Beebop-a-Lula

I started Rosie on cereal last week. I thought she’d be psyched to be eating “real” food, but if being psyched means clamping her mouth shut and flailing her arms around to knock the spoon out of my hand, then she LOVES it!

Since Lulu was deemed underweight by her doctor at her 1 yr. check up, we had to go back for a weight check today.

Today:
weight: 20 lbs. 12 ozs.
height: 33″

That’s an increase of about 2 lbs. and 2 inches. So, she’s doing great!

It’s been a while since the last update so there’s a bunch of Lulu news to catch up on.

Lulu has grown unbelievably fast recently. She is currently wearing a size 18 months in clothes (pants especially because she is so tall). We’re still working on her pickiness with eating, but in the meantime I’m still supplementing her meals with mushy food.

She almost has all four of her molars grown in (the top two are still lagging behind a little) and I’ve noticed over the past week that she’s got four more teeth toward the front coming in. She has learned where everyone’s eyes, nose & mouth are (we’re working on ears). She likes the nose especially because it goes *honk honk* when she squeezes it. She even knows where her bellybutton is.

We think she’s been going through a crazy growth spurt because she has been sleeping so much lately. She goes to bed around 7:30-8pm and gets up somewhere in the 9-10:30am range (yes, yes…I know I am *extremely* lucky to have a baby that likes to sleep!) and then takes a long nap (1 1/2-2hr) during the day.

Her vocabulary has tripled recently. Before she could only say “hi”. Now she has added “light” (yiiiight), “hi da da” “cracker” and “noooo.”  She also waves to everyone (and anyone) that will potentially pay attention to her. I think half of Salem and the visiting tourists have said hello to her in their travels. She waves to us from her crib in the morning and I even caught her waving to the television this morning.

Even though I don’t have the best singing voice in the world, I sing to Lulu all of the time. The repetition of songs is paying off because we hear her humming “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to herself. And the amazing thing is that her pitch is perfect. She absolutely loves music and dances whenever she hears a song she likes. I’m thinking of enrolling her in a toddler singing/music class this fall just for fun.

She’s also making big strides with walking! We’ve been practicing a lot and her balance is getting better everyday. She even took 5-6 steps on her own yesterday, so it won’t be long now before she’s tottering around (a blessing and a curse!). The other day, out of the blue, it occurred to her to climb the stairs. I thought she might climb up to the first landing and sort of get overwhelmed with the whole idea of it. But she climbed the entire flight like a pro without any hesitation. Needless to say, we promptly put up a gate at the bottom of the stairs. Unfortunately the downside of the gate is that Spooky doesn’t understand that he’s a cat and can’t figure out how to jump over the gate…sigh…

Her mischievous side is beginning to emerge as well. She loves to go after Spooky whenever he’s around. She only chases him if he actually bolts, it becomes a game. Most of the time he’ll sit there and tolerate grubby baby hands on him until she loses interest and moves on to the next thing.

Over all she is just so much fun. I really hope her good nature sticks around when her sibling shows up (2 months from now!). I know there will be a lot some adjustment for all of us, but especially for her having to share the attention.

weight: 18.75 lbs.
height: 30 3/4″

We went for Lulu’s one year check up the other day. Since her last appointment she grew an inch and a half taller but gained less than a pound. Part of this I attribute to the fact that she has all four molars coming in all at once and hasn’t felt like eating much over the past few weeks.

On top of that, we made the switch to whole milk on her birthday, and let’s just say that it hasn’t really been kind to her tummy. The doctor suggested switching her to soy milk for a while to let her stomach settle down and then slowly introducing whole milk into her diet.

She’s becoming a bit of a finicky eater. She definitely knows what she likes and what she doesn’t like. Corn is in, but carrots, green beans and broccoli are out (I have to sneak veggies in other ways). She seems to be allergic to bananas and she *hearts* cheese! A LOT. I will just have to be more vigilant in putting different foods in front of her until we find things that she likes and make sure she snacks more frequently during the day. We have to go back for a weight check in a few months.

As of the week before her birthday: NO MORE BOTTLES!  She seemed a little resentful of the sippy cup for the first few days, but that didn’t last too long. I miss the quiet time we spent in the mornings while she had her bottle, but those moments don’t last forever.

She’s doing really great pulling herself up to standing and “cruises” around all of the furniture. She loves when we hold her hands so she can walk, although she does look like she’s goose stepping. Her balance is getting much better. She frequently stands on her own until she realizes that she’s doing it, and then she wobbles and falls over.

Most of the time she is still sleeping great, although lately she is waking up in the middle of the night (must be the teeth and tummy issues). She typically goes to bed around 7:30-8pm and gets up around 7:30-8 the next morning (sometimes even 9-9:30! We love those mornings…). On the flip side, she is down to one nap a day, which means less “free” time for me. Still thinking of putting her in daycare for 1-2 days a week so that some of my time can free up and so that she can be around more kids her age.

While we keep trying to encourage her to learn how to say new words, “hi” is still dominating. I really thought this morning I got her to say “mumma”, but she could have just been making mumumumumum sounds. We try “daddy” “spooky” and “I love you” and I do think she’s really trying to form the words but just can’t get them out.

Everyone tells you in the beginning how fast they change and this first year it’s been amazing to see all of the changes she’s gone through in one little year!

Lulu’s birthday was just over a week ago. At first we were thinking of spending a quiet day together, just the three of us. But as the day got closer, everyone in the family expressed excitement about seeing her that day so we ended up having a party at our house. Even though we kept it just to family, our family alone is quite a lot of people.

She had a great time seeing everyone and I think her favorite part was when everyone sang “happy birthday” to her!

She was not about keeping her birthday hat on and luckily we got plenty of pics with her while it was still on her head. Everyone, as always, was very generous with all of the wonderful gifts! Thanks to everyone for coming up and spending the day with us.

See all of the photos here!

I plan on writing a large post about Lulu’s birthday, progress and her recent Dr.’s appointment. There are many photos to go through and lots of things to write (and these things take time). So here’s a little tease until I get it together.

Happy 1st Birthday, Lulu!

The countdown is ON for Lulu’s first birthday! Everyone told us how fast time would fly and sure we were aware of it, but man…it DOES fly by! At every little milestone I would relish in that stage, wishing that she could just stay my tiny little baby and not grow any more. And yet, when she did something new and got a little bit bigger, she would get more and more fun and I know that’s how it will always be.

And while she’s doing so many amazing things lately, the one milestone we’ve been waiting for has finally occurred: CRAWLING!

Since we had an absurdly hot day in April, we headed for the beach! A friend of mine was going to Good Harbor beach in Gloucester, so when Lulu got up from her nap we packed up and headed out. I thought that today would be a good test to see if she actually liked the beach, since I am planning on spending many summer days there.

She loved it! She loved the wind coming off of the water, the sand (it was delicious) and I even dipped her little toes in the water. The water was still very cold and the first few little waves that came by she actually pulled her feet up so they wouldn’t get wet. But when she got used to it she was jumping up and down and squealing.

I see many, many beach days in our future!

weight: 18 lbs.
height: 29 1/4″

Today was Lulu’s 9 month check up. She has gained 2 1/2 pounds since her last visit, which puts her in the 31st percentile for weight and she has grown 2 1/4 inches, putting her in the 93rd percentile for height. She most certainly takes after her father, since her mother was a short and chubby baby.

Overall, she is a happy and healthy baby, which we already knew. And today, we got to cross a few more food items off of the “forbidden” list as well. The list is getting shorter and shorter.

Over the weekend one of her top teeth finally broke through. She typically has been handling the teething thing pretty well, but on Saturday she was overtired and her teeth must have been hurting her because she cried unconsolably for 45 minutes that morning until the Tylenol kicked in. The she slept for a few hours. It kind of screwed the day for us, but such is life. We more than made up for it yesterday.

Yesterday was the perfect day just to be outside. We went out to lunch at a local restaurant that has outdoor seating and enjoyed the afternoon. Lulu really must have liked being outside and warm. She sat in her little stroller for a really long time, playing with toys and eating Goldfish. We ate with little interruption and she got fidgety after the plates were cleared. Just all all-around great day.

Now that Lulu is used to eating three squares a day, we’ve been cautiously adding more food to her repertoire. But every meal requires the presence of either Cheerios or Ritz crackers.

She especially loves grabbing a cracker in her fat little hand and taking a giant bite so that it basically explodes into little pieces. Then she holds a piece in each hand and happily nibbles away on them while I strategically try to spoon real food in her mouth before she can take another crumb-filled bite.

I’ve been trying to expose her to different finger foods; sliced carrots or canned green beans, diced peaches or pears, bananas, peas, bread, cottage cheese. I tried broccoli but that was a BIG no-go.

But no matter what bits of food are on her try she will always pick through to find the preferred bits of cracker. She doesn’t seem to like trying to pick up anything slippery or slimy, so I guess the grittiness of anything bread-like is easier for her to pick up and eat.

She’s also mastered drinking out of her sippy cup. I usually only give her water but once a day I’ll give her some juice in her water. For obvious reasons she gulps the juice down like an alcoholic chugging a fifth of peppermint schnapps! Delicious!