Luca the Super Helper

I was in the kitchen or something and asked Luca if he would get a toy for Tessa. He said she couldn't decide which one she wanted to play with, so he was exceedingly accommodating.

Yes, that's the entire contents of her toy cabinet. My super helper. ;)

So proud of himself :)

Eight Months

Our Little Lady has done a lot of growing in the last month!

There's been a white spot on her bottom gum for months, and it kept getting bigger. But when you would run a finger over it you couldn't feel anything. This morning (just in time for the update, sweet girl) in the white spot is now a bright white dot--I'm guessing her tooth is finally breaking through the gum! Would explain why she was up at 11, midnight, 1:30, 2:30, and 5 last night...

 Overall she's getting to be a good sleeper. Most days she takes two naps, and most times they are about an hour and then a couple hours. The longer one flips between morning and afternoon, and some days she fights sleep so hard I just give up on the nap. But generally, pretty good. And probably 5 nights a week she's up twice. One night she's up once, and the last night up 3 or 4 times. All in all, much improved!

Pulled her Nana blanket off the shelf so she could cuddle =)

 I understand she's trying to crawl. Since Luca didn't do the whole crawling thing (did you know it's not a developmental milestone?) I don't really know what I'm looking for. I've tried to put her on her hands and knees but she refuses to bend instead plants a foot and flips to her back super fast. So I've decided she'll figure it out. Even though she's not crawling yet, she is crazy mobile. She rocks while she's sitting up and sort of shuffles along. She has an incredible ability to find things I don't want her to have, especially cords. We have an antenna for our tv and the cord runs from the outlet behind the tv up the wall to the antenna on the mantle. She goes under the bench the tv is on, digs the cord out, and starts gnawing away. I'm beginning to realize how easy we had it with Luca...

She has discovered that if she rocks forward a little and then slams her head back while she's in her high chair she can make the whole thing rock. She thinks it's hysterical! Until she does it at Oma's, who has a wooden high chair...
We've started giving her Puffs because she has a really good pincher grip. Last night she had pieces of sweet potato fries too. She loves eating with her fingers!

It is near impossible to get her to leave that sign alone!

She loves pulling to standing on your fingers. I'll waggle them in front of her and she starts giggling and grabs on and pulls up so fast! Because I'm a fool I'm trying to teach her to pull up on the sofa too. =)
Still not much into cuddling. When I'm nursing her before putting her to bed she eats until she's almost asleep, then she pushes off and starts grumping. As soon as I put her in her bed she rolls onto her side and falls asleep.
Other than when she's fighting sleep, she is the happiest little thing. Loves to giggle, constantly watching Luca. She seems to have just in the last week discovered her tongue, either something is in her mouth or her tongue is out. Way out. It's funny.

That's our dainty little lady!

Touch a Truck

One of the towns by Oma and Pa was hosting a touch-a-truck in the elementary school parking lot. I'd never been to one, but understood the general concept. A bunch of agencies bring their big machines and trucks and let kids climb in them. Seemed like a fun way to spend a morning, so we met Oma and Pa there.

Luca was not excited about it and grumped around the whole time. But he still went in some of the trucks and I even got some pictures.

He was most entertained by the trash truck and the cranes. The staff were all very welcoming and except for the sour puss it was a nice morning. I was with Luca on one aspect, too many kids honking too loud of horns.

Not entirely surprising, Tessa didn't seem to mind the horns. She was just happily chilling in the stroller the whole time. Easy-going, that one.

Thanks for coming with us, Oma and Pa!

Spring

That wonderful season when the sweetest little boys bring their mommies a "pretty yellow flower!"

I love every single one =)

Happy Easter!

The Easter Bunny came to our house! I was so excited to see Luca's reaction to his basket and all the eggs that when Tessa woke up at 7:30 I considered waking him up too. Reason prevailed and I waited another half hour for him to get up. The bunny brought him a car for his doll house that honks and plays a couple songs. We were listening to him play with that for about ten minutes before he told us he was awake. =)

an egg behind the curtain!?

After he showed us what the bunny brought him we went down the hall to see what he brought Tessa. We reminded him that the bunny also hid eggs, he looked over the landing and saw some in the family room, and started running downstairs. He is gonna have to figure out a new plan of attack next year when Tessa is mobile. He still gets an egg and opens it and inspects its contents, recloses it and then puts it in the basket. Tessa will collect them all while he's still eating the candy from the first one.

After about 4 passes around the house all the eggs (except one) were found. We ate breakfast and headed to Oma and Pa's. The Easter Bunny hid their eggs outside and Luca had fun running around "doing summer" in the nice weather. A picnic snack and then it was time to head over to Great Grandma and Papa's for Easter dinner.

Mmm... fishies...

Luca had a lot of fun playing with every one there and looking for bird's nests in their trees. Tessa enjoyed being passed around from family to family and dancing. Good food, good company, good Easter!

Coloring Eggs

I have fond memories of dying eggs with my cousins when we were young. And at the edges of that memory is the impression that it was kind of a pain for the adults. Spending forever hard boiling a thousand eggs and trying to make sure the dye doesn't get every where and everyone gets the colors they want and all. So I wasn't sure if it was a form of celebration in which we would partake.

Then pinterest (always pinterest) had an answer. They put baking soda in the bottom of a little bowl, mixed in some powdered tempra paint, placed the egg on that, and then the kids poured vinegar on it. It bubbled up the baking soda and colored the egg. I thought it was perfect! Luca isn't trying to carefully dip an egg in, having to wait until it's well saturated, and then carefully transfer it to the carton to dry. Only problem is tempra isn't edible, so if any color was on the egg when it was peeled it would have to be thrown away.

I figured using food color in the vinegar would do a similar thing and the results would be edible, so that's what we did. And Luca loved it! He placed the egg in the baking powder, picked the colors, and poured the vinegar. He was so entertained watching the ensuing bubbles. So much fun, so little mess =)

Plus, I get to eat sort of tie-dyed egg salad!

Seven Months

She has all kinds of new noises. Clicking sounds, screeches, and funny little giggles. She can be very vocal! Mostly she loves to say "Ya ya ya ya ya ya" a lot. And she tries to have conversations. She'll look at someone (mostly Luca) and say "Ya" and then watch. When Luca says something back she waits for him to finish and says "ya" again. It's fun to watch.

Here comes Tessa Cottontail

Rolling from her tummy to her back is no big deal now, and she has definitely figured out that if she's tired of being on her tummy she can just flip over. So far no rolling the other way, but she does roll to her side sometimes.

It's funny, but she is totally my kid when it comes to eating. She is not a fan of apples, like pears okay, and is suspicious of bananas. But she loves butternut squash, sweet potato, and carrots. Even tolerates peas. My little vegetarian!

Mmm... cheerios!

We were way late in moving her out of our room and into her crib, and we may be paying for that now. She was sleeping beautifully! Then we all got colds and she stopped sleeping wonderfully. Then, (I'm guessing) she went through the 6 month growth spurt, so she was crabby, constantly hungry, and not sleeping well. Then we finally started having her lay flat to sleep, so she was sleeping poorly. And because babies are kind of weird, when they start missing out on sleep, they start sleeping less. So she gave up all her naps but one, and was consistently up 3 or 4 times a night, usually for at least an hour each time. It sucked. We tried feeding her food for breakfast as well as dinner, we tried sleeping her in the pack in play so it can be swayed while she's sleeping, we tried ignoring her until she got really mad hoping she'd put herself back to sleep. We tried making her room warmer, colder, lighter, darker. Nothing was helping.

Finally it occurred to me, when we started trying to get Luca to give up his morning nap, he responded by shortening his afternoon nap and being crabby all the time. With Luca, he set his own schedule, and it totally worked for him. It seems Tessa does not set her own schedule to work for her. So now we're forcing one on her. She's got a set wake up time, nap times and bed times. Working within those means set feeding times too. Hopefully we'll start seeing some real progress soon. Just in time for her 9 month growth spurt =)

Just for fun, here's a comparison of all of us at six-ish months. Me, Josh, Tessa, Luca. Genetics, man =)