Cruising

Elise has been experimenting with cruising (taking steps while holding on to furniture) for the last two weeks. She's started to instinctively take steps forward while standing and holding someone's hands. She does a little diagonal side step move to cruise along the coffee table, entertainment stand, and my bed frame. I got a GREAT video of it today, but as luck would have it, my loaner computer isn't cooperating and I can't upload it. I will try again soon. Today she also let go with both hands for a few seconds, held her balance, and then grabbed on to the coffee table again.

She's also waving more and talking all the time. If I say "mama, dada, baba, or gaga", she almost always babbles back at me.

On an unrelated note, here are some pictures we took in the backyard yesterday. It is getting much harder to get her to look at the camera. Here she is smiling at Boss...



Yay, I have 4 teeth!


Elise and John love to play together and take walks together...


Happy Thursday!

Elise update

Her fourth tooth popped through today, so now she has two on top and two on bottom. You can see the right one in this picture. She looks so much older with them! She's been getting better and better with walking along the coffee table, though I stay close by just to make sure she doesn't bite it. Even though she isn't crawling on all fours, she was creeping fast enough to be kicked out of the infant Sunday School class this morning. She is excited to join her buddy Josiah in the crawlers' class next week. She will take up to 2 crawling "steps" at a time before she plops down to her belly and scoots like a little inchworm :)

She is extremely talkative and loves to babble and just make noises. Here is a conversation we had on Saturday:

Me: "Ma ma"
Elise: "Ma ma"
Me: "Good girl! Ma ma!"
Elise: "Ma ba ba"
Me: "Ma ma"
Elise: "Ma ba ba"
Me: "Ma ma"
Elise: "Ba ba ba ba ba ba BA BA BA BA BA"

I'll take what I can get.

Pet Peeves

Please take no offense to this post... these are just things that drive me crazy and I thought that I might post about something other than my daughter.

1. Spelling errors

I just passed by a banner outside a building on Trimmier Road in Killeen. It advertises weight loss with "no excercise"... seriously? Someone had to place the order for that banner AND someone else had to print it and neither of them caught it... really? My mom says that I've always been like this. I remember how names are spelled after seeing them just once, even if they have an unusual spelling. I never had to study for spelling tests and I don't think I've ever used spell check. Now, don't worry... I don't scrutinize emails, blogs, etc for errors... I just tend to notice them. I don't remember if you are supposed to underline or italicize book titles, so I may even be committing a grammatical error with the next sentence. I stopped reading the book Babywise II because it had so many spelling/grammatical errors in it. I really want to write a letter to the editor of that book and offer to edit it for them for some $$$ :)

2. Weeks/months calculation errors

This is a weird one and I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it does. Maybe it is the math teacher in me? Pregnancy and early babyhood are both counted in weeks, so this has been a big pet peeve in the last year and a half. It drives me crazy when people only count 4 weeks in a month. Not all months are created equal. February isn't quite as cool as January because J has 3 extra days and also happens to be mine and Elise's birth month :) What about the 2-3 little days on the end that get left out? Not a big deal at one month, but they add up when you talk about multiple months. For example...there are 12 months in a year. Let us do a little math:

12 months = 52 weeks, so
6 months = 26 weeks and
3 months = 13 weeks

If you are 24 weeks pregnant, you are about 5.5 months pregnant, not 6 months pregnant.

Pregnancy is 40 weeks long. This is not equal to nine months or ten months (I have heard this a lot!), but if you deliver on your due date, you have been pregnant for 9 months and 1 week because...

9 months = 6 months + 3 months
9 months = 26 weeks + 13 weeks
9 months = 39 weeks

So, you are not nine months pregnant until you are one week shy of your due date. It seems like a lot of people complain about being 9 months pregnant for a month or so before the baby is born (I assume because 9x4=36). Yes, it is true that you are in your 9th month of pregnancy starting at almost 35 weeks, but you are not 9 months pregnant until you've reached the end of the 9th month. Similarly, I am in my 28th year of life, but you better believe that I'm not 28 years old until I've reached the end of it. Elise is in her 9th month of life, but she won't be 9 months old for several more weeks.

Again, please don't take offense to this post... but do make a comment and share your pet peeves :)

It won't be long...

...until she'll be all-out crawling. She gets faster and faster at creeping every day. Her favorite things to "chase" are phones, remotes, and mommy. She tried to scoot out of the pack-n-play to me today (with no luck, but she got picked up!). I seriously need to babyproof the house!

A big afternoon

Well, it has been a big afternoon at the Powell house! We got back from church (Elise refuses to nap in the nursery) and I put her down for a nap. After she woke up, she did the following:

-practiced her scooting
-practiced getting up on all fours (when she lunges forward, she still falls into the ground)
-signed "more" several times during lunch
-waved back and forth with me
-took 5 shaky steps holding onto the coffee table (I put a toy at the opposite corner where she was standing)
-turned from holding on to the coffee table to holding on to me and back several times (she was standing, I was sitting behind her)

She is growing up way too fast!

I like to move it move it

Here's a quick glimpse at what Elise has been working on this week. I'm not sure if she'll be army crawling or regular crawling first, but she's definitely got the swimming thing down pat.

She also has much more control over her babbling... her voice is a little softer and slower. I'm not sure if that makes sense. Anyway, she's been combining different consonants. Today she told me "ma be ge dada ba"... whatever that means :)

Happy 8 Months!

We went to the doctor today so that she could get part 1 of her 6 month vaccines. We will skip the 9 month appointment and go back at 10 months for the second part of the vaccines. She weighs 20 lbs 3 oz and measured just over 28 inches. She's still in the 90th percentile for length but dropped to the 85th percentile for weight. Between 0 and 2 months, she gained about 3 1/2 lbs (from her 2-day old weight), between 2 and 4 months she gained about 3 1/2 lbs, between 4 and 6 months she gained about 3 1/2 lbs, but between 6 and 8 months, she gained 1 1/2 lbs. I wasn't surprised at all... the growth is supposed to slow down after 6 months. Thank goodness! She pooped (a really disgusting poop, but my cloth diaper miraculously held it all in) while they were measuring her head so I don't remember the head measurement. The doctor says if she continues on the same height curve that she will be around 5'10'' as an adult. He can better predict that at age 2... we were just having fun. Maybe I have a future volleyball player on my hands! She also waved bye-bye to the doctor today.

The doctor thinks she is having some stomach issues stemming from the vomiting incidents last month. She's not been crazy about solids ever since then and the last 3 nights, she's woken up around midnight screaming hysterically. Nothing will calm her down... she isn't hungry, doesn't want a teether, doesn't want to be rocked or walked around the house... nothing. I just have to wait for the tylenol to kick in and she's good for the rest of the night. She doesn't have a fever or an ear infection. He thinks there may still be some bacteria in her stomach that is causing all of this, so he advised me to give her just yogurt and cereal for a few weeks and see how that goes.

Elise has also decided that she is too big for a bottle. I try to give her one every now and then to make the pumping worthwhile. Tonight was the night. She did some crazy crunches trying to sit herself up while drinking from the bottle, so I decided to pour the milk into her straw cup and see what happened. It took her about 30 seconds to shift gears from bottle to straw, but then she happily sat in my lap and gulped down the rest of her milk from the cup. What a big girl!

My Beco baby carrier should be arriving tomorrow... I am so excited! I broke out the Baby Bjorn yesterday and it turns out that I can't snap the top part over her shoulders anymore. She's getting so big!

Finally, here are the fun facts for the month. I'll be impressed if you make it through the whole thing, unless you are Mike :) I made lots of extra notes for him. I love you, honey!

At 8 months, Elise…

-Will turn around while sitting or on tummy to get to me or a toy, will reach for me when she wants to be picked up

-Will do the splits and chew on her toes (my best picture is blurry, argh!)

-Will get on all fours by herself from her belly

-Will drink out of a straw cup (she figured this out on her own in about a minute... I was so impressed!)

-Will get frustrated if she can’t figure out how to scoot herself forward to get a toy, previously, she didn’t really care, she’d just roll over and find something else to do

-Loves to make the “ieeeeeeeee” sound

-Says mama, dada, baba, lala, oioi, guyguy, bubba, gigi and experiments with the p and k sounds

-Will get into a crawling position from sitting, but then sit right back down... chicken!

-Gets almost all finger foods in her mouth on the first try

-Prefers nursing to solid food

-Wears 12-18 month clothes from babyGap/Old Navy (except she can still wear her 6-12 month dresses)

-Will play independently either sitting with toys or rolling around the floor... here is her new way to play with the activity gym...

-Objects when you leave her sight or when you take something away that she really wants (camera, cell phone, keys, sunglasses, etc)

-Loves boss... he always gets a smile or giggle

-Has an excellent pincer grip... yesterday she knocked a puff off of her tray and was able to pick it up from her lap and eat it

-Examines toys very carefully and doesn't immediately stuff them in her mouth

-Doesn’t spit up anymore

-Knows that objects are still there if you turn her around so she isn't facing them... she'll turn herself back around and look for them (the remote, camera, and cell phone are her favorite prohibited items)

-Goes into 'sleep mode' whenever she gets in her crib at naptime or bedtime... it is wonderful!

-Decided that there is too much going on to take naps in the church nursery... this will make our Sundays very interesting.

-Will sometimes wave bye-bye or hi... we practice a lot :)

-Sticks her tongue out and plays with her teeth

-Still loves to stand up... now she thinks she is a big girl and only holds on with one hand at a time...

My bet is that her first word will be some variation of 'puppy'. She LOVES her Bossman, and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual. The orange toy she is playing with is actually his... he brought it to her to play fetch.

And finally, here are some pictures of her with Mike's sister Jennifer, his brother Ben, and Ben's girlfriend Kara.

I'm not quite sure how to explain these pictures. Elise is wearing an outfit that Mike wore at almost 2 years old. Mike and Ben have always given their mom a hard time about these green velvet jumpers, so Ben decided to make Mike a proud father of his green-suited little girl. Elise is obviously happy to be wearing this outfit.

Happy 8 months, sweetheart! Mommy and Daddy love you!