Christmas in pictures

Holly reminded us all again that what is so wonderful about Christmas doesn't come wrapped with bows. Here are a few photos from her holiday. Captions from top-to-bottom: riding the Dada Pony, Christmas morning with her doll and bongo, walking with Nanna, learning to fly planes with Grandpa, and playing in the snow back in Durham.

Have yourself a rockin' Christmas!

Walking on Sunshine

Finally caught on video, albeit briefly...

Kissing goats

Holly's little personality becomes clearer and clearer as the days go by. We've discovered that she's:

• Independent- the kind of girl who wants to walk and eat on her own.
• Loving- the kind of girl who made all the animals kiss each other when she was at the pediatricians office. In the photo she is pushing the two goats together and making a kissing noise. The goats also kissed a tiger, a giraffe and an elephant.
• Active- She wants to dance and play all day.
• Musical- She loves to make music! She plays her little piano and keeps trying to figure out the harmonica and the ukulele which Tom plays with her. She sways and bounces to almost any music we play.
• Loquacious- She only says a few words but she says them all often. Her first time saying "Bye-Bye" to me in the morning she kept repeating it for 10 minutes after I left. She also has a very special language of her own and she likes to talk to all of us even if we can't understand her.
• Persistent- She can get a little obsessed with things. Such as moving her cups from the shelf of her toy box to the bottom. Or putting two Duplo blocks together.

And much more!

Close Up

Many thanks to friend and fantastic photographer, Sarah Arneson, for this lovely close up of Holly.

Movie Star

I have no idea why I love this photo so much, but I really do. I think the reasons are:

1. She looks so serious! Like she is a movie star headed to a big event.
2. The sun glinting off her hair.
3. The pink glasses that I bought for her when we went to the sea because she loved mine so much.
4. The goat in the cup.
5. Because she is showing she's a little nutty. Much like her parents.
   

First steps

I am pleased to report to Holly's many fans that she is now fully mobile. She took her first unassisted steps on December 1st. We were in the kitchen waiting for dinner to cook. She stood up in the middle of the floor and took 4 steps towards me before collapsing in a heap of happiness and excitement. She was so excited about it that she kept doing the same thing, never taking more than 6 steps until Tom came home. When she flatly refused to walk for him which is why we have no videos. She has continued this trend of walking for everyone but Tom for a few days now. He's getting quite jealous! But here are two slightly blurry photos of Holly's early steps (not her first ones, but from that same night).

Slipper hands

This one is just too cute for words...

Driving Ms. Holly

Holly's decided to learn to drive before she learns to walk.

Thankfully happy

We drove up to DC to spend Thanksgiving with friends and family. It was great fun (except for the traffic). Holly played with her cousins, got some excellent kisses from "rocket dog", had breakfast out with friends, snuggles from family and learned to give me a high-five in the car. Holly liked turkey but really wants to know where I've been hiding this secret wonder called pumpkin pie all her life. Except for a 3-5am pajama party and a potentially connected refusal to nap all day on Thursday, things went pretty smooth. Unfortunately, her run-in with antibiotics has left her with a nasty yeast infection. It's on its way out thanks to treatment, but diaper changes are just no fun these days. Luckily, Holly's smile returns as quickly as it fades. And for that, we're very thankful.

Great outdoors

November has been a lovely month for getting outside. We've gone hiking, out to pick up some heirloom apples, played in the park and taken many long walks (and runs) around the neighborhood. Of course, there's been some fun times indoors as well playing with all of her new toys. Holly's been a bit ill this month. After months of being totally well she caught a cold. Just as she was feeling better she popped up with another UTI. Three days after going on antibiotics for that, she caught another cold. She's starting to feel better and we have our follow-up at the pediatricians office this Tuesday.

She's still working on walking. Still sleeping fairly well. And seems to think her mission in life is to make people she meets smile. We're off for Thanksgiving soon. She can show everyone how she has learned to ROAR over the turkey and cranberry sauce. At an event on Friday they had a band (with a banjo and penny whistle) and all Holly wanted to do was to dance the night away. That's our girl...

Walking with the Corn Pop Car

Trick or Treat!

Curious George, the Man in the Big Yellow Hat and the Balloon Salesman joined the fun at our local Toddler-ween. Holly hasn't discovered the joys of candy yet, but was pleased to take boxes of raisins and rubber ducks from her neighbors in celebration of a holiday which I think frankly just baffled her. Her buddy Simon (aka the Koala) and his parents got into the fun as well.

Happy Birthday, Holly!

Holly turned one on Saturday October 23rd and we celebrated with friends and family. She ate cake, chased (rubber) ducks, opened presents and played. The next day, we went to our local museum with her cousins and Holly showed me she knew how to climb steps and slip down a slide. Photo mosaic above. Many thanks to everyone who came! Your love, cuddles, laughs, gifts and best wishes made her birthday wonderful for all of us.

So where are we one year later?

She is 25lbs 10oz and 30.5 inches tall.






She walks (with assistance).
















She talks... a LOT.











She claps.










She slides (and looks a lot like Tom here, don't you think?)






And is still the happiest, cutest, craziest baby ever.

Seriously cute

Holly is getting very serious in her old age. As you can see from this video of tonight's dinner.

Lots to do!

Sorry that we're mostly off the air these days. We're pretty busy. Holly has been busy learning to walk and growing four teeth. Tom has been busy finishing waterproofing our foundation, clearing up the yard and chasing after Holly. I've been busy at work, clearing up the yard and chasing after Holly. Hopefully, November will be slower.

Cruising!

Holly has gone from rolling over, to scooting, to crawling, to pulling up on anything and everything, and now to cruising. She walked around the coffee table today. She also likes to let go occasionally and stand on her own while flapping her arms like a little bird. Maybe she thinks she's a duck...

Holly of the sea

We took Holly to the beach this weekend. We expected her to fear the waves and love the pool. Goodness were we wrong! She loved the beach practically from the moment her toes touched the salty water. I put her down on the beach to take my cover-up off and she immediately started crawling towards the water. She wasn't terribly excited about the sand. But she loved every second she was in the water. Above is just one of many photos and videos we took of her playing in the ocean.

11 months!

Holly is 11 months old today! I still can't believe it. I realized this week that my baby will soon be a toddler. I am so excited to see every step of her growth as she toddles along.

You can also really see her little personality. Last week I came home from picking her up at Chelsea's, came around to the back seat and found her sitting with the entire head of the rubber duck in her mouth. As soon as she saw me laughing, her mouth broke into a wide grin and the duck fell out. She likes to do things just to get a grin out of us.

She still adores the cats and chases them all over the house. Cubbie is quite gentle with her despite the vast quantities of hair that end up in Holly's little fist while I try to encourage "GENTLE!" play. Frank still doesn't seem to know how to handle Holly. He looks at her with loathing one minute and the next he kisses her forehead. I have a hard time separating them when it's time for Holly's naps. He wants to curl up next to her and when I carry him out of the room, Holly cries.

Obviously from the photos, she's pulling herself up very well. She hasn't quite figured out walking yet. She pulls herself up on the shelf to grab something, then she'll see something to the right just out of her reach. So she'll sit back down, crawl over closer and then stand back up. I feel like it's only a matter of time until she figures out that she doesn't need to crawl to mobilize. But no hurry. She's growing up fast enough!!!!

September- Close up

Until our head hits the pillow

So Holly is just 8 weeks away from being a one year old. She's doing all sorts of amazing things these days. She knows and points us out when asked. She points out the ducks in her favorite book (10 Little Rubber Ducks). She chases the cats all over the house. She is standing up and holding onto everything and doing a little belly dance moving her feet back and forth---walking just doesn't seem that far away. She makes all sorts of great noises. She giggles up a storm. She seems to crawl at the speed of light. And she sleeps fairly well (at least, for Holly).

Related to Holly's sleeping, I should say that I think we reached a point a few months back where instead of trying to change Holly, we've changed our expectations. We no longer expect an uninterrupted night of sleep. We've given up on pushing her into a crib in her room at night. Nor do we keep our fingers crossed that she'll "sleep through the night" anytime soon. We get plenty of sleep--- most nights. She generally nurses a few times and since she's in bed with us, it's not a problem. I know I need to start night weaning and weaning her in general in preparation for my travel to come. But I have a bit of time yet before that happens. So we're just enjoying our snuggle time with her in bed and the best sleep we've had in almost a year.

So that's what this post is about--us. I have to say that I listened for years to the parental lament without much sympathy. We all chose to have these little joys in our lives and with it comes all the trials and tribulations of parenthood. So let me start out by saying that I'm not complaining. But until I lived it, I had no idea what it was like to be constantly on, constantly moving, all day every day. Until our heads hit the pillow at night, Tom and I are either at our paid or unpaid work. And of course, parenting doesn't end when you head hits the pillow either. Children of all ages wake up for many reasons every night. My friend Lisa likes to joke that we'll sleep when our kids are in college. Tell that to a parent of a college-age kid and they'll tell you, "oh no you won't!"

I'm at work most days by 7:30am and sometimes have conference calls as late as 9:30pm. Tom's still working half time as an architect, but he's a full time dad. He's working on waterproofing our foundation every weekend since we couldn't afford to pay someone to do it for us. He's studying for and taking registration exams (4 down, 3 to go). We're both struggling to keep our house somewhat clean and all of us (including the cats) fed. We spend our "free time" looking up the millions of questions we have about our little one every day:

• What's the best way to cook an eggplant for a 10 month old (skin, seed, steam, etc)?
  
• If she cuts herself on the metal AC vent, do we need to be concerned about tetanus?
• How do we encourage her to be independent, while also thinking about discipline?
• How do you get tar off a baby?
  
• What are some methods of night weaning?
  

I think I will listen a little more closely to the parental lament in the future. I think I would describe this summer as the both the most rewarding and the most challenging of my life. Although, look above at the photo to see my reward.

Quick update- moving on up!

So I don't have time for a real post but I did want to let you know that little Holly pulled herself up on a bookshelf this weekend. Friends without kids reacted with glee. Friends with kids commented on the whole new world of baby proofing we'll have to embark upon. We dropped the crib on Sunday.

A few other news items:

• Holly learned to clap her hands together and does it often.
• She is going to bed later (around 7pm) and bedtime is generally peaceful.
• Holly will look at me when Tom says, "Where's Mama?!" and vice versa.
• She has eaten eggplant, cheese, and alphabet pasta. All cut up into tiny bite-sized pieces. She's all grown up now- you see- and therefore won't eat off a spoon for me anymore. Frank (the cat) LOVES this new system.
  

The Best Toy

Huck Finny

Holly had her first trip into the woods after we bought a used baby backpack from a neighbor. She loved the whole trip, but best of all was the river. Tom had to hang on tight to keep her from diving in head first!

Moving target

So the Monday after our last post, Holly went to Chelsea's and took a nice 2 hour nap after sucking down 3 ounces from a bottle. Although it made us all look like right little liars and totally incompetent, I'm totally happy that she's back on the bottle and into sleeping. I just helped her get to sleep for the night and I have to say she's a bit like a moving target. Not just because she is faster than the speed of light these days--- particularly when headed for something she shouldn't have (cat food, shoes, the one socket in our house which isn't flush with the wall, etc.) but also because what works one day is a total failure the next. Another mother and wonderful friend said that these little people have incredible wisdom of their own about what they need. All I know is that every day we learn what works and the next day we have to re-learn what works. Ah well. Yet another wonderful mother I know reminded me that Holly's exhibiting some wonderful qualities that will serve her well in life: independence, persistence and intelligence.

9 month visit

Here are Holly's stats for her latest visit:

• Weight 23lbs, 9 oz
• Height 29 1/4 inches
• HC 46 cm

She enjoyed her visit, particularly since it involved only one little shot (Hep B follow up). However, we're in a bit of an interesting time right now for Holly where she's asserting her independence. She's crawling at high speed, growing a new tooth and talking up a storm. Unfortunately, she's decided that being fed with a spoon and taking a bottle is for babies. She, on the other hand, is all grown up now and so therefore she wants to feed herself solids and milk either comes from mama or not at all.

Yes, we've tried everything to talk her out of these decisions. I'm fine with her feeding herself (although it's quite messy- Frank has taken to hanging out under her highchair and is quite fond of her mess), but rejecting the bottle has caused considerable difficulties. After trying everything to get her to take milk (warm/cold, bottle/sippy cup, 4 different kinds of nipples, etc.) we had to move to damage control and make sure she gets plenty of fluids to prevent dehydration. She will take a little milk mixed with water in a sippy cup (but not straight milk) to get her through the day. Otherwise, she only eats solids from 7am until 4pm. She is then VERY glad to see me at 4pm and spends the evening making up for her lost milk.

The other issue is that Holly has always taken a bottle and then gone down for her naps. Without the bottle, she's also given up on napping. These last few days she's pretty much only napped in the car or in the stroller. She's been doing this for a week, although over the weekend it's not an issue since we spend all day together, and although at first we thought maybe it was just more teething---now---I don't know---maybe it's a new phase. Now the only question is whether she gets this stubborn streak from her mom or her dad. Since I'm writing the post, I can assert that it's entirely from her father...

Photos- August 2010

That's Tom's hair under her chin. She loves riding on Dad's shoulders.

You can see her tooth on her bottom right side here.

Look at those eyes...

Scooting

For those who haven't seen Holly scoot, this video from Saturday morning shows how it works. It's clear now that she can crawl but she just prefers a slightly different method of mobility. She'll often alternate to navigate around the house. At the end she makes a mad grab for the camera and you end up with a nice close up.

You may note the bug bite on her cheek. The mosquitoes are bad in our back yard! We were quite worried the first time we saw one of these bites, but we're used to them now. I hope this doesn't mean she has her mom's sensitive skin...

Amoxicillin

I'm sad to report that little Holly isn't well again. So far she's had several colds, a urinary tract infection, the coxsackie virus and now a sinus infection (with an ear infection thrown in for good measure). After weeks of a stuffy nose, she developed a fever on Monday afternoon which spiked Tuesday afternoon. We ended up calling the pediatrician and heading in for a visit. He said he would normally try to wait this out, since so many ear infections are viral. But given that she's had this stuffy nose for several weeks and that her fever was so high, he didn't feel comfortable waiting. So we're back on Amoxicillin (which is what she got for her UTI) with 18 doses left to go. Believe me---we're ALL counting. Holly HATES antibiotics and this one causes tummy upset making it particularly miserable for all of us. Of course, she smiled at her doctor and charmed the nurse through the whole process. She weighed in at 24lbs (fully clothed and diapered). Her 9 month well-baby visit is scheduled for the second week of August, so we'll update her stats at that time. I am pleased that Holly's building up a good strong immune system, but worry about her terribly when she's ill. Here's hoping she gets better soon! I took the photo above when we were running errands this weekend. I think she was getting tired of me taking so many pictures of her...

Swinging with Dad

Having a ball!

We have so much to report the day after our baby turned 9 months old! Holly now has at least one tooth poking up (we can't tell if it's one or two yet and she hates us looking). Her vocabulary has expanded from her first word, "duck" to "baaaa" (for ball) and "cat" which she often says when looking for the items, holding the items, poking the items or when the items are no where to be found. She is still saying "mama" and "dada" but she's not picky who she says it to and I refuse to believe that she thinks Frank-the-cat is her "mama". She is scooting and crawling all over the house at speeds I didn't know were possible for someone so new to the mobility game. She keeps putting her feet down like she's trying to stand up. She's really into having water in the sippy cup. She is also the proud owner of a baby swing in our backyard. I shall now try to upload a few videos of her. Wish me luck!

Photos- July 2010

Just a few fun photos of Holly silliness. Hope everyone is staying cool and enjoying the warm summer days.

Hello duckie!

We had a fantastic 4th of July swimming, boating, eating, running and playing with Holly. It was very hard to return to work on Tuesday and realize that I wasn't going to spend my whole day playing with a baby. But I really do like my job and these days it keeps me so busy I can only sneak peeks at Holly photos once or twice a day.

In addition to the excitement of vacation, Holly had a few exciting happenings of her own. As you know if you're a regular reader, Holly has been repeating syllables for quite some time ("dadadada", "mamamama", etc) but they didn't seem to really mean anything to her. She was just as likely to say "mama" while looking at me as she was while popping Frank-the-cat's tail in her mouth. But a while ago she started holding up her rubber duck and saying, "DUH!" in a loud voice. We wondered if she was saying duck, but figured it was just our parental imagination running away with us. But now it's pretty clear that "duck" is her first word. She also looks for her duck wildly if we say, "Holly, where did the duck go?" And will hold it out to us when we ask that question if she has it already in her hand. She's also become a bit clearer with the "-ck" so you can understand a bit more than she's saying "duck" and not just "duh". We've tried to capture it on video, but she clams up and smiles every time we turn the camera in her direction.

The next thing we have to report is that Holly's learned to wave hello and goodbye. Often times she's a bit delayed and will be waving goodbye to Chelsea from our car five minutes after we've left her house (like she did today). But sometimes she gets a good wave in when someone says "Hi, Holly!" or "Bye-bye, Holly!" and it's so incredibly cute! She waved hello to several of her great aunts this weekend.

She continues to scoot around the house at an amazing speed. It's hard to describe for those who haven't seen it. She's not crawling or walking. She twists her legs back and forth and uses her hands. She can travel all around the house this way and nothing is safe. She's wonderful at finding stray bunches of cat hair, dirt, grit and goodness knows what else on the floor which, of course, heads straight for her mouth. I have no idea when I'll fit in vacuuming every day. This will have to go along with baby proofing as something we'll have to figure out as we go along.

She eats three "solid" meals per day now and seems to be quite fond of blueberry season. She's a musical little girl. She waves her hands, bounces and sways to any music. She seems to prefer The Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Beatles and anything Tom plays. Her sleeping is still a daily adventure. She slept very well last night and today. But there's no guarantees for tonight. We have learned to just accept this as a fact of our life. And of course, she's still full of smiles and giggles. Honestly, pretty much the only time Holly isn't happy is when she's tired and we're trying to get her to sleep. If that's the worst of our problems, we have nothing to complain about.

Flexibility

If there's one word I could use to sum up what we've learned in the last year that wouldn't usually appear on a Hallmark card, it would be flexibility. There was what we thought, hoped, assumed or believed to be our plan---and then Holly (or reality) threw that out the window and we just had to be flexible enough to adapt. It started before she was even born when I realized that my plan of running through my pregnancy wasn't going to happen. Since she was born, everything from my belief that I would have a tiny baby (like I had been) to my daily assumptions about Holly's sleeping schedule has had to become highly flexible. The list of incorrect assumptions is long and varied. Here's a very short sample:

• Holly would snuggle up in the sling with me while I walked around the neighborhood.
• We would use cloth diapers.
• We could go to parties at friends' houses with her and she would sleep while we chatted.
• We'll figure out breast feeding on our own.
  
• Working from home on Fridays would be easier once Holly was older.
  

I think the key to our sanity and happiness has been to roll with it. We're really getting into the habit of saying, "bye-bye!" as our dashed assumptions go rolling by us gaily. These past few weeks have been a real challenge for us to be flexible as we've met some road blocks on several fronts. We came back from our road trip and immediately fell back into a nest of work and home projects. We finally started to poke our heads out at the end of last weekend only to have our heads chopped off as all of us came down with this yucky virus.

The facts (as presented for our MPH followers) are these:
Child X went for a play date at Chelsea's house on Wednesday morning. On Wednesday evening Child X had a fever. On Wednesday and Thursday afternoon, Holly went to Chelsea's for her usual 3 hours (the times have all been cut due to Tom's current job situation). On Friday night, Chelsea's kids had fevers. On Sunday night, Holly had a fever. On Monday, Chelsea's kids were diagnosed with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (also known as the coxsackie virus). The symptoms are no fun but not serious: high fever, mouth sores, sore throat, malaise, fatigue and a non-itchy rash. Chelsea's kids were well by Tuesday. Holly by Wednesday. On Wednesday night, Tom and I both had fevers and all the goodies followed. Here we are on Sunday and we're all pretty much recovered---although totally exhausted.

During our Coxsackie Week (as we'll always remember it), we had to be very flexible about everything. I was off work Monday, Tuesday and most of Thursday while Tom juggled clients on the phone between baby and self care. We had been working on something resembling sleep training in the weeks leading up to this situation. Of course, during this whole thing, that went out the window. On Tuesday, I was so desperate for her to sleep that I laid down with her for (all 2.5 hours of) her afternoon nap- something I hadn't done since she was 2 months old. We had introduced Holly to a third solid meal per day (lunch) but that went bye-bye as we struggled to keep her hydrated during her sore throat. When we were struck with the same thing, flexibility was more around appropriate clothing to be wearing in the afternoon and meal planning (or lack-thereof) for all of us.

It's flexibility that got us through last week as well as all the weeks before it. Here's one example. On Tuesday morning when she woke up, Holly hadn't nursed since the previous evening. It had been more than 12 hours. She had slightly chapped lips. Wasn't wetting diapers. And was making this terrible whimpering sound. I tried several times, but I think it just hurt her too much to suck. We tried a bottle, no. We tried both kinds of sippy cup, no and no. We tried mushed up frozen breast milk on a spoon, no. We tried a medicine dropper, no. Finally, we were successful by putting an ice cube in a mesh Baby Safe Feeder and then just giving her a cup of cold breast milk (1 oz down the throat, 2 oz down her front). Two hours later, she started breast feeding again. I am so glad that our flexibility (and creativity) helped us avoid dehydration.

I'm sure all you parents of older kids are thinking, "Yep, just you wait! This is just the beginning!" I'm sure we'll be met with serious challenges as the days move forward and more times when we'll watch our assumptions turn out incorrect, our beliefs get altered, our hopes change and our plans derailed. Weaning, potty training, pre-school, bed times, etc...and that won't even get us to the teen years! Yay!

Two-thirds to One

Holly is eight months old! Wow! When the heck did that happen? That means she is two-thirds through the first year of her life. We've actually already started planning her birthday and hope you can all join us in Holly's town for the big day. Rather than reflecting on the last wonderful eight months and getting all sappy, I figure I'll just post a few photos of some of what she's up to these days (eating yogurt, swimming at Dylan's pool, running errands with Dad and hanging out poolside in the shade).