Every day is a collection of moments. Each week, each month and each year they become our memories.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Easy Peasy Smartie Pants.


My incredibly easy baby is actually getting easier.  Is that possible?
This weekend she started to sign “more” to me; which I love, obviously.   She doesn’t necessarily do it when she wants more of something, but she does it when she wants something.   And she is so sweet and deliberate with it that I melt every time.   I’ll ask if she wants to eat and she signs it.   I ask if she wants a bath and she signs it.    And yesterday she walked half way across the room to me and after our little mini celebration she signed it to me and I got out of the way so she could keep walking. 
She continues to sign “all done” to me – completely appropriately.   I love how it takes the guess work out of stuff.   Has she had enough to eat?  Yes.   Is she done playing in the office?  She is.  Was that long enough in the tub?  Oh..  yes .  She says it was.   But guess what?  She isn’t using the normal sign.  She made up her own.  My little process improver throws her hands in the air like she is on a roller coaster when she is done.  It’s clearer.  More obvious.   And she isn’t turning back. 
Her pointing is in overdrive but there is no question what she is interested in.   This includes the neighborhood.   She stands in the bay window on her tippy toes and points at everything that happens across the street.  And if you’ve ever heard me talk about the shenanigans at the house across the street you’d know that was a lot. 
Her one and only word continues to be HI.   For 3 solid months now we’ve been greeted and re-greeted and greeted again throughout every single day. She has a million variations of it.  Sometimes she barks it like a dog with a huge smile on her face  (HI HI HI HI HI HI).    I love it.  I hope it never ends.
Tonight during her bath I decided we should start grouping the foam animals by color.  I put up two green animals and asked her if there was another green one in the water.  She looked around and pulled the last green one out of the water.   Huh.  So I put up two red ones and asked her if she could find the other red one.  Again, she looked around and she offered the red one to me!!   I was so proud and so excited!   She didn’t do again to the other colors but I didn’t care  I was just so stinking impressed.  
I think its easy to forget that even though she is little she is insatiably curious and soaking in information at warp speed.   Ever since Mr Swanson asked Tessie where her shoes were that day and immediately pointed to them I have been trying to ask her more questions so she could demonstrate to me what she knows.  Its amazing to me how much babies learn in such a short period of time.  As a parent it would be so easy to brag about how smart she is.  I know she is smart and I am sure she is normal smart. I am not a parent who is going to brag about her being anything more special than every other child every born.  I am going to be openly crazy head over heels in love with the miracle that she is.    And I am quite certain that for the rest of her life I will be in awe of her.
Before I go….
When I left the living room she was channel surfing with the remote.  When I came back she was clapping.   She had landed on “so you think you can dance” and was amused.   Love.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Oh yeah. I can do that.

 

I could start every post as follows:   “I am completely overwhelmed and completely overjoyed in every moment of every day.”    So now that its out there I won’t.

Tessie is the most fun person on the planet.   She is  incredibly curious and continually showing us what she is learning.   And our gift is that we are here to witness it all.     I had 3 full days this week without her so was able to buckle down and got some serious work done.   Enough that I feel that I am managing the work again instead of the other way around.   This gives me freedom to just be the Mom while she is awake.    

This week she is coming closer and closer to walking.   I put shorts on her the other day; which she hated.   So it forced her to stay on her feet as much as possible practicing walking around stuff.  She will let go for a second as she steps between things.   She can stand on her own for a long time.  She can go from squatting to standing to squatting again.  It is like she is putting herself through the paces.  I watched her let go the other day and start doing the twist from one side to the other while standing.. just practicing her balance.  She has taken one step to me repeatedly but has only taken more than one a few times.

sunshine2walking around

Meals out with friends has come to an abrupt halt.   She is just too much of a hooligan.  She does not want to be contained. Wednesday night we met Gail out at a patio and luckily it wasn’t crowded because we just let the baby loose to explore the corner we were in.   She wouldn’t eat a thing and came home covered in dirt.   I should also mention that the manager was obsessed with her.  He stopped by our table at least three times  and never asked about us or our meal, he just wanted to get closer to Tessie.   I think he maybe asked once if he could get HER something to drink.   It was nice to know she was welcome. 

sams grill

We bought her a bunch of those crazy foam animals to play with in the tub.  The first night she stared.  The next few nights she ignored them.   I would put them on the side of the tub and she would frantically hit at them until they were off.   Then Steve gives her a bath and she decided to show off.   She decorated the tub with the animals then practiced stacking them up when she was  done.  He hasn’t been home for bath time lately so it seems she  was anxious to show him what she could do. 

She is an aggressive greeter.  When she decides to talk to you she will say HI to you every few seconds.   Just ask the lady browsing in the same aisle as us at Home Goods.  I think we were in the store 15 minutes and she said HI to people 700 times.   Right up until the cashier said HI to her and then she acted all aloof.  It has to be her idea to talk to you. 

Last but not least…  she had her first McDonalds Cheeseburger this week.  It is a right of passage in a way, but it feels so wrong.  She picked off the bun and ate only that.   I guess she will be fine. 

cheeseburger

That’s all for this week.  

Ciao!

Saturday, May 18, 2013

I’m tired. Good night. Get out.

 

After a very short bath tonight she raised her hands over her head asking to get out. I put her to bed and she rolled away from me, then turned back and waved at me briefly and then closed her eyes.   I got that message loud and clear. 

Saturday, May 11, 2013

12 Month Tessie

We have always been fortunate to have family around willing and able to watch Tessie as we work, go to  home shows, county fairs, or even go on the occasional date.   To help the “caregiver of the hour” I’ve always had a Tessie sheet with her schedule, food ideas, habits, etc.    I sort of called it “Tessie for Dummies” in my head because while Tessie has always been the easiest baby ever she does have a routine and if you know what that is, you will think she is the easiest baby too.    I’ll never forget when one of my sisters watched her for the first time and said “it works!”.    It was a proud mama moment.

I’m not sure how many versions of that sheet   I have floating around.   I do know that this past January I had to change it weekly.   We had a home show that spanned two weekends.   The first weekend I wrote “she can crawl if she wants but she doesn’t know she can move between rooms yet”.   The second weekend I crossed  that out and wrote “she will hunt you down if you leave her.”  And she would.

Now that she is 12 months she is at a more reasonable routine.   It is sort of insane how with an infant you obsess about the clock  and what's happening and what she needs next… and then slowly they morph into the 3 meals a day, morning and afternoon nap, bedtime at 8, up at 7 schedule.    I like it.

Of course now that she is 12 months she can also do a lot of other things, therefore making working with her awake nearly impossible.   It has become a necessity to increase daycare to 2 full days a week – and so starting this week Tessie is hanging with “Auntie Grandma”  my aunt CK.   CK has never spent time alone with Tessie so I find myself once again needing to update the “Tessie sheet.”    Although as I mentioned her schedule is pretty easy now so its really more of likes and dislikes and general baby observations.    So I figured I’d just post it here.   You’re welcome.


Tessie at 12 months

  • She will eat anything.   She loves pancakes and scrambled eggs.   She loves ham.   She will freak with excitement if you give her avocado.   Banana Bread on the counter means she waves at it each time we walk by it.   YUM.  Ravioli is delicious.   Pumpernickel over wheat.   All fruits and  veggies are delicious.   Yes, of course she loves sweets because she is ours. We try and stick to ginger snaps and vanilla wafers but sweets happen.  We’re okay with that.
  • She is less excited about cheese.   She is not yet convinced that cows milk is good.
  • She loves her books.   She doesn’t always want to sit still for you to read a story to her, but she likes the books around so she can look at them on her own.   She always has a few books in her crib with her.
  • She is an expert un-loader.   Don’t turn your back for a second as nothing is off limits for her.   Kitchen cabinets, the dishwasher if left open, any bin full of anything, any and every drawer, any basket of clothing, any bag with something in it.   This girl has a 6th sense for things in her reach that could be unloaded.   She is a mini –tornado leaving a path of destruction.    When we go places where I know she can get down and roam I pack bags within bags of stuff just so she can take it all out.
  • She throws things when she is done.    She throws food off her tray, she throws her water glass, she throws her nuk and bunny and books out of the crib when she wakes up, and she has even started throwing toys out of the tub when she is finished. 
  • She understands the signs for eat, more, please, thank you and all done.   She can do the sign for all done but chooses not to.   Instead she reaches her hands over her head as if to say “pick me up.  I’m done with this”
  • She has a few words.   HI, of course, is her staple.   For about 2 months now she she has said it several hundred times a day.    She will also say “YAY!”  while clapping when she sees something fun  (even if its something she sees on TV), she has said “YAH” as an answer, will “NUM NUM” when you’re cooking (or when you walk into a chocolate store with her)  and she has recently started with “DA-EEY”   I dare say she said her first sentence yesterday when she said “HI DA-EEY”.   That counts, right?
  • She loves music.   Loves it.   She will dance if she likes it.  It can be kids music, it can be American Idol or it can be Led Zepplin.  It doesn’t matter.  If she likes it she will dance.
  • She does have some favorite kids songs..  such as…  Itsy Bitsy Spider, If you’re happy and you know it,  You are my sunshine, old McDonald, and wheels on the bus come to mind.   In a pinch (like a long car ride, a especially squirmy diaper change, or if you’re just trying to keep her occupied) sing these songs to her and she will clap and say “YAH” for your efforts.   My singing has never been cheered until her.
  • Aside from outlet covers we haven't really baby proofed anything.   She knows what NO means and she will respond.
  • She is very curious.   She will stare and study each new person and each new situation before reacting.    I see this most at the grocery store.  She’ll stare someone down in aisle one and when we pass them in aisle 3 she smiles and says HI!   She sat stone faced on her first ride at Nik Universe and then frantically waved at it five minutes later.
  • guard your remotes and your phones.
  • She has a pretty long attention span.  She will play on her own for quite a long time. 
  • She loves to push things around.   They can be an actual toy, a garbage can, a chair, etc, etc.   Her new outside toys are the most fun ever. (Thanks to Gail and Karen for the fun hand me downs!)

That’s our girl.   In a nutshell.   So much fun every day!

Ciao!