New Photo Album

My other online photo album got filled up & I couldn't add anymore pictures. So I started a new one at long last. New pictures have been uploaded for your viewing pleasure:

http://picasaweb.google.com/GsusLvr581

I will try to add the link to the side, as well.

And here are a few samples for fun:

10 Months Old

Leah @ 10 months old:

* Measurements- I didn't get a chance to weigh or measure her yet, but I can tell she's getting bigger! She looks so tall to me and she's heavier and she's quickly growing out of all her clothes. She can wear some 6-9 month things, and some 9-12 month things.

* Sleeping- The sleeping was going so well... I had finally gotten to the point where I could put her down & not have to rush out of the room and worry she would start to wail. And then... she learned how to pull herself up in her crib. And that is all she wants to do. She most certainly does NOT want to go to sleep, thank you very much... She didn't nap well at all this past weekend. Her schedule has been a little crazy, though, with preschool being out & VBS last week, so she doesn't have much stability. I've been debating cutting out her morning nap, because it's never long anyway and she always seems to fight it. The only issue I have with that is that she doesn't get out of school (& I don't get off work) until 2, and that is a long time to wait for an afternoon nap. Going to have to put some thought into this...

This one was not staged. This was when I went in to get her after a nap.

* Eating- The girl will eat anything you put in front of her! She's getting a little bored of pureed foods, because she just wants to do everything herself. So I try to shove a little of the pureed foods in while she's muching on her own things. I'm obsessed with coming up with new & interesting things she can pick up and eat on her own, even borrowing several baby "cookbooks" from the library. I can't really say she has a favorite, because she gets excited about anything: steamed peas & corn, rice, steamed soft fruits (although those are hard for her to pick up), cubed cheese, pieces of bread, waffles, noodles, scrambled eggs, beans, cereal. Gerber Yogurt Melts are like candy to her and she kicks her legs when she sees me getting the bag out (too bad those are kind of expensive to keep around!). She will keep eating as long as you keep putting food in front of her. She is a great eater! (She even eats things she can find on the floor, including hair, carpet, and various crumbs.)

- She still takes about 4 6-oz. bottles a day, although I'm working on cutting it back to 3 a day. Since she's eating so much at meals, she could probably handle it. I would still be 1 first thing in the morning, one before the afternoon nap & one before bed, then eventually I could push them closer to meal times. She still doesn't get the sippy cup, and I'm at a loss for what else to do. She chews on it or throws it. If she doesn't get it by her 1st birthday, I may just have to cut out the bottles cold turkey & give her no choice. I don't like to see toddlers carrying around their own bottles.

* What She's Doing Now-

- She has caught on big time to the pulling up thing & has become much more mobile over the past few days. She still uses her army crawl to get around, but she can go from her belly to sitting up fairly easily and uses that to kind of "tumble" around the house from hands & knees to sitting to crawling. She can get onto her knees and then pull up onto pretty much anything, including my legs if I am standing up somewhere. She even cruises a little around the coffee table! Sometimes she thinks she's a big girl & tries to stand up without holding on to anything, but always ends up falling. We can't keep anything on the coffee table anymore, because she is very nosy & grabs for anything she sees. It seems like I'm saying "no" a lot more these days!

- She is so talkative! From the minute she wakes up she is screaming for attention. She uses many more syllables now: "sh" and "th" and "ah". She "sings" to herself in the car and talks to her toys constantly. She's also learned to click her tongue & loves to do that.

- She loves stuffed animals. She has a preference for this Pooh bear-- we're not a big fan of Pooh, but that's just what we've been giving her-- and when she sees it she starts kicking her legs in excitement, and when she gets it, she starts biting his face. She also has a huge Dora the Explorer pillow, and here is what she does to it:

- She seems to think she is a beauty queen. At church, she is the only baby, so she always gets tons of attention. She's learned to put on this charming little grin that gets everyone to say how cute she is. Sometimes when we're out she'll start her little wave at everyone that walks past. I have a feeling she loves being the focus of attention. Lately, though, she'll bury her head in my chest if I'm holding her when someone comes to talk to her, as if she's getting a little more shy & reserved.

- She has at least 3, maybe 4 new teeth on the top (she won't let me see them unless she's giggling). She was definately fussy the first few days they started to break through. Now she just uses them to bite.

Attempting to scale the bookshelf, after she had pulled all the books off the bottom shelf. T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Here are a couple short videos of what I see ALL DAY LONG. You can hear her "talking" a little in both of them. In the first one she was getting ready to pull herself up but saw the camera so she stopped to cheese. In the second one, she's cruising a very little bit.

Happy Father's Day!

There's no doubt this kid adores her daddy. :)

Leah's Baby Dedication

Here are some shots from Leah's dedication at our church service this morning. Yeah, she's already 9 months, and Brett & I dedicated her to God a long time ago, but I think it's a rite of passage for Baptists, at least, to celebrate this dedication in a special service. She looked beautiful in her fancy pink dress. She was very well-behaved-- mostly because she was more curious than anything else, and she was only in the service for about 3 minutes. Pastor Don said everything so well. We got a nice certificate, which he had us sign on the spot. And a cute little photo frame that says "Jesus Loves Me." Mom was able to make the trip, and BJ and Chela came, too. We went out to eat for lunch after and just had a great time of celebration.

Sleeping Update

The sleeping is going much better, although sometimes it's still a guessing game (as parenting may always be?). After the first night of endless screaming, the next night she only screamed maybe 3 or 4 minutes. Wed. night was only about 2 min. and it wasn't nearly as loud. Her teacher said her naps are getting much easier & she doesn't even necessarily have to rely on the bottle. Afternoons have been a dream! I think she's so exhausted from school that she is ready to sleep. I can put her down awake & she'll talk to herself quietly for 10 minutes or so before drifting off-- no fuss. Sat. night she screamed again for a long time before going to sleep, but I think she had gotten past her tired point & was just too overstimulated to rest. (My dad will remind me that she got this from me, as I was the same way growing up.)

This week we don't have much going on in the evenings, so I can take the time to make sure

she has a relaxing routine at least an hour or so before she goes to bed, and we'll see if that makes a difference. She has a different teacher in her class at school, and she'll be off 4 days in a row, so I'm a little worried we'll have to start all over with that, but I will try not to worry. We'll get past all this, and one day have much bigger issues to deal with.

Meanwhile, this is a little thing, but for some reason it amazed me & showed me how much fun it is to see my little girl learn new things & grow up:

She has learned how to put things IN and take them OUT of appropriate places.

Like this elephant & the blocks that go with it. I showed her once or twice how to put the block in the hole, and then-- she couldn't stop doing it!

And this toy, too. She figured out the lights flash & music plays if the ball just barely goes in the hole. So she'll hold it there, and eventually drop it & pick it up & put it back in. (Today she tried to put a square block in there, though, so she doesn't completely get it!)

And she was gnawing on a teething ring while sitting in my lap. I opened my mouth and said "ah" and she put the ring in my mouth. Upon finding that it fit, she started to giggle and did it over & over. What a funny kid.

While playing in her room the other day, she found her "niche." She crawled behind her crib, where I had stashed a huge Dora the Explorer pillow and her teddy bear. She loved that pillow & climbed all over it, hanging out behind her crib for quite a while. (Oh, and I didn't give her that paci. She found it under her crib and in the mouth it went!)

Sleeping Woes

Leah has almost always been an easy baby to get to sleep. She would either fall asleep while taking her bottle, fall asleep in the car right at the beginning of her nap & transfer easily to her crib, or just talk herself to sleep in her crib. This is all changing this week. Apparently now that she's learning so many new things, or maybe because she's teething, or maybe because she's getting the separation anxiety-- I can only guess-- she's getting very difficult to put to sleep. After a couple days of spending almost 45 minutes rocking her, singing to her, (putting her in bed when she appears to be sound asleep in my arms & then rushing out so she doesn't see or hear me), etc., at night & at naps, I'm tired and ready for something to give.

Brett is much better at letting her cry it out than I am. Her cry when I put her in bed & she doesn't want to sleep yet is a loud, lusty cry, that makes her so upset she struggles to catch her breath. It's hard to ignore. But last night, that's what I finally had to do. I have to will myself to remember that this will only last a short time, that she has to learn how to get to sleep on her own, she has to learn that she's not always going to get her way. I never thought this lesson would be harder on me than it is on her! Last night it was about 35 min. of crying, and once Brett went in and talked to her & rubbed her tummy, it was another 5 and then she was asleep. So we're going to keep trying.

Today she did it again at nap time for her preschool teacher. (It is her first day of the summer program, so she has a new teacher, but she's familiar with the surroundings.) I had told Ms. Louise to try to give her her bottle with her lunch instead of before her nap, because this is another goal of mine, but when I went by the room & she was struggling to get her to sleep, I suggested she try the bottle. Apparently, it worked. Of course, I still hate that she relies on the bottle to get to sleep, but we'll take this one step at a time.

So here's the plan for the next 3 months:
1) Get Leah to go to sleep on her own without a lot of rocking.
2) Get Leah to go to sleep on her own without a bottle. And get her bottle schedule to look more like a regular eating schedule, 3 times a day.
3) Get Leah to drink from a sippy cup instead of the bottle.

The other kids in Leah's class, who are just over a year old, all do these things well, so I'm confident that this is all possible with some work.
And just think... we've only got 17 more years worth of problems to figure out...

Fun in the Hot Sun

Splashing in a pool just your size... $5

Bathing Suit & Swimming Diapers... $8

Grape Freezer Pop... $.10

Adorable Summertime Photos... priceless