The Months Fly By

Elizabeth with her bear at 9, 10, and 11 months!

I've also posted some videos (so you email readers will have to go the actual blog to see them) of her crazy crawl.  She started scooching on her belly in July.  She would drag her left leg behind her while doing most of the work on her right side.  Had she been a preemie, I'm sure she would have qualified for some PT to "strengthen" her left side! :)  You can also see her enthusiasm for her paci (named Rufus) in this video...

 She advanced to getting up off her belly in late August (after our week at the beach watching one baby walk and another crawl on all fours), but she still drags her left side behind her; she's just moved everything up a level.  So she bear crawls with her foot on the right side and uses her knee on the left.  If she is not right handed, we will be shocked.

She's also quite a climber and can already go up slides and up stairs (although she really resists trying to go down stairs any way except head first!).




In other news and notes, she got her first tooth at 10 months and 10 days.  It's still only a half a tooth really, so we have not been able to capture it on film (on memory stick?), but it's there and it's very cute!

She's also saying lots of Dadadadas.  We got Daaahg for Chloe, and Daddy gets an excited Dada! most mornings.  She will whisper her Ps sometimes and we get an occasional B.  She is also high fiv-ing when asked and throwing her arms up when we say "hooray!", and she will wave bye-bye, sometimes even before you're too far away to see her do it.

He Came Home! 2012 edition

Every year we celebrate Jake's coming home from the NICU - August 13.   This year, Jeff had to travel for work but I took the day off.  I decided Jake was old enough to pick (from a few options) what he wanted to do for his special day.  He chose going for a hike and seeing a movie - his first one in a theater.  Here's the day in pictures and video:

Umstead State Park (same place where we had Jake's first birthday party)

 

You may be wondering why I let him in the water with his clothes on...

 Me too. The shirt did not stay dry for long.

 Every good hike has snacks.

3-D glasses on, ready for Polar Bears!

 

 

Picked up sister and headed to the park.  For the record, he wanted his sister to join us for everything, but I decided that was too much work - an extra 16 pounds for the hike! - and probably not the best to take a 9-month old to a movie.  Maybe next year...

 

Welcome home sweet boy!! 87 days in the NICU and we could not dream of a better outcome...

66.67% There....

Elizabeth just hit 8 months old & she's doing great.  She's still as easy-going as ever--the only thing that's changing is her hair color.  She's lost a good amount of her original locks & the ones that have stayed now have long blonde roots (like the inverse of your average LA trophy wife).  It's wild to look back over pictures where her hair was so much darker--& fuller, the new blonde stuff is both short & sparse.

After some initial trepidation with the solid foods she's getting better at munching them--though unlike her brother's initial preference for soft foods like avocados she's all about the crunchy stuff.  She loves to eat puffs, pancakes, & Kristin's kale or collard baked chips.

However, her current favorite food is Mum-Mum's--though given that they are made in China Kristin's concession might not last long.  As it was the first time around, I'm looking forward to when she can eat chicken nuggets & french fries but it might be awhile because we haven't had any teeth yet.  It took seemingly forever for Jake to get his so she's following his footsteps there.

Speaking of footsteps we are almost/barely/not quite crawling.  Should happen any day now though she's making do because her shimmying & rolling skills are world-class.....

The Big 0 - 4

The little Cubby is not-so-slowly turning into a big kid & on May 19 his odometer flipped 4 years old.  We held his party outside at the picnic shelter at Laurel Hills Park.  With rain in the forecast we were once again anxiously watching the weather until the last minute but it turned out great.  We had plenty of family, friends, & even classmates come out & enjoy the day.

Beverages, pizza, snacks, & cake all courtesy of Costco, (of course).

Elizabeth hanging out with her soul sister Evelyn.

 

Hanging around with cousin Lily.  She & Jake share the same birthday & she turned 5.

Bernard the bear's size advantage is in trouble.....

5, 6, 7 Months!

At her six month check up, Elizabeth was 30th percentile for weight and 50th for length.  Her head was 80th, so she's in good company with her brother.

First solids...not sure

Um, ok, Dad

Ok, brother!

Really?

I'm almost always happy!

6 months -not so in to sitting still

Don't worry - we haven't forgotten that Jake turned 4!!!! Next blog post...

Four Months and early Easter Pics

Elizabeth had a great visit to her pediatrician for her four-month check up. Well, I thought it went well overall; she did not appreciate the shots! She was 14 pounds, 1 ounce (50th percentile), 25.125 inches (75th percentile), and her head, much like her brother's (without all the hydrocephalus worry), is big and in the 80th percentile.

Pop-Pop and Gamma Jan came this past weekend, and we had a lot of fun with an early Easter egg hunt, good meals, and lots of snuggles for baby E.

Some Pictures

Elizabeth turned four months last week, I went back to work a month ago, and it's hard to know where the time is going. In the interest of getting something on the blog before it all leaves my head, here are some quick milestone and recent photos and videos:

Elizabeth's milestones to date:
6 weeks - smiled purposefully (lots of sleep smiles before that)
8 weeks - laughed
11 weeks - rolled over tummy to back (repeated 4 times in a row and only sporadically since then; getting close to back to tummy - if only that darn head didn't weigh her down! :))
4 months - finds her feet - what fun!

A little bit of snow in Raleigh; I think this is it for Winter 2011-12

Our big guy loves his bike!

3 Months Old!

Go devils!! (until next year...)

Feet!

Bear Photos

Here are our cuties with their bears. We'll photograph Elizabeth each month for the first year and every 6 months thereafter, like Jake. As you can see, Elizabeth's bear is quite a bit bigger than Jake's. That seems only fair - given the 7 pound head start she had on him in life. :) Here's to growing!!

Three and a half years old!

One Month!

Two Months!

I've read a fair amount about parents worried about comparing their kids. I think it's inevitable and unavoidable, and I think it's fine - as long as you aren't trying to make one out to be "better" or "worse" than the other. For us, the size comparisons are, not surprisingly, the ones that come up most. And then we also compare how "easy" it is to have a full-term infant vs. a preemie. (Not that I'm saying full-term infants are easy!) I used to think that having a full-term infant first would have made the preemie experience a lot easier. I now fully believe that the opposite is true. With Jake, Jeff and I only had a vague notion of what "normal" was; we didn't really know what all was different. Now that we've had a full-term baby, we fully understand how coming home on six different medicines (all on their own schedules), needing to feed every 3 hours and then be held up for 15 minutes for reflux, going to multiple doctor's appointments in one month, and all the other things we did with Jake were different. And we realize all over again how hard they were and that we all made it through and are so grateful to be where we are now.

Finally, a little headshot of Elizabeth after a bath. She's normally very smiley, but I was mostly trying to capture the hair - it's so curly when it's wet!