10 Months

Dear Annie,

You've made it to the double digits! And you really are getting to be SO BIG, as we repeatedly tell you. This was a month of big changes for you, mostly in the personality area. You are so much more responsive now, and seem to be trying to communicate more and more. We love to hear your babbles, and they are sounding more and more like words - I can't wait to hear all that you have to say!

This month you have definitely started exploring more - you like to follow us into the kitchen and travel around, but you still aren't getting into too much trouble, which we are thankful for. You learned to pull yourself to a standing position earlier this month, and are now walking tentatively around furniture. It is so funny to me to see a little hand reach up over the coffee table and then your head pops up!

You love playing little games with us - clicking our lips to make a noise, playing peek-a-boo, and patty cake (pat a cake?). It is really so fun to have a little back and forth with you now! Although we can't quite understand your language yet, you will "talk" to us by babbling, and wait for us to respond, and then make another noise when we stop.

Your menu of food choices has expanded this month - you are now nursing or taking a bottle 4 times a day, and you eat 3 meals and a snack. You've been eating a lot more of what we eat, which you seem to prefer to plain veggies or cereal. You really liked spaghetti and LOVED both of your Thanksgiving meals, especially the turkey. I have also tricked you into liking avocado again, by giving it to you as a finger food instead of in puree form. Ha! There isn't too much you outright refuse, but you have your favorites and have learned to just eat those first. At daycare today you ate all of your yogurt melts, and when Sue told you to finish your puffs before you got more yogurt, you apparently just put all the puffs on your lap to hide them. Sneaky girl!

Sleeping has still been good at night - you go to bed at 7, and wake anywhere between 6 and 7:30. We prefer 7:30, just so you know. You are now down to one nap a day, from 12:30-2:30, at daycare, and are getting to that schedule at home too. You don't seem to get too upset if we put you in your crib and you aren't tired though - you can entertain yourself plenty well just by taking your socks off, standing up, sitting back down and repeating.

We frequently get comments on what a content baby you are, and it's true - you usually are quite happy. The only times you aren't are when we are trying to contain you in some way, either by changing your diaper or putting you in the carseat, and you get over it quickly. You also are learning your balance and sometimes fall or bump your head when playing, especially since you can't seem to remember not to sit up under the coffee table. This does NOT make you happy, but your dad and I both can't help but be a little pleased that you want a cuddle after those tumbles!

Tonight you fell asleep nursing at bedtime, which I love. I love feeling your warm little body calm and content on me, and hearing your little snores. I will most definitely miss nursing when we are done, so I'm trying to enjoy these last few months as much as I can.

We love you, Annie!

Love, Mom

43 Weeks

This has been quite a week over here! I feel like Annie is a completely different baby than she was a week ago, she's seeming more and more like a toddler with each passing day. She's definitely in one of those spurts of development right now, it seems - I was just reading again about Wonder Weeks, and it seems there is one typically between 42-46 weeks, so that might be what's going on with her lately! Also, she looks kind of angry in the photo, but she's happy - that's a new face she makes when she's excited - love the scrunched up look :)

So anyway, just yesterday, I was nursing Annie before bed and she was pretty cranky, probably because she took one 45 minute nap all day - Ben was on his way out and he said bye to me - Annie looked up at him, waved, and I SWEAR, she said "bye dad". Yes, I knowww she probably didn't "mean" it - but we both were just kind of silently staring at this creature, like..... um, what? You can actually..... understand what we're saying? Crap. Then she waved a few more times when we said bye. She's certainly not consistent about it or anything, but she did it again several times today, except of course when I tried to video her - then she just stared at me motionless while I said "bye bye" 100 times like a moron. I did catch her mid wave in our photo session this morning though.

Annie will also now take steps when standing at the furniture - they are VERY tentative and shaky, but she can get from one side of the table to the other. I'm kind of surprised by how well she's picked up pulling up since everything else was kind of slow going.

THEN, earlier today, I said "How big is Annie??" to her, and she fricking held her arms above her head! Once again, I was just kind of shocked. So I said it again, and she did it again. She started out with just lifting one arm, but then by the end of the night was lifting both arms. Again, very inconsistent, but she'll do it. As you know, I think this "game" is dumb still, but.... it is pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Annie also has been banging things together more, and putting her cups inside things instead of just throwing them around

I was starting to get worried before last week that Annie wasn't interacting with us much, but it was like a switch was flipped and she now realizes that we are actually talking TO her, and that she can do things to us and we react to her. It's pretty awesome. She still is loving clicking our lips too - so much so that when I'm nursing her, she's constantly trying to click my lips, the entire time, and sometimes will stop nursing and grab at my mouth until I make a noise.

We had an awesome Thanksgiving - I probably should make that it's own post, but who knows if that would happen. We celebrated with Ben's family on Thursday, and mine on Friday, and Annie did great both places - she got to enjoy 2 Thanksgiving dinners - we gave her pretty much everything we had, and she LOVED the turkey and stuffing. She even got a few bites of pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake as well, but seemed to like the turkey most. Since then, she hasn't been eating as well, maybe she's not a fan of plain veggies anymore after tasting the good stuff :)

First Thanksgiving dinner!

Annie also had her first pasta with tomato meat sauce.... it was a hit :)

Bathtime was a necessity after that meal

This has also been an interesting week for naps - probably since Annie has had so much going on in her little brain, she has just NOT wanted to nap in the morning. Thursday she took maybe 30 mins in the morning, Friday she played in her crib for 40 minutes and then we had to go so she got maybe 20 minutes in the car, Saturday she played in her crib for a full hour before Ben just gave up and took her out, and today we just didn't even try. So I guess Annie is now on one nap a day. She did fall asleep in the Ergo for about 15 minutes on a walk with Ben while I was visiting Grace and Sam in the NICU this morning (they are doing great, by the way! Hopefully they'll be home by Christmas!) which shows she probably isn't QUITE ready to give up that nap since she has NEVER fallen asleep in the Ergo before, but she then made it until 12:40 or so, and did sleep a little over 2 hours. She does that schedule at daycare, so I guess we'll do that at home now too.

She napped great at both grandparents houses! Probably because I put her in the darkest, coolest corner of the houses I could find :)

A little disoriented after her nap

Little Grace - she's in an open air crib and only has a feeding tube, no additional support! I got to hold her for the first time today

I was so happy I got to hold Sam as well - he's a lot smaller than Grace, so is still in his incubator with a bit of breathing support still

Breastfeeding has been a bit frustrating as well - Annie just wants to play, all the time. She never seems hungry, and I'm struggling a bit with when to nurse her if she's only doing one nap - today I did 7, 11, 3 and 7 which worked fine, but the 11 and 3 feedings are a bit of a struggle. She is so fricking strong now, she'll just basically arch back and twist right off my lap. I really wish I had a scale so I could see how much she's eating. I have pretty much been engorged all weekend - I was hoping that after 4 days of only nursing, my supply would regulate somewhat, but I guess I'll need to cut back even more on what I'm pumping. I have to say, while I do love nursing Annie, I won't miss the daytime sessions at all.

This child is a CHUNK.

That sums up the week! This was a heavily photographed week, obviously, so here are my favorite photos from the past 7 days!

Another beautiful snowfall called for another photo shoot

Playing with Mia's toys, again

Peacoats! DEFINITELY an essential.... :)

Grandpa distracting Annie during her lunch on Thanksgiving :)

Striking a pose at her 2nd Thanksgiving - she borrowed this pose AND outfit from Madeline.

Not sure that's where those go... but good effort, Grandpa :)

Ben laughed hysterically at this pic for probably 10 minutes

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I saw a few other blogs I read write a post on how much they love Shutterfly, and that they were doing a promotion where you can get 50 free holiday cards if you write a blog post about them... now, I normally am not one to do much for free stuff on the blog, but I actually DO love Shutterfly, legitimately. Also, I would purchase holiday cards from them anyway, as I do every single year, so I figured why not! Their Christmas card collection this year is awesome - I threw one together just as a test and it turned out great. They may have had this option before, but I didn't notice - I love how you can now get your cards printed on actual cardstock if you want - it just has such a nicer feel to it!

Let's gather round and take a gander at our holiday cards from years past, shall we?

First, we had 2004, when we used our holiday cards as our save the date for our wedding... since we had so many awesome engagement photos from Jennifer Cress, I did 3 designs.

Oh, Ben had so much hair back then :) We look like such kids! Well, we were only 22 then. Wow.

I can't find our card from 2005 - maybe we didn't have one since our wedding was in late September and I'm guessing that's around the time we finally got our thank you cards out so I must not have wanted to deal with Christmas cards too.....

Anyway, 2006 - I remember I almost didn't do a card at all, but at the last minute decided to throw one together using a photo taken from our trip out to visit Becca and Joe in San Diego. I'm pretty sure I made this in mid-December and it was still shipped and out the door before Christmas without even having to rush order - they are fast!

Moving on to 2007, I used 3 pictures - one from the cabin, one from Mexico, and one from NYC. I love being able to use more than one photo if I want - there are tons of options available!

In 2008, I again used 3 photos - one of our upstairs remodeling project (ugh), one from Chicago, and one from my last girls weekend trip to LA (seriously. It has been since 2008 since I've taken a girls trip. That needs to change, stat.)

I have also made SEVERAL photo books with Shutterfly, including the epic book from our trip to Europe in May 2009. I think in total, for myself and my mom, I've made 7, and it's pretty likely that I'll make a few more featuring Annie quite soon!

Finally, I was also lured into doing a birth announcement for Annie by checking out all the awesome options available at Shutterfly. I'm so glad I decided to spend the money on it, even if it wasn't NECESSARY, it's something I'll always love.

So, in summary, I love Shutterfly. If you have a blog, go forth and see if you qualify for this promotion as well! I may have to start checking out their birthday invitations for a certain first birthday that's coming up in this household soon...

Road rage

OK - I tried to type up my whole weekend but it was the longest post I have ever written and I couldn't even stand rereading it.

So, in summary, here was my weekend:

Friday night: Dinner at Wilde Roast Cafe and facials at Aveda Institute with my college roommates.

Saturday morning: Baby shower for my oldest friend Marianne.

Saturday night: Bachelorette party for my sister. It was a great time, until...

12am-2:30am: Stuck in a cab by myself on a 6 mile journey from downtown Minneapolis to St. Paul on 94 due to a huge ice storm -aka the worst 2 hours of my life. Thought I was going to die or be stuck there forever. Seriously. Oh yeah, and the cab ride was $70, so that was also awesome.

Sunday: Recovered from my traumatic night.

Sunday evening: Ventured out to visit Janelle, got a flat tire on 35W. After a few minutes of trying to change the tire on the freeway side with cars whizzing by, Ben called AAA. They came out in about 30 minutes and changed it for us - between that and locking Annie in the car back in March, it seems that was a good investment! Luckily Annie was kept entertained by playing peek-a-boo in the backseat.

I was really happy to make it to work on Monday without incident - hopefully that is the end of my bad luck on the roads!

42 Weeks

It's really starting to hit me now - there are only 10 weeks left until Annie's first birthday. As you all know by now, I'm certainly not one to lament the passage of time when it comes to Annie. I am LOVING each new stage and thing she learns, and I'm really excited for what's to come, but wow - only 10 weeks? That's less than my maternity leave. Although I suspect the next 10 weeks will pass by MUCH quicker than my maternity leave since she's actually fun to be around now :)

Annie has been pulling up a lot this week - she's really good at it now! There are a few times she kind of falls over, but nothing a quick cuddle won't cure. She really enjoys standing up in her crib it seems. Today she was just standing up, sitting back down, crawling around, taking off her socks, standing back up, etc for about 45 minutes.

I love this video so much.

When Annie stands up on the side of the crib with the monitor, the whole screen is filled with her face. The first day she did this, Ben RAN downstairs to show me as I was getting ready and she had sat back down by that point, but luckily she's done it pretty much every morning since. Creepy and hilarious.

Yeah, it's either shoes or barefoot for Annie now - no sock is safe on her feet

Naps have been interesting this week - Annie is apparently down to 1 nap a day at daycare. She had been taking a super short morning nap for awhile, like maybe 20 minutes, but for the past 2 weeks whenever Sue would try to put her down, she would just stand up and talk, then yell, then scream. Toward the end of the week Sue just let her stay up and she was fine til 12:30 when the toddlers take their nap, so that's what she'll do now! Annie can definitely stay up a lot longer now, it seems. Her naps are now at around 10:30 and 3, and as I said before, sometimes it takes her about 30 minutes to "wind down" in her crib before she'll actually sleep. I'm also nursing her before her naps instead of after, that seems to help her sleep a little better. I'm a little nervous to try her doing only 1 nap a day at home too, but we'll probably end up there within a month or so. She's never been a long napper, so I just don't have confidence that if I put her down at 12:30 she'd sleep for longer than an hour, and wouldn't be able to make it until bedtime at 7.

Just a cute bathtime video

Getting her hair dried

Annie is getting a little... willful, shall we say. She does NOT like to be held right now, she will forcefully push away and twist right out of our arms. When I pick her up at daycare, she gets good and pissed if we take her away from a toy without too much warning, and the whole time I'm talking to Sue, she is trying to get down from my arms to go back to playing. It does make me enjoy nursing even more, because it's the one time she will just calmly sit with me. I'm starting to get sad about weaning. I know I don't have to stop at exactly one, but I like deadlines and that seems to be an appropriate one for both of us. It's not like Annie is particularly attached to nursing, if I continued it'd pretty much be all for me.

Typing on dad's laptop

My attempt to keep Annie in the living room - she figured this one out pretty quick.

Starting to explore a little more - we need to step up our baby proofing

One really fun thing that has happened this week is that Annie is definitely starting to interact with us more! She'll play peek-a-boo now by actually holding something in front of her face or my face and taking it away, and there's a lot more back and forth with her "talking" and noises. Just this weekend she starting flicking her lip while making a noise to go "blub blub blub blub" (does that even make sense!? probably not) and she'll do that to herself, and then if I start to make a noise she'll flick my lip a few times too. It's pretty much the most adorable thing ever.

Sadly, Annie's healthy streak is over - she got a cold this week. She has had a slightly runny nose maybe twice before, but this is her first real cold with a super snotty nose requiring a change of the sheets every day and cute rosy cheeks. Poor Annie! It's SO SAD to hear a stuffed up baby try to nurse :( I felt so bad for her. Of course when we'd suck snot out she'd freak out as if we were torturing her (which, I suppose we kind of were) so we didn't do that as much as we probably could have. Luckily she's still slept ok - woke up a few times crying but would go back to sleep without nursing, and most of the crying happened before we went to bed thankfully. 9 months was a pretty good healthy run though, so we'll always be thankful for that!

This weekend was insanely busy, so I actually didn't really even get to see Annie as much as usual. I may write another post detailing the (mis)adventures of this weekend since it could get long here, but it was a bit sad to miss so much Annie time - I'm reallllllllllllllllllllllllllly glad it's a 3 day week this week! This has been the longest stretch of 5 day work weeks in a row since my maternity leave - 6. Yeah, I get a lot of vacation which is awesome. Those dang 5 day work weeks really can wear on a person!

Bundled up to go watch Scott brew beer with Ben

Ended the weekend with a visit with Janelle and others tonight!

41 Weeks

Oh my-lanta, it has been an exhausting weekend over here! First and foremost, in case you didn't check back to read the comments on my last post, thank you all so much for your very thoughtful comments - I loved reading them. The community that this blog has created for me is really amazing!

Annie's newest comfortable position

The new "toy basket" (picnic basket that we never use but is too nice to get rid of) is the perfect height for Annie to stand up on!

Annie had a pretty good week, it seems. She's been working more on pulling up, and today successfully stood up in her crib.... when she should have been napping... yay? :) Most of the time she just pulls to her knees though. Doesn't seem to be terribly motivated to stand up just yet! One night we were trying to entice her to stand with something and she seriously tried for about 15 minutes. It was excruciating to watch because it's so obvious - just push up with your legs! Duh! Everything with Annie so far has been such a slow process - it wasn't like she just figures things out in an instant and then does it - she just slooooowly gets better at it until she's doing things naturally, but with everything there wasn't really ONE day where she did something - it was over the course of a few weeks. Like she has pulled up on stairs, but does that count? Who knows :) I have just been picking a random day when I mark the calendar in her baby book. Oh, and Sue (daycare) said Annie has stood up quite a few times there.

I don't really have much else to report, so here are some photos from our busy weekend!

Started out the weekend with a pub crawl for Allison's 30th's birthday - Annie got to play with Vito and Madeline for a bit before we went out and left her with Aunt Liz.

2nd stop on our pub crawl! Barrio in St. Paul (Oops, Molly, I guess I DO put drinking pictures in my blog sometimes :)

Took Annie outside to see her first snowfall! (that she remembers at least) (Thanks to my sister-in-law Laura for this edit job!)

Baby shower for Jamie on Saturday

Photo Credit: Shannon

Annie and Mia at the final stop of our progressive brunch this morning - we included a new couple this time that just moved in next to Nate & Molly

This toy is basically like crack to Annie - she goes right for it, and kneels and plays and if you try to take her away, which we made the mistake of doing so she could eat lunch, WATCH OUT! Hell hath no fury like Annie taken away from this toy! So thus, we will not be getting anything like this, because we're mean like that :)

This evening, we had Thanksgiving dinner with my college roomies - I made a pumpkin pie so had some leftover pumpkin and gave her "baby pumpkin pie" - pumpkin, plain yogurt and some cinnamon and nutmeg - she devoured it!

Peyton, Adelaide and Rebekah

Oh, hi Nathan

Please note Rebekah's and my matching diaper bags in the background :)

A lot of food and fun... my stomach is still hurting :)