Emily 10 Months

Double digit months, baby girl!  Where has the time gone?!?

This month has been lots of fun and games for you Miss Emily.  You love to be silly and play with us.  You like to play peek-a-boo and giggle as soon as you know it's coming.  You like to tease us with your paci and try to put it in our mouth instead of yours.  We take it away from each other and both crack up.

My favorite thing this month:  You giving us kisses.  You know and understand what this is and are just so sweet in giving out kisses to us when we ask--and even when we don't.  They are usually open mouthed and quite wet and slobbery but there really isn't much sweeter than a kiss from my baby girl!

You are getting better at communicating with us--especially recepetively (meaning you understand lots of words) though we're still a little slow on understanding you.  You're finally starting to sign "more" to us though it really is just you clapping your hands and it's hard to tell most of the time if you really want "more" or are just happy and clapping.    You waved "hi" for the first time while visiting our family down in Angleton and sometimes it sounds like you try to say it also.  But you understand LOTS of words--eat, milk, bath, book, ball, cracker, puff just to name a few.  You get excited when we start talking about eating or taking a bath so we know you understand us.  And while playing we'll ask you to find certain toys for us and you can get a ball and bring it to us.  Even crawl over to your toy box, dig around and find what we're asking for.  Such a big girl!

You've gotten to be a pro and crawling around and pulling up.  You are oh so close to really taking off cruising on things and I know you want to move.

Another exciting development this month:  You are no longer a vegetarian!  Now that you are better at feeding yourself I've really been trying to expand the foods you eat and let you try what we are eating as much as possible.  This month that meant meatballs with spaghetti, chicken, mac-n-cheese, peas, lots of fruits, etc.  Honestly I don't think I've really found much yet that you don't enjoy.

You finally got your second tooth right before you hit 10 months.  Your bottom front tooth on the left came in on May 20.  10 months old and just two little teeth!  But that hasn't stopped you one bit from eating big kid foods!

We had a big month as a family--traveling to Houston/Angleton, celebrating Mother's Day, celebrating the birthdays of some of our special friends, and most exciting was finding out your baby cousin coming in October will be a girl!  We've already given Aunt Kristi several boxes of your baby clothes to share with Baby Elise.  I just can't wait for you to get to grow up with a girl cousin so close in age.  I hope you guys are the best of friends.

More silly pictures of a silly little girl...

Trying to give the bear a kiss

Playing with her new toy from friend Caleb (and showing off the cute ruffles on her bottom!)

Trying to tell us how much she likes it I think

Waving "Hi!"

Mother's Day

Thanks to my wonderful husband and kids for a wonderful Mother's Day weekend!

We went to Chez-Zee for brunch on Saturday.  We don't do brunch often but this has become somewhat of a Mother's Day tradition for us--3 out of the last 4 years.  I look forward to it every year!  Since Sundays are full with church, we always go on Saturday which also means I get to stretch out the pampering for 2 days.  This certainly works in my favor! 

Sunday evening Mike grilled steaks for us and I loved just sitting outside snuggling with Emily on a blanket, watching Noah play and Mike grill.  After dinner and Emily was put to bed the boys gave me a special treat. A bubble bath with chocolate and champagne!  

Noah couldn't quite get over the fact that I got to enjoy a bubble bath in the big garden tub all by myself with treats.  He kept asking when he would get to do that.  We tried to explain the concept of Mother's Day but that didn't go very far with his 4 year old mind.  He wanted to know when it would be his Mother's Day?  I explained that he is not a Mommy so he wouldn't have a Mother's Day.  His response: "Well, when will it be Brother's Day?"  That's right--he made up a new holiday!  Don't let the people at Hallmark know because I could see this one gaining popularity!  

I do so love how his little mind works.  He did get a special bubble bath in the big tub later that week though it was without food or drink in the tub (this was met with some resistance).  He also wanted to know if I was going to have to be quiet and not disturb him during his bath since this was the rule that was in place for him during my bathtime.  Love my silly boy!

This is not a joke

Seriously, I'm not joking.  It's not even close to funny anymore.  I think that's what I said to Mike last weekend, or something along those lines, as I told him yet again one of our kids was sick while we were spending time with out of town family.  This time it was traveling to Angleton to visit my parents (while Mike was in The Woodlands helping out at his Dad's house).  And this time it was Noah.  I actually went back through our claims with the insurance company to get dates and documentation because it's so crazy.

Now mind you, these have all been mild, childhood illnesses we're dealing with here.  Nothing life and death, no surgeries, no major traumas.  But when it happens with just about every major holiday or family gathering, it gets pretty old.  So here it is, the list of illnesses in the last year that have coincided with big events.

3/8/11-Noah had the flu for his birthday
11/21/11-Noah had a random virus with high fever for several days--just in time for Thanksgiving
12/23/11-Noah had an ear infection for Christmas
2/29/12--No one was sick, just a visit to the pedi for Emily's 6 month well check.
3/8/12-Noah had another random virus/fever AGAIN for the second year in a row to take him down for his birthday
3/19/12--No one was sick, just a visit to the pedi for Noah's well check
3/26/12--Emily had some random virus.  My parent's were in town to take care of this kids while we were busy with church/wedding responsibilities
4/9/12--Following Easter weekend, we went in to get Noah diagnosed with Asthma after he had another episode of wheezing and constant coughing Easter morning.  Oh, and he had an ear infection to go along with it.  Woo hoo!
4/12/12--Twice in one week!  Emily this time--she'd been running a low grade fever since Saturday and finally developed a rash giving her the official diagnosis of roseola.  I joked with Dr. Chang that we were going to need a special parking spot for our frequent visits to the doctor.
4/30/12--No one was sick, just Em's well check this time
5/7/12--Noah, after running 104 degree fever in Angleton, I checked his throat when we got home to find petichiae on his soft palate and huge tonsils.  Classic strep.  I was just glad it wasn't his ears again.  Thankful for antibiotics!

So, yeah.  I included the well checks just to tally up all the visits--8 visits to our pediatrician in basically 2 months.  Good thing we like him and their office. Here's a shout out to Treehouse Pediatrics in Round Rock and Dr. Ting Chang!  What's also crazy is that list doesn't include any of Emily's visits to specialists or testing that was done at the first of the year.  Or her weekly auditory therapy visits at home or  monthly speech visits and case manager visits at home.

I'm not really complaining, because it could be worse.  Much worse.  I am VERY thankful for my very healthy children who can tolerate the basic run of the mill childhood ear infections, viruses, etc that don't mean an automatic trip to the ER.  But it does make me a little tired.  And as much as I love our pedi, I'd really love to take a break from seeing him for a while.  So, we're working on keeping our germs to ourselves around here.  And I'm going to stop joking about someone getting sick whenever we plan something.  Because really, it stopped being funny about 6 visits to the doctor ago and I don't want to risk jinxing us either!

Dino Adventure

We finally got a chance to take Noah to the Dino Park in nearby Cedar Creek (between Austin and Bastrop) http://thedinopark.com/.  We made it at the end of April and it was actually cool in the morning.  Probably the last cool weather we'll have here for the next 6 months or so.  A perfect day for spending some time outside.

To say Noah loved it, would be an understatement.  The looks on his face as we rounded corners to find huge life-size replicas of some of his favorite dinos were worth every penny of the price of admission. 

Emily enjoyed it too.  She likes being outside and going on walks.  And she got her first ride in a real swing.  As you can see this was a big hit.  We'll be getting her a swing for our playscape soon.

Standing tall

Emily is a girl on the move!  She crawls, pulls up, and can stand pretty well.  She forgets to hold on sometimes and will come crashing down but every day she's a little more stable.  I got some good action photos last week:

Bath buddies

A new favorite thing for both kids is doing bath time together.  Though it can be a little more challenging, I like it too cause it's more efficient.  Mike things these will make good embarrassing photos for them later.  All "parts" are covered though so they're still G-rated pics and pretty stinkin' cute at that!

Adventures in self feeding

Now that Emily's getting better at feeding herself the baby Puffs and crackers, I've started giving her little chunks of other soft foods for her to do more "self feeding".  As much as I know it's good for her, I still have a hard time with the mess.  Good thing she's so cute!

And this is what happens when you let Daddy and big brother get involved too...