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.

growing teeth

I know, the last post was about teeth - but now I have the adorable picture that shows all four teeth SO clearly that I just had to post again. She's also apparently working on more than these four...she chews on her fingers and drools constantly, and she's been pretty fussy. I guess we'll have to wait for the next ones to come in until we get our break. :-)

She also continues to get more and more confident about standing on her own - she "forgets" and lets go about 2-3 times a day now, and she keeps trying to stand up without help. She goes up on one knee and sort of bounces up and down...never gets anywhere though :-).

teeth

Judith now officially has four teeth - both center top teeth have broken through. We're extremely glad about that, and hope that it means she'll be less fussy for a while! I'm hoping, too, that she'll discover chewing, and start eating more "chunks" of food. I'm not looking forward to grinding up chicken.

9 month checkup

(It's hard to believe Judith was nine months old on Saturday - it's gone so fast!)

This morning she had her nine month checkup. Dr. Wolfrey said she's doing "very well." She's 29" long (92nd percentile) and 17 lb 8 oz (45th percentile). (I have to say that once again she weighed much less than I thought she would - sometimes, when I'm lugging her around, I'm sure she weighs 25 lbs!) She's also "ahead" developmentally - waving, pointing, pulling herself up on things and cruising, and repeating sounds that we make are things that you'd "normally" see at 12 months, not 9.

For the first time she reacted quite negatively to the doctor's office experience, starting with the weighing - she screamed when Lance put her down on the scale. And then again when she had to be put on the table to be measured and examined. The doctor said 'she's exhibiting very normal "fear of strangers".' She had one shot - her final Hep B innoculation, but since she was already upset from being back on the table at the point, I'm not sure she even noticed the shot :-).

"monthly" update?

I know, it's been forever since I blogged anything, and really I should have been, because Judith's going through a really fun phase right now where she's learning all kinds of things, and becoming more and more mobile as well. But, truthfully, I just haven't felt like blogging, perhaps because I've been so exhausted, and perhaps because I don't want this to become a blog full of angst or complaining.

Sleeping
The main "update" is that Judith still is not sleeping well. In the past few weeks her pattern has either been to be up every hour all night long or to be up for several hours in the middle of the night. The first time she was up for a long period, we tried to let her cry-it-out, but we discovered that she couldn't get down from the standing at the side of the crib. (Now we know she can get down, and last night we tried again...she cried pretty much for an hour straight, then slept for 1/2 an hour, woke up and cried for a while, then slept for another 1/2 hour - I fed her that time, and she slept for about 4 1/2 hours before waking again.) We've been trying all kinds of different "methods" to see if anything helps, but so far we haven't hit on a "magic formula" (not that I think there is one, of course). We know that she's teething, which is probably a contributing factor to the sleeplessness, and with our schedule lately we haven't been able to settle into a routine, which probably isn't helping either. Our newest "trial" is going to be a later routine (we've tried an earlier routine already) since it seems like we're constantly out past her bedtime. We'll see. Honestly it feels like I've failed as a mother because she doesn't sleep anymore...she used to sleep so well!

Mobility
Mobility wise, she's making giant steps. She's completely confident in her crawling, and would explore the entire house if we'd let her...we've started keeping all the doors closed down the hallway, so that she can only crawl up and down the hall instead of exploring the bedrooms. She's also pulling herself up on the sofa (and anything else that's even remotely stable) and beginning to cruise with confidence. In fact, she sometimes has a little too much confidence, because she'll try to move to places (or let go of things) when she's really not able to balance. She's taken quite a few tumbles in the last couple days, and her forehead is a little black-and-blue. She's also able to get down from pulling herself up on things - whether it's because Lance spent patient time teaching her to bend her knees and drop or because she figured it out on her own, we'll never know :-).

Eating
We've phased out cereal except for breakfast, and we've added whole milk yogurt. I've been making her baby food, for the most part, and freezing it in cubes. There's not a whole lot of variety right now in the organic produce that's available, so it may be a little monotonous for her, but she doesn't seem to mind. We've also gotten her to take a sippy cup, and least occasionally, with a tiny bit of juice mixed with water. We started out giving her that mixture in a bottle, but since she leaked it all over that way, we moved to the sippy. Mostly she chews on the "nipple" (can you say teething?!) but she'll also suck on it as well. I've also been trying, occasionally, to give her bigger "chunks" of food to get her used to eating it on her own (that's avocado in the pictre). So far my success in that endeavor has been mixed. Mostly she plays with the food instead of eating it.

Other "skills"

• She's now mastered the pincer grip - at least with her left hand. With her right hand she mostly still "rakes."
• She claps, sometimes randomly, and sometimes in response to one of us clapping.
• She waves on rare occasions, although she now turns her hand toward herself instead of toward the other person.
• She scrunches up her nose and sniffs in and out to make a funny face...it's adorable!
• She's recently started making noise while she inhales, as though she's gasping...it really scared me the first time I heard it, but she's just exploring vocally. It's the sound she makes most when she's happy right now.

I'm sure there are a lot more things that she does, but these are the ones that come to mind right now. She continues to be an absolute joy, even though it's all currently colored by exhaustion.

trial run

Last night (Sunday) we did a trial run for leaving Judith home with Grandma Sjoerdsma while Lance and I go away overnight for our 10th anniversary (scheduled for Thursday, April 2). Unfortunately, it did not go well at all. Judith woke up to nurse just before we left, so she was still a little groggy, and got pretty upset when we left. And then she cried for pretty much the whole time we were gone. Grandma was able to calm her down/distract her at intervals, but once she started the bedtime routine, Judith got really upset. She ate all her cereal, but refused the bottle, and was crying pretty heavily. When Lance and I got home, Grandma was walking Judith around the house in the stroller.

So we've changed the plan for Thursday. Lance and I will take Judith with us on our overnight, and then Grandma will babysit on Friday (our actual anniversary) so we can go out for dinner. This makes everything a LOT less stressful, because Judith hasn't really gotten much better at taking the bottle, and now we know how well she does with someone else trying to put her to bed. I no longer have to worry about pumping and pumping trying to get enough milk for her to take a bottle, and the three of us (Grandma, Judith, and me) will all have a much less traumatic Thursday.

We're glad that we did the trial run on Sunday night instead of just "assuming" that Thursday would be ok!

In other updates: Judith is crawling like crazy...nothing is safe, and she's pulling herself up on whatever she can. Foodwise, we're going to be starting to introduce yogurt, oat and barley cereal, and possibly even some meats in the near future.