 |
| Sitting pretty at 10 months! |
 |
| Check out my new shoes! |
We finally got through the month of January with Lena staying fairly well. She has had a few colds, a stomach bug, a recent eye infection, and has had some discomfort while cutting 4 new teeth, but the good news is her ears have stayed clear! What Dr. McDavitt and may other people tell me is that it is very common for babies that go to daycare to get sick a lot in their first year. But the good news is, that a lot of times because they are exposed to so much at a young age they are not as sick once they get a little older. I'm hoping that is true, because poor Lena seems like once she's finally over one illness then something else is bothering her.
We were so excited to celebrate Lena's first Valentine's Day. She wore a special outfit to school, and got some special cards and books as gifts. Cory and I decided to spend the evening at home. I made chicken fettuccine alfredo (his favorite), we put Lena to bed a little early, and we watched a movie. It was really nice. Then the next night, Aunt Beth watched Lena so we could go out to dinner. We decided that was a perfect way to celebrate Valentine's Day because we still made it special, got to have an evening out together, and missed the crowd on the actual day.
 |
| Slept cozy in my Valentine pajamas from Aunt Claire |
 |
| Ready for school! |
 |
| Let's play a little before we leave. |
Lena is really growing and developing in all areas. She is starting to babble much more and has even said a few words - mama, dada, baby, and repeats sounds frequently. She still loves making silly sounds, especially blowing her tongue. She also still loves to watch her Signing Time video. She still signs "more" and is starting to sign "ball" and "all done". I think she is really going to start doing more and more as she gets a little older.
She has become a very efficient crawler. She can get around really fast, and even loves for us to "get her". She still pulls up on everything, and cruises while holding on to furniture. Every once in a while she will let go and stand for a few seconds, but she is still a little hesitant to do it often. She loves to hold our hands while she walks, and she seems to have much better balance, coordination, and her steps are getting quicker and more fluid. She has also started pushing things to help her walk. In mid February she started pushing her baby buggy, her music table, and a push and play activity walker. I think that has helped build her confidence a little bit. Who knows... she may be walking by her 1st birthday (which I can't believe is just around the corner!)
 |
| Making her "silly sound" before we go for a walk. |
 |
| Ready to show off her owlie shoes at school. |
 |
| Wearing Mommy's Uggs :) |
Lena LOVES reading books! She likes to look at them independently and she loves to be read to. She will even grab a book and crawl up in your lap - how sweet is that? Her teachers comment on how engaged and attentive she is during story time. She likes books with real photographs, but she also likes stories with bright pictures too. And of course she likes the touch and feel books. She has a book box in the living room that she can get to. She likes to go through them and pick out the ones she wants to read. One day I found her with almost all of the books pulled out. I guess she wanted to see what all she had.
Lena likes for us to play with her, she loves playing with other babies and kids, but we are pleased with how well she plays independently. She has a variety of toys and books to keep her happy, but it is so nice for her to be at an age where she is able to entertain herself sometimes. Of course we have so much fun playing with her and she makes us laugh all the time. It's just good to have a balance. A sweet thing she does now is she gives hugs - to us and her babies and toys. She is such a loving baby! We also love to watch her dance to music. She bobs her head from side to side, claps her hands, shakes her hands, bops up and down with her legs, and now she even does a little twist. She likes the music that plays on her toys, her music cd from school, she is calmed and comforted by her Praise Baby cds that I've been playing for her since she was born, and she also likes to listen to our music. One more trick that she is doing is putting objects in other objects. Cory has really worked with her on this. She puts her rubber ducky in the cup when she is taking a bath, puts a ball in a cup. Or she puts blocks in a bucket. She also plays catch - and loves for us to roll/throw her the ball and she throws it right back. Again - Cory worked with her and she really likes it.
Lena's eating habits haven't changed too much. We know as she reaches 12 months we will be making some changes soon. She will be able to have cows milk at 12 months, so we won't need to buy formula! Woohoo! And we're going to try to start giving her more solids through out the day and eventually start introducing some real food. She has 4 teeth on the bottom and 2 on top with 2 more coming in soon. Now that she has some teeth to chew with, I feel better about giving her those types of things to eat. At the end of this month (now she is actually 11 months) she started wanting less and less of her nighttime bottle. To where she eventually was refusing it altogether. So after talking to the doctor, we have stopped giving her a bedtime bottle. She eats really well at her last meal - which is baby food meat/vegetable/fruit around 6:00. And she is still sleeping through the night. So that has been a little transition. But we adjusted our bedtime routine to be bath and story time instead of bath and bottle. She has transitioned well, and is usually ready to go right to sleep. She is drinking much better from her sippy cup. We mostly give her water, but sometimes we give her juice. She is starting to figure it out and is even holding it herself sometimes.
We're already starting to plan for Lena's 1st birthday. For the invitations, we did a little photo shoot. Here are a few of our favorites. We decided to use the first one on the invitation.
