Busy Day

On Friday Katie came over for another session at 9:00 AM. Joel almost forgot again but I happen to wake up at 8:45 and asked him if he remembered, so he went and woke her and got her ready. She is pretty cranky when she first gets up especially if she is woken up. But he changed her and let her get settled before giving her a bottle, it was actually about 30 minutes into her session before she started getting hungry.

We had a lot of fun during the session. We played with the ball push toy again and she is starting to get the hang of it. We also played with the peg board, and with the connector tubes. Also Holly has not learned how to put donuts on the pole. I was so excited a few nights ago when I saw this. She does it with two hands and is very slow, intentional and full of concentration. Although tonight she did it several times and even did a star or two so she is getting better by the moment. This was great news. A few new things we are working on is stacking blocks which she tried to do but isn’t super steady at yet and also asking Holly to hand us something, “Can I have that Please” and see if she hands you the toy.

We were discussing her Oral Motor issues with tie into her eating issues, which By The Way she isn’t eating again, she is taking maybe 3-4 bites of her food and then refusing any more. I might be able to bribe another 3-4 bites with puffs when then she gets smart and decides the puffs aren’t worth it and won’t eat at all, but back to the discussion on her Oral Motor issues. Katie is a little concerned with her constant chewing, not so much that she mouths things so much but the veracity at which she does so, and is worried she might hurt herself. She takes her chewy tube and instead of chewing on it she will bite down on the edge and then tear it out of her mouth pulling hard.

Katie tried this thing where she put pressure on her jaw bone to see if that would be something she liked and fill the need of the biting, but she did not like it at all. So then we tried swinging therapy, which is a lot more like swaying. We let her lie down on a big quilt then picked up the corners and swing her side to side. She loved this. At first she got all excited and was kicking and squealing, but then after a few minutes it made her very calm. Katie says this activates the vestibular system in the same way that biting does, so in the future when she is fussy I will try it some more. We did it tonight and she liked it but it didn’t calm her as much as I hoped but it made her cheerful when she had been rather cranky.

She got mad at me tonight while she was placing donuts and stars on their holders. I got excited and clapped and told her what a great job she did, and the first 1-2 times she liked this and it made her smile, but then she got upset later when I did it after. Wait… Now I have to ask Katie about his, because I think it is a developmental milestone, where she gets “embarrassed” by being the center of attention. I have a “The Human Baby” show saved on Tivo and one of them is on emotions, so I have to watch it now and try to remember what they said about this behavior, what age it starts at and see if this fits. But she kept putting the donuts on but then if I reacted she got upset and cried at me. It was a very interesting thing to see her playing and crying at the same time.

So the other thing we did today was go to swim class which was so much fun. Holly is splashing and playing in the water and she loves it. I scheduled a meet-up there, I am a member of a mom’s meet-up group and 4 other mom’s attended who I had met previously so it was really fun to see them again. Then we saw Sarah and Isabel who I haven’t talked about for a while, but Sarah and her mom are from our Mother’s Group, which I never go to anymore, but we made friends with Sarah and Isobel and run into them all the time, we hadn’t seen them for a few weeks so it was fun to run into them again. Then finally we ran into Heidi and Kareem. These are our new friends from Studio Grow, the one who is exactly 1 day younger then Holly. I was so excited to see them. It was there first time at Swim Class and Kareem really had a lot of fun. I think next time I run into them at Studio Grow I will have to exchange Emails with Kareem’s mom.

After swim class we decided to go on a shopping spree. It didn’t end up that way, I was only going to by some Dreft and Baby oxiclean but it ended up being much much more. Firstly we got Holly a Holly sized chair. We are very excited about it. She thinks it is only useful for using as a tool for cruising and pulling herself up, but if I put her in it she sits. She isn’t very graceful getting down, she sometimes turns like she does for getting off the couch, but other times she sort of lounges forward which is ok if she catches herself but once she bumped her head. It was in slow motion so she didn’t even cry, but I will need to keep an eye on her.

Then they had this sale of getting one Fisher price toy for 19.99 get a second one of Equal or Lesser Value for Free. So I found 1 toy for 19.99 and a Second for 16.99 then I realized the second one that I loved wasn’t actually fisher price but instead of putting it back I decided to get it anyway, because I liked it so much and Holly’s birthday is coming up soon, and then found a third one that was Fisher price. So the extra one I got was a gear toy, which you will have to wait and hear about after Holly’s birthday when she opens it. But the other two were ones we opened tonight. One is an Animal Nesting Box. There is a Lion, an Elephant, and a Zebra that nest into each other they are made of softish material that is cloth and very colorful and three dimensional. There is a little monkey you can put in the last box. The other toy was like a gum ball machine. It actually goes with the round balls Joel got holly for Christmas. You put those in the top and then hit a level on the side and it lights up plays music and the balls comes rolling out. Holly loved putting the balls in the top and she loved seeing them come out, but didn’t quite get that it was the lever pushing that made that happen.

I got her two sets of 12 month Pajama’s because she is getting so tall she is growing out of all of hers, and they were both on sale, one for 3$ and one for 6$ and then I got her 3 new pairs of socks that were on sale normally 2.99 each and instead 3 for 4$ I refrained from getting her any more cloths even though I really wanted to.

The next thing I got was the Frog scooper toy for the bathtub that collects and stores all of the bath toys on the wall. I thought this came with some toys and was disappointed when I found out it did not, but I did get her a few toys including another set of nesting containers that have fish on them and little holes for water to drip through. The smallest has 1 hole, then 2 and 3 and 4 as they get bigger in size. They are very colorful too.

Let’s see. Oh I also for her birthday, not yet opened got her some large baby Lego’s they were normally 24.99 and I got them for 13.99$ so I was excited about that.

I did also get the supplies I needed and ended up earning a 15$ gift card for getting three “cleaning” type items that were on a list that included the Dreft. What was most exciting of all was that any number of these wonderful items could be Christmas Present’s from Granny because we used our Gift Card and it cut the purchase price in Half, so for me it was a steal, and I didn’t feel bad at all about all the shopping I did, because I got deals, free toys, and used our Gift Card.

While we were there Holly did not want to sit in the cart, she was fussing and wanted mommy to hold her. We rocked in the rockers for a bit while I fed her and then later we were looking at the high Chairs and she really liked this one on wheels so I pushed her around the store in the highchair in front of me pulling the cart behind me and continued shopping like that. It had a toy that suctioned on the top and she was happy and content, at least until I had to put it back and we got to check out. Joel was very excited about all of my purchases and we immediately opened most of them, but Holly is still warming up to them and so while she played with them, she wasn’t that excited yet. But soon I am sure she will keep having fun with them.

I still need to get Holly a Big Girl Car Seat, and now I am pretty sure that I want to get her a High Chair, so I will keep an eye out for those, but I have a feeling it will be part of her Birthday Bootie. I mean her Oma and Granny are coming to Visit. The other thing I saw was a little table and chair set that was set up like a tree on each side and then the chairs were four animals, the Panda, Elephant, Lion, and Monkey. It was the coolest little kid table I have ever seen. I might have to get it and keep it in the garage for 6 months until she is big enough for it, but I am afraid they might not have this one in 6 months and well I have never seen one like this before. I will think about it and see.

Holly wanted to get Daddy's glasses so bad that when he took them off and put them in the swing she decided to lounge after them. I have one determined girl!

Black & White and Color'd All Over

Next week’s theme for I <3 Faces is Black and White. I made these pictures for it. But then found out that the judges are a bit purest and there is to be no color element at all in the photo. I had so much fun with my new photoshop skills creating these that I had to share them anyway. In the end I love the picture I did choose for my entry next week. You will have to wait and see it. I think you will be surprised, it is not the picture you would expect, but I love it.

So onto the photo’s.

This is such a cute picture. She is so funny when she decides that she wants to crawl around the house with her sock. She puts it in her mouth and crawls and cruises and moves around the house with the sock in her mouth. Occasional she will take it out and look at it and chew and pull on it but then she puts it back in and crawls some more. I also really like the contrast of the bright yellow against the desaturated background I think it actually brings out her expression more.

This one is after bath time. She is such a sweetie. I love this towel. She gets so many compliments on this towel when we use it during swim class.



This last photo was from Studio Grow when she decided to run and grab the balls from the pit and try and put them back in, but she wasn’t as fast as the older kids were at throwing them out. I guess tossing balls out of the pit is something you don’t grow out of for a long time.

Just a Rainy Day

It’s been a lazy rainy day. Sally came over today and she got to chase Holly all over the house and was very impressed with her mobility, especially all of the “squatting” she does. She brought over the red horsey for Holly to bounce on and play with and had a chance to stretch out some of her muscles and said she seems to be getting a teeny bit looser. She played some reaching games with her and saw some good head extension and reaching, but now she is extending her head only at the neck not arching her upper back between the shoulders. That area is still super duper tight.

She worked on some rotation, and some cause and effect playing. She was working on “Push” and getting her to push some of the toys she has. The Little Orange Panda pops out when you push him, and we have another toy then you put the top the little balls inside all spin, and finally there is one shaped like a top and when you push it the entire things spins, and it plays music. It has 4 little animals and when you press each one it says, “I’m the Lion” or “What Sound Does the Monkey make” ect. It is a pretty cool toy, as once Holly has some more language skills, it asks her questions and gets her to keep playing, like “Can you find the Elephant”

Holly got a bit cranky about ½ way through the session because Sally restrained her when she was trying to crawl off to her room and she didn’t like that one bit, and then afterwards she has been fussy. We got a nap today for about 90 minutes but she seems tired again. We just had some Green beans and Blueberry pear for lunch and now she is lying in the next watching Lullaby time, I don’t think she will fall asleep, though she might, but she seemed to need the down time.

Yesterday she slept in till 10:00 so she only took 1 nap from 3-5 and was up until about 10:45. I was worried about her this morning though because she woke up crying at 7:30 and was really hungry, so she only got 8.5 hours, and she needs 12-14 a day according to the literature, and she often sleeps a minimum of 10 a night. After her bottle she went back to bed but only for another hour. I think she is either going through a growth spurt, or maybe coming down with something.

I suppose a better mother would keep her warmer, but she slips and slides and pulls off her socks or has trouble crawling when she is wearing PJ’s with feet, so I let her play in what’s comfortable even though her feet and legs sometimes feel cold. But her core is still like a little heater, her feet will be cold but her belly is toasty, and her head, so I guess she is fine. The last two days she has been having a bit of a dry cough, but I think maybe it is like an allergy, I have been coughing since Sunday because our friends have a cat and I am allergic, and I think she is copying me. She is up and playing some more, I guess she was tired of sitting still.

Yesterday we ran a few errands; we had to go back to the Plastic Store and re-cut the doors as they needed a bit more room to allow space for the hinges. I need to correct that the doors are not actually Plexiglass, but clear Acrylic. Joel has informed me that I could hit it with a hammer and it would not break, and it does not shatter, so they are super safe.

It was much more complicated getting the doors right and everything lined up, but Joel was such a trouper and stayed up till 2:00 last night and finished them. The magnet latch isn’t strong enough for her to not open them, so we added the Baby Proofing Cabinet latches which we were expecting to do, and today she was able to cruise all along the entertainment center and try and open the doors and kiss the “glass” she was quite pleased.

Have I mentioned that she is starting to show more emotions, such as Frustration and Anger? This is a great developmental milestone, though a hard one to deal with. I don’t want her to be frustrated or angry, but then I also can’t just rush in as soon as something doesn’t go her way and I have to let her fuss and cry it out sometimes, which is very hard for me, as she is a baby who never cries unless she needs something and then her need it met almost immediately.

But an example of this would be the blinds. Now that she can stand against the wall under the window she tries to reach up for the blinds. Today she reached them; it is just the bottom part of the wooden blind so totally safe. Well I guess in her mind they were “sitting” on the window sill and like other things (the drum sticks on Rockband, the remotes on the side table) Once she reaches them it is a simple effort to slide or push them down to the floor, at which time she will sit and play with her new “toy” well she doesn’t get that the blinds are attached, so they kept pushing them off the sill and pulling them away from the window and they weren’t coming down and it was no easier to reach them and she couldn’t put them in her mouth this made her very frustrated and she proceeded to shout and fuss at them.

Well, what is a mom to do? Let her fuss until she gives up and goes onto something else? How long is enough fussing, she is a very determined little girl and doesn’t give up easily, how much fussing does it take before she gets really upset and is throwing a tantrum. Well while she was standing pulling the blinds she did it maybe 15 times, fussing, but not “upset” so I just kept letting her do it. Then she got mad, sat down starting to hit the floor and cry, so I went over to her and she immediately was happy again. I opened the blinds and let her look out and touch them, from my arms and it seemed to appease her and she hasn’t tried again yet today, but did I swoop in to the rescue too soon? I guess these are things I will learn in time, but I hate seeing her “unhappy” but I am reminded that this is the time when she developmentally NEEDS to learn that she can’t always get what she wants, and things will be frustrating. I am told this will happen with Walking, where her gross motor skills won’t be on par with her cognitive skills that want to walk, so this can cause frustration.

Some of the other exciting new developments is her improved dexterity with her stacker. She used to simply dump it out and chew on the base or wooden donuts, but now she can lift each disk off the base one at a time. She even makes a game of it, I will point to it and she will lift another and then another. She is so proud to be able to take them all off one at a time, but isn’t interested in putting them back on yet. She also I think is learning that if you push the Orange Button Mr. Panda will pop up. At first she did it by accident when crawling over the toy, which I guess in many ways, is how babies learn everything, but then the other day she stopped closed the Panda and then pushed the button again, close, open, close a few times. So I think she is starting to get it. A few times since she had opened the panda, but hasn’t learned about the other switches yet.

The other game we are playing, which I realize she is way too young for is the matching game. We have this cool book with Red Apple, Orange Fish, Yellow Sun, Green Turtle, and Blue Bird. The colors are also listed in Spanish. On the left is a space where you can place a cardboard cut out of the creature that matches the larger picture of the creature on the other side. She loves flipping through the pages of this book back and forth. Sometimes I say the color of the page, sometimes the creature, sometimes I say it in Spanish. Well yesterday I decided to take all 5 “blocks” out of the book place them in front of her and turn the pages one by one pointing to the creature and asking her if she can pick up the one that matches.

She did it right 2 out of 5 times, but I think it was luck, and she just put them in her mouth and tasted them, but I would say, nope, this orange Fish doesn’t look like the Red Apple, and then I would pick up the Red Apple and Show her how the little Red apple she was holding looked like the big one on the page. She had fun. I completely don’t expect her to get this at all for now, but I figured it doesn’t hurt to play the game with her. I also like it because I am trying to teach her pointing, which is something she would normally begin to learn about this time. So I point to the pop up animals and to other various things when we play.

Also, I forgot to mention… She is actually bouncing in her bouncer now. This is very exciting, as it is important that she bounces if she wants to learn good balance for walking. She really jumps up and down and gets all excited, it is very cute to see her do it. It is funny, when she is ready to get out she fusses and whines so then I go and get her, maybe after ten minutes this will happen, but she is so excited that I listened and come that she jumps up and down while I am trying to take her out. Very cute.

We haven’t done much with the two walkers she has. The few times I have tried recently she just sat down to a crawl and climbed on them, I don’t think she sees them as stable enough to walk around or quite understands push yet, but then again, I am in no rush to get her walking. I am convinced that if I was making any effort on my part like, walking her around the room holding her hands ect. That she would be walking already, just based on her cruising, but Sally informed us that its not good to teach a baby to walk too early, especially when they have High Tone Issues, so we are letting her completely come to it at her own pace and lead the way.

So sweet, I love that she falls asleep in my lap after a bottle it is the most precious thing and I know I will miss this when she grows out of it. It is hard not to simply let myself enjoy her and watch her sleep for the whole hour or more, but alas this is my time to get stuff done like bills and blogging, so 15 minutes of Indulgence and then she was transferred to her little nest. Sometimes I just have to squeeze her I love her so much. She doesn’t quite get cuddles yet, she lets you do It sometimes for just a minute but I am looking forward to when she is older and like to be cuddled and understands the concept of sitting still, like if we were going to watch a movie or something. But then again, if she is anything like me, which she is, she probably won’t sit still.

Ohh two more things..

I called a Pediatric Dentist and asked about the teeth thing. He said it is a phase and if she gnaws on wood or metal for a few months it is ok, but if she is still scraping her teeth on metal in 6 months it could start doing some Damage. He said the key is to make sure there is no decay, as that weakens the tooth and makes it easier to damage it. As with the pulling, he said babies don’t know their own strength, it is possible she could damage her tooth, like the old shoelace and door slam to pull a tooth out, but in reality it is very unlikely she will hurt them just pulling a cord or lip of a toy over them at this point. He said in 6 months if she is still doing it, take her in to get checked. Right now she is not on Joel’s Dental insurance, but during open enrollment I think in like April, I will add her so she can get an official check up. Though I suppose I should see how much one visit costs versus 1 year of premiums, paying out of pocket might be cheaper for now.

Foot tapping.. Apparently she gets this from mommy who unconsciously taps her leg/foot all the time, I hear even her Oma does this. So the other day she was playing over by the mirror and the activity gate and I was flipping through a magazine tapping my foot, I look up at her and smile so she knows I am paying attention, as she often turns and checks that I am still here, and then she decided to crawl all the way over to me.. No pauses or breaks, all the way across the living room, when she gets to the edge of the carpet she sits and begins to tap her foot/leg against the hard wood floors in unison with me. I just had to pick her up and squeeze her I was so amazed, and she was pretty amused with herself too!

Hollyland

Today was a low key day. We had some bananas for breakfast and Holly explored her new play area. I am not sure that she really acknowledged that the tree was gone but she was happy to have the extra space and dug right into her toys.

She quickly went to and found the nearest thing that could get her into trouble. We forgot to put up the special thing that keeps the blind strings short, so after finding the string, which I put up she then discovered the blinds themselves. I guess the good thing about her getting herself into trouble is the good physical therapy it provides I mean seriously look at that neck extension, no its not 90 degrees, but it is certainly at least 45.

Holly did not want to take her nap and didn’t fall asleep until almost 11:45 so I had to wake her at 12:30 when Katie arrived. It took her a bit to warm up to her being here and she was done earlier then usual. We played with the big bouncy ball and crawled through the tub. Katie decided to let us keep the tube here for a couple of weeks since Holly is the only patient she is using it on. Joel and I have come up with some fun ideas that I am sure you will read about in the days to follow.

After therapy we had lunch #1 which consisted of Banana and Squash, later we had some snacks. I always forget to give her snacks to chew on because I am afraid of the gagging so ideally I need to do it between food and bottles. During therapy I was eating lunch, some left over Pizza and she was very interested in my food so I gave her some of the crust to chew on. Over protective Daddy protested, but Katie backed me up and thought it was a great idea. This reminded me I should try with actual baby snacks today.

So we had some Puffs, a Wagon Wheel, a Teething Biscuit, Some mini Crackers, a Zwieback toast, and these new Strawberry Yogurt Puffs that melt in your mouth. She did pretty good munching on them, as you can see here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4HErh3LehY

Once she was done I gave her some Apple Vanilla and then we played some more. She was getting very fussy and grumpy and fell asleep around 5:45 for her second nap. I decided to let her sleep since her morning nap was cut short and since she had Night Terrors a few days ago. She ended up sleeping until 8:15 and woke up so precious like a little gopher.

Daddy was excited to get a little bit of Holly time. She woke just as we sat down to eat dinner, so Joel played with her and let me eat first. She was being clingy though and wanted Mommy. She was happy if I was sitting on the floor with her and would crawl over and stand up next to me if I was on the couch.

She did get to bed a little late, but it wasn’t terrible. We tried putting her down twice, and I even made her an 8th bottle, but she didn’t want it. In the end I gave her a teething rind which soothed her and she fell asleep. I wonder if it is a sensory thing, as the teething ring is freezing cold, I mean it is basically ice and she likes to put it on her face and especially on her ear, it doesn’t seem to bother her at all. So those of you with kids who have SPD any input please comment.

The other thing I am curious about is the biting. So I realize that FX Kids tend to like to chew on things, thus the chewlery and damaged collars. But Holly does a few additional things. 1st she grinds her teeth, which drives me crazy, but isn’t the most worrisome. 2nd she likes to chew on wood, but also metal. She loves to chew on Metal, like the bottom of my Sigg Bottle, is it the coolness? The sound it makes when she crapes her teeth on it? And 3rd she likes to pull on her teeth, like she will put a string in her mouth that goes behind her four bottom teeth then pull it out on either side. Or if she is chewing on like a baby food lib, she will put the lip behind her teeth then pull it out. She also has some toys she does this with.

Is this Dangerous? Will she Damage her teeth? Have your kids done things like this? Is she trying to get more sensory input? I was talking to Katie about this today and she said that swinging happens to provide the same input at biting, so we put her down on a quilt and each held two sides and swung her side to side. The first time she look terrified and I was ready to give up, but we tried slower one more time and the second time she liked it, so we did it two more times. Weather it helped or not, who knows. Thoughts?