A Visit to Vacaville - including several "firsts"

Today we went to a party for Sean at Jenny and Steve's house in Vacaville. It's about an hour away, and so we timed leaving to coincide with Judith's naptime, hoping she'd sleep most of the way. At the same time, in case she didn't, we got out the new car seat for the first time. It's one of those that "converts" from rear-facing to front-facing once Judith hits the age/weight limit. She's definitely getting too long for her infant seat. It took Lance a good hour to figure out how it went in the car, but I'm sure that'll get better as we get used to it. It's been sitting unwrapped in the house for about a week, and Judith's shown some interest in it, although she didn't try to sit in it or anything. I thought it would be a good distraction if she decided she didn't want to sleep. (She didn't really react to it at all, and she went to sleep within 5 minutes of being in the car, so I guess it's just fine.) All-in-all, despite some occasional heavy traffic, the trip there was uneventful, although we discovered that the air conditioning in my car, usually ok when you go over 60, was pretty much non-functional in the 107 degree heat.

There was a 5-week old baby girl at the party - she was a couple ounces bigger than Judith when she was at birth, but to me it seemed like she must be a LOT smaller - hard to believe Judith was ever that small and fragile! There was also a 6 month little boy, whom Judith got to interact with a little bit. More and more she's learning how to deal with other kids.

The big first of the day was the pool! We weren't quite sure how Judith would react to a pool - she loves the bathtub, but that's warm water...etc. We've been wanting to try her in a pool for awhile, but our June weather has been strange, and a few weekends ago when we were up in Chico, it was too cold for swimming. So this was her first experience. Grandpa Tim took her out to see it, and apparently she tried to dive in. Once we all changed into swimsuits, Lance took her in. (We used the "hot tub" for Judith, because it was 86 degrees, several degrees warmer than the pool - besides, no one else was in it.) No question, she loved it. She splashed, dunked her face, stuck out her tongue to taste the water, "swam" back and forth between Lance and me, played with water toys, and had a great time! (See pictures throughout this post.) I was a little afraid that she'd protest getting out of the pool, but she was fine with that too.

When we left, the sun had moved too far for the car to be in the shade any longer - so it was extremely hot (and see the note above about the non-functional air conditioner!). It was a very very hot trip home. Judith slept for about 30 minutes, and then sort of whimpered the rest of the way. We couldn't see her, but we were guessing she was hot. By the time we pulled into the driveway she was pretty upset. When I got her out of the car seat, she was very red in the face, and blotchy-red on the rest of her body. My first thought was that she'd gotten really sunburnt in the pool (I did put sunscreen on her, but was afraid it had washed off or something) and she was SO hot that I thought the only way to cool her down would be with a cold shower. So her third "first" of the day was a shower with Mommy. Then I got out the Aloe Vera. Turns out, though, that she had just totally overheated in the car, and wasn't sunburnt. The cold shower, and then crawling around with just a diaper on, made the redness fade pretty quickly. It sure was scarey there for a few minutes, though! We'll be careful to take Lance's car anytime we need to go on a trip in the heat again - his air conditioner works very well.


In other news, Judith now has six teeth. I'd been waiting and waiting for the next teeth to come in, assuming the would be on the bottom - but she's got two eyeteeth on the top just barely visible.

Steps!

Judith just took her first steps! (at about 6:30 p.m., Friday, June 26, 2009) Lance had been playing with her, and when I sat down on the couch, he decided to see if she would walk to me. So he held her in a standing position, let her get her balance, and then let go - she took about two steps before she got hold of my hands!

(We repeated the experiment, but she just went down to her knees. So we repeated it around 7:00 too, and she did it again, with the same result when we tried to repeat again. I guess that goes to show that although she can walk, she's preferring not to. :-)

Banana!

Today, for lunch, Judith got to try pieces of banana (as opposed to mashed banana). At first, I cut it up into very small, bite size pieces. And she would eat them from my fingers, but she wouldn't pick them up herself. I don't think she could get a very good hold on them, slippery as banana is. So I decided to give her a bigger piece - a whole round, that was a little thicker than the other slices I'd made. I thought "she'll just bite pieces off of it, like she did with the strawberry." And she did, at first - and then I turned around to get something, and when I looked back, she'd put the whole piece in her mouth! That certainly made me a little nervous, but I watched her carefully, and she just gummed it and eventually swallowed it all. She ended up eating four chunks that way (all in all, with the little pieces that she ate from me, she ate about 1/3 of a banana).

I had also cut up some cheese, and she definitely preferred that over the banana. I had to actually hide the cheese to get her to eat banana instead. Guess she's a girl after her mama's heart!

Strawberry!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009. We went over to Aunt Netty and Uncle Roy's house for dinner, because Grandpa and Grandma Ford are in town visiting. Grandma Sandy had gotten some wonderful organic strawberries at a farmers' market, and we decided to see how Judith would like one.

First Taste:

First Reaction:

Then...she decided that she liked it! At first, I thought she was just sucking on it a little bit, and then I realized she was raking pieces off the back of it with her teeth. I had to keep turning the piece around so that she had something to bite. And we got smart and put a bib on her!

"Drunk" on the strawberry :-). Notice the mess around her mouth!

Update

I know, I know. It's been weeks since I blogged, again! I'm sorry. So here's an overall update, and there'll be a couple separate posts for the things that are exciting/interesting enough to need their own.

Eating:
Judith has (finally!) started to eat chunks of things. I've periodically been trying to give her little pieces, but up until last Monday, she'd either spit out or gag on whatever I tried to give her. This Monday, at lunchtime, I tried small pieces of cheddar cheese - and she gobbled them right up! Thursday I cooked a carrot and gave her pieces of that with pieces of cheese. And last night she ate three slices of avocado (chopped up into bite size pieces, of course). I'm so happy about this - and hopeful that she'll soon progress to the point where I don't have to puree everything in sight. She's also been extraordinarily hungry the last few days - eating at least half-again as much as normal. I'm assuming that's a growth spurt, and I'm sure the last of the 9-month clothes will no longer fit. Fortunately, most of the 12-month stuff is still a little big.

Sleeping/Napping:
During the last few weeks Judith has gradually begun to consistently nap 1 1/2 hours instead of just 45 minutes. And she seems to also have transitioned to just one morning and one afternoon nap, instead of three throughout the day. It's very nice to have the longer period of time to get stuff done (or to nap myself!), and she's much happier getting up from a longer nap as well.

Standing:
Judith is more and more confident in her balance, and she will frequently now let go of things and just stand for a few seconds - and she doesn't hang on as tightly when she cruises around the furniture either. She still doesn't stand up on her own in the middle of the room, but she does frequently get up on one knee. She sit like that or sort-of bounce up and down like she's trying to stand.

Coordination:
She's recently discovered that she can put things together - for example, she got two Little People with cars from her Grandma Sjoerdsma. After a day of discovering each piece, she began putting the people in the cars (lining up the hole in the right place). She can't push hard enough to make them stick, but she certainly knows where they're supposed to go! And she has a plastic egg in the bathtub that splits into two pieces (I think it's an old easter egg). She tries to put the two pieces together; she can't quite get it, but she knows what's supposed to happen. It's very fun to watch her figure out things like that.

Moving:
Not walking yet...but that's just fine with me! Instead, she's extremely quick in her crawling, and I often have to move her to the other room so that I can get to the oven before she does. She also has discovered that she can hold things in her mouth while she crawls, since it's so difficult to crawl with something in her hand...notice the little person hanging out of her mouth in this picture.

Talking?:
Judith spends all day talking. No, she doesn't say any recognizable words, although some of the sounds she makes come close. She just jabbers on and on and on, occasionally pausing for whomever is near to say something, but usually just talking to herself. She also sings along if the stereo is on, or if I'm singing. Again, no words, but definitely a tone that's different from when she's talking, accompanied by changes in pitch. And she will growl when a motorcycle goes by outside, and screech if she hears a siren.

Hair:
Judith's getting curls! As you can see in the picture, the hair at the back of her head is getting long enough that it's starting to wave.