Quick and Fun Facts

Joshua: Apparently Joshua pulled up from sitting to standing for the first time last night. He was crawling around in the family room and suddenly he was standing next to the couch holding on. Go Joshua! I was out on a girls' night so John is the lucky witness to this milestone.

Katie: Two funny things that Katie has said recently:

1. On several occasions Katie has mentioned "Joshua's other belly button." It took me awhile to realize that this is how she understands his different anatomical element. :-)

2. Tonight we were reading "I'll Teach My Dog A Lot of Words" by Michael Frith. We read the page below:

Her response to the bottom left picture?

"Is that JESUS??!!!!"

He's Crawling!

After 10 1/2 months I had finally decided that Joshua was going to skip crawling altogether and go straight to walking. He could sit up by himself and even pull himself to a kneeling position by holding onto ledges. He had learned to get around by rolling and lunging, and anytime he tried to crawl he'd still end up either bellyflopping on the floor or backing himself underneath a bed or table. So today I spent awhile with him teaching him to keep his balance while standing and holding onto something. And he's doing it! See below.

A few hours and a nap later, I was playing with Joshua on the floor and I started to see him move his knees underneath himself in a way he never had before. Tonight John saw him do the same thing. So while Joshua is still very tentative about it, we are happy to announce that YES, he is crawling!

By the way, as excited as we are about these new developmental milestones, I must tell you my FAVORITE thing Joshua does. He headbangs! Katie did the Baby Dance, and Joshua headbangs. I don't know where he learned it, but it happens a lot when he hears music. He typically does it when he doesn't think I'm looking (I glance over to find him rocking out!), but today he was nice enough to headbang for the camera. See below.

Happy Nine-Month Birthday, Joshua!

Joshua's nine-month birthday coincides with today, Christmas Eve, so we won't have our 9-month appointment (with measurements) until January. It's safe to say, however, that Joshua is a BIG BOY. He was 20 lbs. a month ago and seems to be bigger every day. Many of us have complained about our backs after holding him -- that includes Joshua's mommy, daddy, and strapping Uncle Daniel. Katie still weighs a little bit more, but since she's taller, she seems lighter, while Joshua is DENSE -- more pounds per square inch. :-)

Joshua is cutting his sixth tooth, which will give him all four front teeth as well as an extra one on both the top and bottom of the right side of his mouth. Sometimes he audibly grinds his teeth, and I joke to myself: "What kind of mom must I be that my nine-month-old baby is already grinding his teeth?" He also loves to chew on things. He enjoys gnawing on chins, particularly mine and my mom's. Favorite foods right now are diced veggies and fruit, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, meatballs (thanks for the tip, Sarah!), bread... well, basically any grown-up food he can get his hands on.

Joshua continues to practice his "da da da"-ing, and started headbanging this week. John and I each had a headbanging phase, so watching Joshua shake his head up and down sent me into hysterics. Other favorite activities include playing with balls, clapping, rolling around, and watching Elmo when he comes on (poor second child -- he didn't stand a chance of avoiding TV with a big sister who loves it so much).

Joshua is also THISCLOSE to crawling. He will lunge from a sitting position and get one knee under him and try to lunge further, but can't quite get that second knee facing the correct direction. I expect he'll figure it out by the end of the week.

Happy nine-month birthday, Joshua! And merry Christmas to all of you!

Joshua at 8 1/2 months

Teeth: I just discovered Joshua's fourth tooth. His teeth are coming in a very unusual pattern. Here are the ones he has so far:

Look out, young female "Twilight" groupies -- at this rate, my son is going to be a Vampire Baby!

Talking: Recently Joshua started saying "Da da" very distinctly. Yes, he uses it for general babbling. But this week it's obvious he's using it to mean his father. Whenever he sees Daddy, hears him on the phone, or even sees me answering a call, he starts cheering, "DA DA! DA DA!" It's quite adorable.

Eating: Joshua may only have four teeth, but he's not content to eat mush anymore. He may let me spoon food into his mouth for a little while, but then he tries to grab the spoon and cries if I don't give it to him. I tried a food grinder this week (thanks for lending it to me, Katie M!), and he enjoyed trying to scoop the tiny pieces up off his tray -- but boy did that make a huge mess (see above photo). The grinder makes tiny pieces suitable only for spooning into a baby's mouth -- the pieces are way too small to eat by hand. So now I'm just tearing up my own food into small pieces. I'm nervous about it, but he seems to be doing well so far. He's downing Goldfish, turkey, ham, bread, grape pieces, mashed potatoes, Cheerios, green beans, and anything else he can get his tiny little hands on.

Tiny? Well that may not be the best word -- he's over 20 lbs now, closing in fast on his big sister.

Joshua at 7 1/2 months

At 7 1/2 months old, Joshua is nearly 20 pounds. He can stay in a sitting position indefinitely (though he typically doesn't want to). On Nov. 8, he started flipping over from his back to his front, which means he flips both ways now.

Joshua is also a very different personality than Katie. While Katie wanted to perform for people at even six months of age (see the Baby Dance), Joshua's main desire is to always be the center of Mommy's attention. Whenever we're out of the house, this is usually how you'll see us:


Joshua regularly naps in this Ergo Carrier as well. And when I set him down, he's constantly watching me to make sure I don't go anywhere. Notice that when I put him in front of a mirror, he's typically watching ME and not himself.

Joshua doesn't mind occasionally being the center of other people's attention too. That might be why he's eating Uncle Daniel in this photo:

Joshua has a few great dislikes. The first is whenever Mommy walks away, even if others are still around to play with him. SCREAM! CRY!

The second is baths. I still give him spongebaths on the sink counter because he hates the bathtub. This is his first time bathing with Katie -- it lasted about ten seconds before the screams began. :-)

The third thing he hates is his car seat. When he was an infant, he screamed THE ENTIRE RIDE. Now he only screams about half the time, and even less if I'm sitting in the backseat with him (which I typically can't do and drive at the same time). Let's just say that when we go to the beach, we're AWFULLY happy to finally get there. See, Joshua can't sleep unless he's cuddled up to Mommy or on his stomach. Neither of which easily translate to his car seat. Here's one creative pose he managed to find when he was desperate for a nap.

Joshua loves seeing new things, like the fire Daddy built for us during our first cold weekend -- the same weekend Mommy got the flu.

Joshua loves women. Mommy is definitely his favorite, but Grandma and Oma are big faves as well. And whenever we go out to eat, he flirts with women at the other tables. I'll glance over at the other table and find strangers making faces and cooing noises -- only to discover that Joshua has been doing the same to them the whole meal. The other night a woman sat down behind Joshua without looking at him, and he stared at her back until she turned around and gave him attention.

The woman who watches the babies at Community Bible Study has a special fondness for Joshua as well. He falls asleep in her arms most weeks, and she is usually very reluctant to hand him back to Mommy when I arrive.

Joshua has a few girlfriends his own age too, like our best friends' baby Selah:

Of course, Joshua's favorite little girl is his big sister Katie. Even though Joshua's not mobile or verbal yet, he and Katie have a lot of fun together. They crack each other up, hug each other, wrestle with each other, fight over toys, and are always happy to see each other. She even thinks it's funny when he pulls her hair.

Joshua, you're a sweetheart! Mommy loves you!

Our Growing Kids: The Saga of the Beds

The night of the baptism we decided it was time. For months we had been wrestling about when and where to move the kids' sleeping arrangements. So the night of Sunday, Sept. 27, we made our move.

At six months, Joshua was STILL sleeping in his bassinet. And not sleeping much, since he was too big for the bassinet. And WE weren't sleeping much either, since he was still in our room (though thankfully in our walk-in closet, which was much better than right next to our bed as he had been).

Katie wasn't trying to climb out of her crib, and she is VERY particular with her sleeping conditions, so we wrestled with whether or not to keep her in the crib in the gender-neutral nursery, or set up another crib in her pink "big-girl room", or move her up to the toddler bed already in her "big-girl room".

Or should we keep Katie in the nursery, and set up the second crib for Joshua in another room? And if we did that, should we set it up in the blue bedroom (thus taking over the guest room) or would it do irreparable damage to put him in Katie's pink "big-girl room" for the time being?

And with the two of them in rooms next to each other, would they constantly be waking each other up? You can see why we put off making a decision for six months. I was so anxious. I shouldn't have been.

Sept. 27 was the day. They were both exhausted from having truncated naps on Joshua's baptism day, so I figured we'd get minimal resistance from them as we moved their sleeping arrangements around.

While I was toddler-proofing Katie's "big-girl room", John put Joshua down to sleep in Katie's crib. No resistance there. But what if Katie refused her new bed? It's not like I could then put Katie in the bassinet. This had to work -- no going back now!

And yes, Katie did whine a bit when I first made it clear her toddler bed was not going to be just a toy this time, but rather her bed. But when I offered her the pillow, two blankets, and one stuffed puppy that she insisted on having in her crib every night (with nothing more), she didn't want any of them. She picked out two new stuffed things (an Elmo pillow and a giant frog that looks like Kermit) and put them in her new bed that was fitted with the cute new pink-and-brown-polka-dotted bedding I had bought.

My idea was to hang out with her for awhile so she wouldn't be scared to fall asleep in her new room. So I lay down on two couch pillows on the floor and waited. And waited. And waited. I tried to get up at one point and she sat up and pointed to the floor and ordered me: "Mommy, sleep! Sleep two pillows!" So like an obedient little mommy, I did that for a little while longer till it was clear she was content to sing and talk to herself and not go to sleep (I should probably mention here that I was the same way as a child -- my mom has always told stories of how I'd stay awake for hours singing to myself. I was a Broadway Baby from birth, I tell you!!). So after I realized Katie was going to be awake for awhile, I put up the baby gate and went downstairs for my nightly TV date night with John.

And yes, Katie did jump out of bed a lot that night. And the next day during naptime. And occasionally a week later. But really, it hasn't been all that bad. She knows she's in trouble if we catch her out of bed, and she usually stays put -- aside from an occasional bouncing on her bed or when she's not able to sleep unless her shoes are in a drawer and not on the floor (did I mention that she's FREAKISHLY particular about her sleeping environment?). And she still sleeps in a way that slowly kills the environment -- with a nightlight, fan, and CD player all on.

Joshua never likes being put down in general, but he seems to appreciate the space to stretch out a bit in his new crib. He now has room to flip over, but that's a double-edged sword because he can only fall asleep on his stomach, and he can only roll over from his stomach to back, not the other way. So in the middle of the night, if we hear a piercing yell, we know that one of us needs to go flip him back on his stomach.

In terms of waking each other up, it's actually been amazing. We've been letting Joshua cry it out when he wakes up in the middle of the night (unless he's flipped over, in which case we turn him over and then let him cry it out), and as far as we can tell (it's hard to hear much over the screams), Katie has been completely silent through the ordeal. I can't imagine that it DOESN'T wake her up, but she must be able to go back to sleep okay. Thank You, Lord!

The bigger beds symbolize big changes in our children. They are doing new things everyday which is so exciting to watch. Katie did her first poo-poo in the potty on Sept. 14 and Joshua is now flipping over regularly (although as I mentioned, in only one direction). I'm so proud of my growing kids! And we're so thankful to have our room back to ourselves!

Happy Six-Month Birthday, Joshua!

Joshua continues to be a very happy, playful, social baby. A few of his recent milestones:

1. I have unconfirmed suspicions that Joshua has rolled from front to back, although there is always a caveat. For instance, Katie sometimes flips him over so it's hard to know if he has rolled without help or not. :-)

2. Joshua can now sit unassisted for several seconds at a time without toppling.

3. Joshua now has two of his bottom teeth (first one on Aug. 17, second one on Sept. 8).

4. Joshua started solid foods on Aug. 16. As you can see from the photo below, he wasn't too thrilled to begin with. But boy did that change quickly.

He has now had (in chronological order): rice cereal, peas, avocado, Ritz cracker crumbs, carrots, pears, sweet potatoes, green beans, and peaches. So far he's not a huge fan of the fruits and beans. He can't get enough of cracker crumbs or anything else resembling Mommy's food. For that matter, he can't get enough of food, period, even the ones he doesn't seem to like.

Which brings me to... The things Joshua loves at Six Months!

1. FOOD! FOOD! FOOD!

Friends, this boy can EAT! I'm talking 10 ounces of jarred food a day, even when I've added rice cereal to all of it. He just goes and goes. I'm going to need to start making baby food in bulk. I was so happy to find bulk packages of baby food at Sam's the other day and I already need to buy more.

2. Joshua loves MOMMY!!!
I can carry him in this baby carrier for hours and he is content as can be. It's often how we do naps while we're out and about.

3. Joshua loves TOYS!
Joshua is learning how to grab items and move them around. It's funny to watch him try to stick a pacifier in his mouth (it hasn't been a successful quest yet). While he always prefers to be in Mommy's arms, he is also content to play in his Exersaucer for a little while as long as I'm not far away.

People warned me that one challenge of having two kids would be when they both wanted to play with the same toys. And yes, sometimes Katie cries because I won't let her steal whatever Joshua is playing with. But other times, if he's crying, she'll often bring him toys -- even her own toys -- to try to cheer him up. She really is a fantastic big sister.

Anyway, back to Joshua...

4. Joshua loves ALL PEOPLE!

Yes, if you're willing to hold him or give him attention, he will reward you with the biggest smiles. He is a social little guy and loves to play games and tease. He enjoys chewing on his grandma's chin and having me blow kisses into his tummy. He loves pulling on Katie's hair, and thankfully she thinks it's funny too.

Here's a photo of Joshua getting love from his grandparents, sister, and cousin at the beach house in August:

Joshua's being baptized on Sunday morning at the 11 am service; hope some of you can make it. On Monday we'll have his 6-month appointment and I can send you updated measurements. A few weeks ago he was nearly 18 lbs. I guess that makes sense with that huge appetite!

Happy 6-month birthday, Joshua!

A Few Firsts This Week

Today: Joshua's first movie theatre experience, and Katie's first that she was aware of (she went along with me as a baby, but mostly slept through the movies back then). We saw "Curious George" as part of Regal Theatres' Free Family Film Festival this summer. Katie enjoyed the movie and was mostly content, esp. since I strapped her into her booster seat and plied her with snacks and drinks. Joshua slept most of the movie. Overall, a good experience.

Yesterday: Joshua's first eye appointment. We went in for Katie's eye checkup and were thrilled that the eye specialist was able to squeeze Joshua in as well. I felt too silly to schedule an appointment for him since I didn't know of anything wrong with him, but the doctor started checking Joshua's eyes without me even asking. What an answer to prayer, since John and I have been a bit paranoid about his vision after Katie's early eye problems. Apparently one of Joshua's eyes is in fact drifting a bit, but the doctor is hopeful that he'll simply outgrow it. In the meantime, we've scheduled another appointment for him a few months from now.

This weekend: The kids' first fireworks and parade. We were at the beach for the Fourth of July and enjoyed both a parade and fireworks. I find it hard to believe that we haven't taken Katie to fireworks before, but her first Fourth, when she was five weeks old, we were in the hospital realizing she had something very wrong with her eyes. And last year we just watched the fireworks on TV with our best friends (who are having their 2nd baby next Wednesday -- hooray!). I was tempted to watch them on TV again this year, especially since the Sesame Street Muppets were part of the Capitol celebration, but I'm glad we did them in person. The kids were great overall and Katie really enjoyed the music and lights.

Happy Three-Month Birthday, Joshua!

On Monday he started lifting his head entirely up during tummy time. He's a big, strong boy!

Katie Put Her Pee-Pee in the Potty!!

Big milestone today: Katie put her pee-pee in the potty for the first time!

I'm not really sure it was on purpose (I was making her sit on the potty for awhile with a book since she'd been carrying the potty around the first floor), but she did it nonetheless.

Interestingly, she didn't seem particularly impressed by her accomplishment, even with John and I cheering for her afterwards and even though Mommy called both grandmas on speakerphone to brag.

We have 5 days till my due date, so with the impending upheaval, I expect this will be our last potty accomplishment for several months. :-)

The Talking Tally, July 2008

I thought I'd list as many of Katie's current communication attempts as I can think of right now. I'll try to make a list like this on a monthly basis or so.

Words/Phrases she tries to say regularly:
Dog ("Daw!")
Thank you ("day-ooh")
Daddy ("dada")
Mommy ("mama")
Cheese ("chiss")
Cookie ("cookie")
Please ("pliss")
Yes ("yeh")
No ("no no no no")
What's that? ("whassat" or "dis!")

Animal noises she makes:
Lion/bear (growls)
Dog (pants and yells "ah! ah!")
Cat ("ma")
Cow ("mmmmmm")
Turkey ("gob gob")
Chicken ("ba ba ba")
Rooster ("ka koo")
Monkey ("ayi ayi ayi") (you may not think this sounds like a monkey, but Katie heard the George Michael song "Monkey" and now we sing the chorus together: "Monkey! Monkey! Monkey! Monkey! Ayiyiyiyiyi!")

Other signs/tricks:
Can point to her nose, hair, eyes, mouth, and teeth when asked; and she claps when asked about her hands
Can pick out different animals and characters (esp. the Veggie Tales) among her stuffed animals
When asked, "How big is Katie?" she lifts one or both hands above her head.
She claps and dances upon request
When she hears the word "giraffe", she points to her neck
When she hears "froggy froggy", she sticks out her tongue over and over
When she hears "kitty cat," she touches her cheek (similar to the baby sign of "cat" which is stroking your cheek like whiskers)
She's started trying to blow kisses this week ("mmmmmmah!")
When I sniff her feet and say, "ew, stinky!", she'll laugh and continue to try to put her feet in my face
She loves to brush her teeth and her hair -- sometimes with the same brush

Watch Katie Grow Up

Katie is growing up before our eyes! And since not all of you can be here in person, I'm hoping these few video clips will give you just a small sample of all that we're seeing her learn to do.

First up: Katie can now hold her own glass to drink. I haven't risked anything but water yet, but it's still cool to watch her do this.

Next up: Talking! WOW! Last night she said "cookie" for the first time to my mom, and tonight it took about 15 takes to get her to say it on film (listen carefully -- she says it in a whisper!).

For several months now we've been working on the baby signs and sounds for different animals. Here's Katie's baby sign for frog:

And here she makes the sounds for a lion and a bear (which, yes, are exactly the same in KatieTalk):

Katie's first animal sounds (cow and cat) were made on February 29. How do I remember that? Because I blogged it immediately! This blog really is my baby book for my beloved daughter.

She's Walking!!

On Sunday, June 8, just a few hours after learning that her best friend Daniel (7 weeks older) was walking, Katie decided she couldn't let Daniel outpace her and walked for the first time! She took three steps to get to a toy. So exciting! While I couldn't get a video of the first few steps (we were watching National Treasure 2 at the time -- how dare she not give us warning beforehand?), here's a video taken shortly afterwards which shows a step or two.

And while I'm sharing the good news, let me share a few more highlights from this past week:

While we were dodging tornadoes, my friend Amy and her daughters took advantage of the regional blackout to come over for a fun sleepover! The next day, after our power finally came on, I babysat the girls and Katie fell asleep on 10-year-old Caitlin's lap as they watched "Hairspray."

Friday night our family took advantage of the 3-day weekends that John now gets every other week (what a blessed life we have with his new job!) and headed to the beach to visit with John's parents. It was way too hot to actually lie on the beach this weekend, but John's parents watched Katie several times so we could sleep in, go to the movies twice, and go out to dinner. What a wonderful, relaxing weekend -- especially when John's parents were supposed to be celebrating their own 36-year anniversary. (Speaking of which, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, GRAMMY and JAY-PA!) Highlights from the weekend were Katie walking for the first time, trying chocolate ice cream for the first time, and enjoying her new doggie raft in the pool. She also now moo's spontaneously when I point to a picture of a cow.

Happy birthday, Katie!!

Our little ball of fun

Has just turned one!

Our joy and laughter have been restored

And we're so thankful for this gift from the Lord.

California, Here We Come (Part 1)

We're in California this week with my entire family to attend my brother Stephen's seminary graduation! In honor of this occasion, I just had to post a favorite "I Love Lucy" clip:

OK, now that that's out of the way, here are some of our adventures so far.

The plane trip to Phoenix was not easy. Katie had a hard time napping and did a good amount of fussing, especially on the first 3-hour leg. I thought the second leg would be shorter but it ended up being about 3 hours as well. I almost did not get on that second plane once I realized how long the second flight would be. Thankfully, due to sheer exhaustion, Katie fell asleep sprawled on her back across my legs near the end of that second leg.

We were so glad to finally arrive in Phoenix! We flew there to visit some close friends -- Jaime was my roommate before I married John, and her husband West really gets along well with John. They have two children, Ava (nearly 4) and Logan (nearly 2), and Katie became instant friends with both of them. We had a delightful time for the nearly two days we spent with them. Katie was so inspired by the older children that she did a new trick the very first day: Standing without support!

Here are some of my favorite photos from our visit.

Monday morning we left at 7:30 am to try to get to Palm Springs, CA in time to watch the last half of the collegiate lacrosse championships, which John's favorite team had made it to against all odds. This was a last-minute change to our itinerary, and I Googled "Palm Springs sports bar" to find what ended up being a hole-in-the-wall place inside a strip mall that didn't even serve food. And in the end, all our racing across Arizona and California was to see a very disappointing loss for John's team. Bummer. But I did manage to get another funny photo of Katie on the way. I've never seen her hair stand up quite so much!

To be continued...