Two word sentences!

For the past week Eleanor has been making two word sentences.  At first it seemed like she was just copying what we were saying, so we weren’t sure.  She’s been saying things like “there it is ball”  or “there it is bowl” (there it is comes out as “theh-tis” and we think is one word to her).   But this morning she very clearly asked for “more bread”!  I know girls develop more quickly than boys in the language department, but I didn’t expect two word sentences for quite a while longer.

She was slow to start talking too, so I kind of expected her to end up being more of a physical toddler, but lately she’s really been focusing on language.  She’s been picking up a new word a day it seems.  It’s becoming much easier to figure out what she wants, since at least half the time she can tell you now.

She has also learned what the potty seat is for.  She doesn’t yet get that she shouldn’t go pee in her pants anymore, but she definitely gets that that’s what she’s supposed to do when we set her on the seat.  We haven’t really been pushing it, but maybe in the next month or so I’ll try putting underwear on her.

And, finally, she’s sleeping through the night on a regular basis.  All of a sudden she just started sleeping from ~8pm-6am.  Woo-hoo!

She’s just growing and changing so much right now!  I really love this age, when they start being able to communicate and really interract with their worlds.  So much fun!

We have a walker!

For about a week now, Eleanor’s been walking!  On April 9th she took four steps, though she didn’t realize she had done it.  Every day after that she took a few more, and now she totters everywhere!  It is amazing to both of us how quickly she went from just barely taking steps to out-and-out walking.  She’ll even “run” a bit if she knows she has somewhere safe to land, like the side of the couch.

I started taking her to toddler classes a few weeks ago, at the local Gymboree.  She loves it!  It takes her about 15 minutes each time to warm up, but then she gets into it.  And I love having somewhere to go with other grown people, haha!  I’ve been trying to take her to story time at our library as well, but she suddenly decided that 10:15am (when it’s supposed to start) is her new favorite nap time.  Ah well. Wish they had a later option for this age set.

In other news, we took a little trip to Forks, WA (the home of Twilight) with my folks a couple weeks ago, which was fun.  We drove around the Olympic Peninsula checking out beaches and such, and went on a little hike at Cape Flattery, which is the northernmost tip of WA state.  It was absolutely gorgeous! We lucked out and had sunny weather the whole time.

Now we’re doing some home improvement.  I’ve decided that I’ve had enough of carpet in our main living areas – it’s always disgusted me, but now especially with Eleanor on it all the time – so we’re starting to put hardwood floors in (bamboo).  We’re starting on one of the smaller rooms, since we don’t exactly know what we’re doing yet.  Plus it ain’t cheap!  Hopefully it’ll go well and we can move on to the other rooms.  I also want to put in a second bath tub though, and we need to do some closet work (for which we already have most of the materials), so the rest of the floors might be a while.  It’s nice to finally be doing work on the house again, though!  We took an almost two year hiatus with my pgcy and then Eleanor being born.  We bought this house in ‘05 knowing it needed work, so not doing anything for half the time we’ve been here has been a little aggravating.  It was for a very good cause though.  ; )

Happy Birthday Baby!

Eleanor turned one year old yesterday!  We had a party for her on Saturday with about ten people, mostly family.  It was a good party and she got tons of new toys and clothes!  She spent all day yesterday playing with her new push toy (from mommy and daddy).  She loves to walk around behind it.  She is so close to taking her first step on her own, but isn’t there quite yet.  Hopefully soon!  For now she moves much more quickly crawling so she doesn’t have much incentive to walk.

She’s now saying dada and versions of mom (mama, ma, nen, even Jenn recently), as well as “hi” and “up”.  Her little voice is so sweet!  She learned those last two in just the last week or so, so she seems to be learning quickly now.  I’m looking forward to hearing the next word!

She doesn’t have another appt until the end of the month, so I weighed her (on our Wii Fit, haha) and measured her myself.  She’s now about 18.5 lbs (13%) and 29″ tall (59%).  So she’s still  skinny, but not as much as before (she was 16% weight and 87% height at 9mo).  We’ve been feeding her a ton but I guess she might need even more.  Yikes!

We gave her soy milk for the first time the other day and she loved it.  I’m hoping to swap out a couple nursing sessions a day for it, but so far she seems to be treating it as more of a supplement than a meal.  Now that I know her stats, maybe that’s a good thing.  I’m planning on continuing to breastfeed for the foreseeable future, hopefully until she’s about two, which is the WHO recommendation.  We’ll see how it goes.

She popped her first molar on the 12th, which brings her grand total up to nine teeth!  Her sleeping is still all over the board, largely from the constant teething.  Though apparently I was a horrible sleeper as a baby too, so it could just be that.  I am so thankful that I’m able to stay home with her!  Besides the fact that I love being here with her, I would be a zombie at work most days.

I can’t believe my baby is one, but I also look at her and see a one year old.  This year just went too fast.  I hope the next one is a little slower, and I can’t wait to see what it brings!

Just another daddy’s girl!

In the last few days Eleanor has decided that John is her new favorite person, and she’s also saying dada appropriately!  It’s enough to break a mama’s heart, though at the same time I’m so proud of her for saying her first word.  Haha!  Being a mom is quite confusing at times…

I remember my siblings going through phases where they preferred one parent over the other, then switching back, so hopefully this is only temporary.  I’ve also read that babies usually say dada before mama because they understand at an earlier age that daddy is a separate being from them.  They think of mommy as being the same person as them (separation anxiety is a symbol of them starting to understand that mommy is a separate person after all, if I’m remembering this correctly.)  I just keep telling myself all of this so that I don’t get jealous!  It’s working.  Kinda.

I think she might be teething again, since she’s chewing and drooling and sleeping like crap.  Up every 1.5-2 hours all night long, and usually only nursing will console her back to sleep.  Ugh!  This is her typical teething pattern, though she tends to take a long time to pop the teeth.  She’s been doing this for three weeks now and I am running on empty.  John took her yesterday morning and let me sleep in and I slept until 11am!  I usually hate doing that – such a waste of a day – but I obviously needed it.

Nothing else new going on.  I’m already over winter and want spring to get here.  That’s one problem with going down to So Cal for the holidays: you get a taste of lovely weather and it makes winter seem interminable.  We went to the local nursery last week and bought some indoor plants, which helps.  I really want an indoor lime tree, but can’t really justify spending $50 on something that I will very likely kill!  I think I might just go buy a few limes and plant the seeds.  And maybe make maragaritas.  ; )

New pics and 9 mo appt

I put up a few pics from this past Sunday.  She was so cute in her little red tutu!

We had her nine month appointment today.  John was able to come to this one, which was great!  I always forget half of what I wanted to ask and half of what she tells me, lol!

Eleanor’s weight has dropped to the 15th percentile, while her height has gone up to the 81st!  She’s long and lean.  A little too lean though, so her doc wants us to add more fat to her diet.  We’re also going to add in a second meal every day, which I’ve been doing occasionally but without any consistency.  Her doc wasn’t too concerned about it though, and said it could just be her body type since her daddy is tall and we’re both pretty thin.  Other than that she’s doing quite well, and meeting all of her milestones.

She had her second flu shot and first polio vacc (we’re still following Dr. Sears’ alternative schedule), and did well for both.  We picked up vitamin D drops at the pharmacy, since her doc wants her on those during the winter, but we haven’t tried giving them to her yet.  Her doc also wants us to cruch up one Tums twice a week and mix it in with some fruit puree to feed her, since she can’t have any dairy.  I need to go look that up and see if there’s something better to give her.  Her doc didn’t seem so sure about it, and I remember Tums making me sick as a kid.  I don’t want her to be calcium deficient though, so if that’s the only choice we’ll have to do it!  Mmm, Tums-apple sauce!

I *think* she *might* be crawling!

As with all baby milestones, there doesn’t seem to have been a clear demarcation between the Not-Crawling Eleanor and the Crawling Eleanor.  One day she was only scooting backwards, a day or two later she was going backwards on purpose, the next day I thought I might have seen her take a very small forward “step” with one knee, and so on.  Yesterday and today she’s definitely crawling forward, though she doesn’t seem to do it with a whole lot of purpose yet.  If there’s something she desperately wants (lint on the floor is her current obsession, ugh!) she’ll go toward it, but it takes her a minute to figure out she can.  She has definitely figured out that she prefers being on her belly, and can flip there in a split second.  She also can get from sitting into a crawling position pretty easily, though she’s not too sure of herself yet.  I have a feeling she’s going to be crawling all around Grandma’s table at Thanksgiving!

She’s also cruising, and has been for a while.  I just didn’t know what it was called until today, haha!  She gets all around her activity table and to any nearby furniture, and walks along the back of the couch (especially if I’m sitting on the opposite end of where she is!)  It’s so fun to watch her learn and grow!  I have a feeling she’ll be a much happier baby in general when she can control her world more.  She’s such a particular little being, and mommy isn’t always perfect at figuring out what she wants.

Tomorrow is the annual shopping trip with John’s side of the family.  Just us girls – grandma, her sisters, possibly John’s sister for a bit.  It’s always fun, though this year I’ll probably cut it short since Eleanor usually melts down after about five hours out. Fortunately we’re not doing gifts for my family this year, since we’re all going to DL, so at least I won’t have to get much actual shopping done. His family does lists, which makes it so much easier!

What a year to be born!

I think it’s awesome that Eleanor will never know her country as a place where a minority was not president.  McCain is a great man who deserves our respect and admiration for everything he’s done (and will do) for our country, and I feel sorry for him for losing.  In the end however, I was and am an Obama supporter, so obviously I’m very glad he won.  Go Obama!

And now back to our regularly scheduled Nora-vision: her new trick is to grind her teeth!!  LOL!  It drives me insane, but she seems to love the new sensation.  Also, today I quickly bounced her up on my hip – she was squirming a bunch and had almost succeeded in getting away – and I heard her teeth clack together.  Guess I need to be more careful!

Yesterday she figured out how to pull herself to standing using her little activity table.  She’s been using us and other lower things to do this for a couple weeks now, but had never been able to leverage herself with something so high.  She’s also gotten up on her hands and knees and started rocking recently.  I think my days of leaving her sitting on the floor with a few toys while I shower are drawing to a close…

Last little bit of Nora news: I cooked and ground up some chicken for her today, and she seems to hate it.  We’re mostly skipping cereals, so I want her to get iron from something.  Maybe I’ll try mixing it with something she likes.