustrated and we left it for awhile, figuring eventually it would come.

Several months ago, she got very interested in her Word Whammer. Over the past couple of months, we've been asked many times a day "How many letters does XXX have?", since she knows that if it has 3 letters, she can spell it in the Word Whammer. She started with the settings that help you spell the word, but now she does it completely on her own. And if she wants to spell something that doesn't fit in the Word Whammer, sometimes we will play along and sing the song for her..."The word, yellow, is what you see, you made that super-duper excellently!". (Oh yes, we have the whole schtick memorized.)

A few weeks ago, it was like a light bulb went on over her head and all of a sudden she is really reading! We revisited the Bob Books and she can read an entire book completely on her own! She also is reading everything she sets eyes on: road signs, newspaper headlines, ads... The frustrating thing is that we're now starting to realize how crazy the English language is. The poor kid remembers pretty much every rule we throw at her, but then the next word she tries to read will negate that rule. It must be so frustrating for her! But she is just so excited to be reading that it doesn't seem to bother her too much. Of course, once she gets to Kindergarten we'll probably find out we've been teaching it all wrong and she's messed up for life!!

I'm going to try to get a short video of her reading, because I think it would be something cool to have and look back on later...if I can get it filmed I'll post it!

Sharing a quiet moment reading with Dora, almost exactly two years ago

Birthday Portraits

Here are the portraits we had done for Amanda's 3rd birthday (we cheated and got them done several weeks ago so they'd be ready for her birthday):










And, just for fun, here is another photo we had done a few weeks ago at Ikea! Bopomo Pictures did a special promotion where you could get free pictures done for Mothers' Day. I decided to have both of us in the picture since there are so few photos of the two of us together, and I'm quite happy with the final result:


I quite like the photos on their site - maybe we will go down and have a real portrait session one of these days!

Update...

Another month, another lack of blog posts...sigh.

Oh well, here's our month in a nutshell. Although we're always busy, this month has been perhaps even crazier than usual - I started a new job! The company I started working for only last February basically ran out of money (yes, the joys of working in biotech) and laid off their entire staff. Did you know you can be "temporarily" laid off with no notice and no severance for up to 13 weeks? No? Well, me neither, until the middle of April. I was very lucky in that I was part of a very small group who were brought back in on a consulting basis, and I continued consulting until I got a new job after 4 weeks. So things worked out very well for me, although I know very well I'm extremely lucky.

So, now I have moved out of working in biotech - this experience really encouraged me to consider other options that aren't so shaky, and biotech is just not a great place to be these days in Vancouver, with a lot of companies laying off. So I've made a move into the other side of research and drug development, dealing with the grants portfolio for a major research institute here in town. I'm now working downtown for the first time in my life and I love it! I take the West Coast Express in and it's such a relaxing commute...plus, I get a couple of short walks in every day, which helps keep my energy up (especially important since I'm now up at 5:30 am to get to work by 8 am).

But enough about me...Amanda has adjusted surprisingly well to the earlier wake-up time and has been generally quite cheerful over the past several weeks. And, in other big news, she appears to have finally made the leap into staying dry during the day! She's been quite unusual in the potty department, as she has been fully #2 trained for many months now, but resisted #1 training (she would pee in the potty no problem, but wouldn't initiate it on her own). We knew she could, because she would have really great stretches or even full days when she was completely dry and would ask to go when she needed to, but then she'd lose interest again. All of a sudden something seems to have clicked and she is wearing her "big girl panties" and staying dry all day! We've had only a couple of small accidents all week, and both times she was just a bit too late (as opposed to completely ignoring the urge to go). So great progress! We're so proud of her...can't believe how grown up she seems all of a sudden. She also stopped using her potty seat all of a sudden and insists that she's a big girl and can sit without it. She hasn't fallen in yet, so I guess that's a good sign. :)

So, what else...well, we went to Denise & Danny's wedding a couple of weeks ago and got some great pictures. Amanda got a chance to wear her beautiful dress from Mike & Cristina's wedding again, and of course she felt like a princess. Here are a couple of pictures:






On the Victoria Day Monday, we headed out to the Aquarium, one of Amanda's favourite places. Here are a couple of pictures from that day:





And finally, big excitement - Amanda is turning 3 on Tuesday!! How is it possible that she has gotten so big? We had a small birthday party for her on Saturday and it was a big success (well, at least we thought it was). This was the first time that we tried inviting actual kids to her birthday party, which added a level of stress (since we had to make sure we had activities for the kids), but it all worked out great. We didn't tell Amanda her friends were coming, and the look on her face when they arrived was worth the lack of sleep in preparing for the party. She had a fabulous time playing with Isabella (Cristina's cousin, Amanda's co-flower girl from the wedding) and Maddy (her friend from daycare), as well as Isabella's younger brother Alexander. The kids were all extremely well behaved - no fighting or crying at all! They immediately set to work playing with every single toy Amanda owns and had a great time. We went with an "under the sea" theme, with cut-out tuna sandwiches, a goldfish cracker snack mix, blue finger jello in sealife shapes, and shrimp dip (courtesy of Mom). For dessert, we had a fish cake. The kids had a great time putting together foam picture frames with foam cut-outs and real shells glued on, and decorating sealife-shaped sugar cookies. I was really happy with the way everything turned out. Amanda received a pile of really amazing gifts, including a beautiful bike - she is so lucky to have so many friends and family who love her! It was a great day all around. Some photos...
















Sorry for all the photos...hopefully this post won't take a year to load on everyone's computer. :)

In a few days, we are off on vacation for a week for Jeff's cousin Rosalie's wedding in San Jose. It will be Amanda's first plane ride, and she couldn't be more excited. She is going to be a flower girl at the wedding (her third time!) and we're looking forward to getting some relaxation time, too...maybe even a visit to the beach! We'll try to post while we're gone.

Amanda at Just-Over-2

Since we haven't given an update on Amanda in awhile, we thought her birthday would be a good opportunity (OK, so we're a little late). Who is Amanda at 2?

• She can count up to about 13, but usually starts at 3 unless prompted, and often skips 6 (five, memen...).
  
• She knows her alphabet, and can sing the alphabet song ("ABCs", as she calls it) pretty much on her own.
  
• Speaking of singing, she sings all the time! She knows several songs - Twinkle Twinkle, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Baby Beluga, Muffin Man, and lots of others. She will often sing a whole song completely on her own. She's not always totally on pitch, but she does get the basic idea and she has a really pretty voice.
  
• She also knows the difference between pitches that are "high" and "low". She loves to sit at the piano and hit high notes, saying "high high high" (in a high squeaky voice), then the low notes ("low low low", in a deep voice). Very cute!
  
• She knows tons of musical instruments - even less common ones, like harp and French horn. If she's listening to music on the radio, she will quite often tell us if she hears a trumpet, trombone, piano, or guitar. As she says the words, she mimes like she's playing the instrument.
  
• Her hair is still curly, especially in this hot weather!
  
• She talks like crazy...pretty much all the time. We're at that weird stage where we can understand most of it, but it's unintelligible to other people, so they just think we're pretending she's talking.
  
• She's getting a bit pickier in the food department, but she's still a pretty good eater. She seems to especially love chicken.
  
• She moved into her big girl bed just after her birthday, and she loves it. She gets excited every time she goes in her room and sees her "own bed". She's been sleeping well, but last night we experienced our first night terror - not fun! We're hoping it will be a short phase.
  
• She loves going to Nancy's house and hanging out with her friends.
  
• Although we wanted to hold off on attempting potty training until the summer (when Jeff will be off with her), she's been very interested and so we've been introducing it slowly. In the next few weeks we'll make a real attempt and see how that goes. The downside: now she likes to make a big deal out of it when WE use the potty successfully! :)
  
• And combining those last two items...one of her favourite songs to sing on the potty is Patty Cake, and we have to bake cakes for every one of her daycare friends before she'll let us stop. Sometimes we even get to bake cakes for Mommy and Daddy too!
  
• She gets more beautiful, and funnier, and more girl than baby, every single day. We are having a blast with her and can't imagine life without her.
  

19 months

The big news these days is words! Amanda is a word-learning machine - she has at least a few new ones every day. By her 19 month birthday, here are some of the words she knows (the ones we can remember off the top of our heads, anyway!):

Mama ~ Dada ~ done ~ gone ~ bye ~ hi ~ boom ~ whoa ~ down ~ book ~ baby ~ milk ~ more ~ yogurt ~ bread ~ shoes ~ stuck ~ up ~ Josh (from daycare) ~ duck ~ lion ~ monkey ~ arm ~ eye ~ bib ~ ball ~ bonk ~ balloon ~ beep ~ bubbles ~ rain/raining ~ hot ~ cold ~ "where are you?" ~ "caw caw" for bird ~ bunny ~ lambie ~ "EIEIO" ~ kitty ~ home ~ night-night ~ morning ~ dark ~ light ~ moon ~ star ("gar") ~ Cheerios ~ cookie ~ mine ~ bear ~ dirt ~ yuck ~ yum ~ spoon ~ broccoli ~ bum ~ chicken ~ "moo moo" for cow ~ "baa" for sheep ~ Grandma ~ socks ~ sun ~ car ~ "achoo" for bless you ~ hat ~ cup ~ toot! ~ poop ~ her own made-up word for thank you ~ whee ~ oh oh ~ ho ho ho

16 1/2 month update

Well, in the past few weeks we have hurdled headlong into full-blown toddlerhood! Amanda gets more strong-willed by the day (wonder where she gets that from?!?) and definitely lets us know when she is upset! She has started having some pretty strong tantrums when things don't go her way. To be honest, sometimes they are more funny than frustrating for her parents! She definitely has the drama queen inclination and rolls around on the floor like she is going to die. When she's not tantruming, Amanda is quite the funny character. She is saying a few words consistently now, like "done", "oh oh", and "boom" (a new one she just learned a few days ago), and she has said lots of other words in context, but only once or twice. She definitely understands a great deal of what we say to her and follows instructions and "answers" us back. She is still signing - this month she has learned "please" and "thank you". On the tooth front, she now has her full set of incisors, top and bottom, except for one lateral incisor on the top. All of a sudden last week she sprouted both top premolars - before the canines! Very strange! It seems like a bunch of teeth are getting ready to pop through any day now. On the plus side, it means that she can eat pretty much anything we give her now, without us having to worry too much about choking (not that we don't still worry!). She has learned to "dip" her food and loves to eat this way: bits of meat into dip, pasta into sauce, fries into ketchup, pancakes into syrup... A week or two ago we went for our first walk without the stroller - a milestone! We walked all the way down to the river and back, making a detour to the playground on our way home, and she walked pretty much the whole way. Well, except for the times she was running! She definitely doesn't have any trouble keeping up with us...often it's the other way around! She is still dancing a ton and singing all the time - Sue is starting to understand her songs as well, so it's not just us! We just wish there were more hours in the day to spend with her.

We have a one year old!

It's official...we are parents of a toddler! Not only did Amanda turn 1 year old on June 12th, but she is walking around like crazy! As usual, our girl was pretty cautious in learning this new skill...she took her time, slowly progressing from 1-2 steps in mid-May, to 5-6 steps by the end of May, and finally to walking as far as she wants with confidence a few days before her birthday. Along with her newfound mobility, Amanda is getting more curious about everything (i.e., is into everything!) and is also testing her independence a bit, watching us to see how react when she's doing something she knows she's not supposed to do. She finally broke the 20 lb barrier - hooray! OK, well she's exactly 20 lbs, but that's all right. At least she is gaining weight. She is eating table foods almost exclusively now and has tried just about everything, other than nuts. She loves to eat scrambled eggs for breakfast and she seems to be especially fond of pasta. She has also tried Pirate Paks from White Spot, twice! - a grilled cheese sandwich and macaroni and cheese (both were bit hits). Believe it or not, she still has only two teeth, although the top teeth seem to be bothering her a great deal. In the past, she's only had significant teething pain at night, but now it bothers her a lot during the day as well. We hope those teeth will be coming in soon! She is still sleeping very well, through the night most nights...we've had a few wake-ups due to teething pain, but she is quickly soothed so it's not so bad. She is not quite saying any "real" words, although she babbles a ton and it sounds like she is speaking her own special language, complete with proper inflections. We joke that she is actually fluent in Russian, because if we ask her a question she often says "DA!" - not gently, like she used to, but very emphatically, like she is trying to tell us something very important! She loves music and will dance happily to whatever is playing or whatever silly tune we are singing. She also loves books, although so far she is mostly interested in turning the pages rather than hearing the story. All in all, she is a happy, energetic, goofy little girl and we love her to bits. It is amazing to watch her personality unfold as she grows.

9 month update

It is hard to believe that Amanda has now been alive "outside" for as long as she was alive "inside"! This has been a very big month in terms of milestones. It's now a race to see whether Amanda will crawl or walk first! She has just started doing a modified crawl in which she moves forward on her hands, dragging her legs behind her (we call her Quasimodo!). But mostly she just uses this as a means towards getting to the furniture so she can pull herself up...she really wants to be standing all the time. She has become very adept at pulling up on almost anything, even just a knee! She has just started cruising on the furniture, and will "walk" for quite aways with someone holding onto her hands. She can also stand unassisted for several seconds at a time before toppling over! This month Mandy finally got her first tooth - one of the bottom front ones. We had a few very sleepless nights, but otherwise it was relatively painless for her and for us! So far she only has the one tooth, so she will have a very cute lopsided grin for awhile until its partner comes in. Amanda continues to be a very vocal baby - she has almost got "mama" and "dada" down, using them mostly for the appropriate person. We have added lots of new foods to her diet, and she continues to enjoy eating solid foods, although her appetite changes greatly from day to day. We've started her on some finger foods, but she's not that interested...everything else the girl touches goes directly into her mouth, but when we actually give her FOOD, she looks at us like "what the heck am I supposed to do with this?". She does love the rice rusk teething biscuits - the only thing she will consistently feed herself. We have finally made some headway in our ongoing sleep issues...we are attempting to convince her to go to sleep on her own (without nursing to sleep), while avoiding "crying it out". Although it's been a struggle, it is working very well. After only a couple of nights, we have gone from 3-4 night wakings (with much difficulty going back to sleep) to only one after 7-9 hours of sleep (sometimes she goes right back to sleep, sometimes not). It is encouraging to finally see some progress!

6 month update

Our little girl is 6 months old! It is incredible how fast she is growing. We will get her height and weight at her Doctor's appointment later this week, but our arms tell us that she is definitely getting heavier! Sleeping has much improved over the last week or two - we are routinely getting 8-10 hour nights (although we are waiting for the 6 month growth spurt to kick in and cause a few sleepless nights...hopefully only a few!). This was a big month - Amanda started solids (rice cereal) and seems to really enjoy it; we held her baptism, which went wonderfully; sitting up is now second nature, which opens up all kinds of new avenues for play; and we started introducing a few baby signs, which we hope will help Amanda communicate with us before she is able to speak. We are trying to get organized for Christmas, which is harder than usual with a baby in the house! We're really looking forward to sharing the holidays with our beautiful girl. Looking back over the last six months, life is definitely more challenging these days, but so, so rewarding. We are so proud of the little person that Amanda is becoming - she makes us smile and laugh every day and brings so much joy to our lives!

Almost 4 months update

The last month has been an exciting one! Currently Amanda weighs just over 16 lbs and is almost 26" long...meaning we will have to move her into a new carseat in the next few weeks. We thought we would have a bit longer before that step was necessary! She is awake now for most of the day and hates to nap, although she is getting a bit better. At three months, Amanda hit a growth spurt that made our once-wonderful sleeper wake up every 1.5 - 2 hours every night! Shortly afterwards she caught her first cold, and her stuffy nose and sore throat didn't do much to help her sleep. Finally, more than three weeks later, we are starting to see improvements in her sleeping again (finally Mommy is starting to feel human!). Soon we will have to move Amanda into her crib in her own room, although we are so sad and will miss hearing her little baby snores tremendously. Unfortunately she is getting too big for the cradle, so it has to be done. In other news, Mandy rolled over from her tummy to her back for the first time last week, and she has started giving us huge, hilarious belly laughs when she gets giddy. They are so much fun to listen to! Her current favourite toys are her Lamaze cube (fondly referred to as Cubie the Cube) and Mr. Pinky the elephant. Don't ask...I guess every toy gets a name once you have a baby! She also loves her soft stuffed lamb (named, you guessed it, Lambie) who sleeps with her at night, and her exersaucer. We have been keeping very busy attending Mom & Me groups, moms' movies, and library storytimes. It is amazing how fast the time goes! We can't believe that our tiny baby has grown so much, so quickly.

Amanda's arrival!

Jen was awakened at 3 am on Saturday, June 12th (right on Amanda's due date!) with contractions, although they weren't regular or too painful at that point. By the time Jeff got up at 8 am or so, they were becoming more frequent, and at around 11:30 am they were 4-5 minutes apart and definitely stronger, so we decided to go to the hospital to be checked out. Our timing was perfect, because by the time we got there the contractions were around 3 minutes apart and required a lot more concentration to get through. We were moved into a labour & delivery room, and things progressed very well from there. The nurses were amazed - we went from about 1 cm dilated at 1 pm to 10 cm by 5:30 pm - much faster than a standard first-time delivery.

Unfortunately, although we pushed for over three hours, it became apparent that Amanda was not going to arrive by the standard route. We found out that Jen has a pelvis that is an unusual shape, which makes it very difficult or impossible for a baby to get past the pelvic bones. Finally we made the decision to have a C-section. It took around 30 minutes to prepare for the surgery, and Amanda was finally delivered at 9:35 pm. In the end we had a beautiful, healthy baby and that is by far the most important thing! We are thrilled with our beautiful daughter and have been spending an inordinate amount of time just staring at her as she sleeps. She changes by the day and it's hard to imagine what we did before she came along!