19 months, 3 weeks, 3 days

 

Kerala had a fabulous Halloween. She was really into the trick or treating as well as our friends' Halloween party. Kerala's trick or treating adventure started off with her going up to several houses and saying tick or treat but then, much to our dismay, walking away before they gave her any candy. Eventually, she started to let people put candy in her pumpkin bucket and she was super psyched about the full size milky way bar that someone gave her. She walked down the street with a death grip on it. She didn't get to eat any of the candy (I know, we are strict), but she did enjoy pretending like she was eating candy. She had an empty box of nerds and would take "pieces" out and pretend to eat the candy. With Halloween gone, we have been talking up Thanksgiving. If you ask Kerala what she is going to have on Thanksgiving she will respond by saying "turkey."

In my last post, I mentioned how we were going to get a training toilet for Kerala. Well, we did and she was psyched about it for about two days (she even used it a couple of times). Since then, she really doesn't want to have much to do with it.

Kerala's Spanish classes are going really well. She has been consistently saying por favore, gracias, aqua and hola in class. The last couple of days when I have asked her about Spanish class she will respond by saying "hola." There are two slight problems with the class: 1. it is an hour long and Kerala, along with the other toddlers in the class, just doesn't have an attention span for a full hour class and 2. parents are required to participate, which makes it difficult for someone who does not speak Spanish at all. Despite those two problems, overall I think the classes are really good for Kerala. We have enrolled her in another semester and we will see how it goes.

Kerala has been into singing lately. She loves to sing row, row, row your boat and wheels on the bus. Also, in music class yesterday, she was really into dancing with this other little girl. They kept holding hands and trying to do the twist during the free dance. It was pretty funny because the other girl was a year older and definitely grasped the concept of doing the twist and Kerala really just liked holding the other girl's hand. Kerala has also been really funny with this girl in class who is really shy. The girl will generally sit in the corner and Kerala will go up to her and try to hold her hand or hug her. In the last class, they ended up tickling each other which was pretty cute to see.

A long, long, time...

 

Okay, it has been forever. I usually do the posting and the past month and half have been the busiest workwise since I returned from maternity leave with Kerala. I still generally get home for dinner and bath and take Mondays off, but it usually means that I work after Kerala goes to sleep until the wee hours. Needless to say, I have not felt like blogging at 1:00am. Anyway, I wanted to give a quick update and I promise to post more this weekend since we have a ton of photos to download. Also, Heather and Hannah - you guys will be getting your birthday presents shortly - not only have I been working nights, but most of the time on the weekends when Kerala is not sleeping so I haven't been able to send the presents off to Korea.

Our Trip to AZ -
It was a great success. Kerala was fantastic the entire time. The plane rides were smooth (except when US Airways tried to put her 5 rows back from us), she loved visiting with her Aunt Kim, Uncle Kyle and their two laboradors. Kerala would try to cuddle with the dogs which was pretty cute. We had a fabulous time and can't wait to go back (although we may not schedule another trip in August since it was hot)!

Kerala Update -
Kerala is doing great. Her 18 month appointment went very well (except for the shots which are always sad). The doctor was very pleased with her growth and vocabulary. We did talk to her about some issues we have been dealing - particulary, Kerala biting and hitting and we havve been working on trying to curb those issues. She has also been throwing food a lot, which is something that seems to be escalating.

Kerala is talking a storm and is putting together little sentences. Her latest (and the funniest by far) is her walking around the house saying "Shoot man!" Don't even ask how she came up with that one. She is also very interested in the potty, so we may get a little potty seat for her this weekend. The other day she had her stuffed animal go potty - unfortunately, that entailed her repeatedly dumping the kitty in the toliet while saying "pee!"

Finally, Kerala, Ellen and I are enrolled in Spanish classes. I take Kerala on Mondays and Ellen takes her on Fridays. If you ask Kerala to say "hola" and "adios" she will, but I don't think she knows what she is saying. Ellen said at her last class Kerala had some very promising babbling!

Family news-
Troy passed the bar exam! Not that we had any doubts, but it is a relief to have that behind us. Finally, for those of you who I have not been able to get into contact with, Kerala is going to be a big sister. I am due in February, so they will be about 2 years apart. We have been inspired by friends and have decided not to find out what we are having.

17 months, 2 days

 

Yes, it has been forever since we posted. Kerala is doing great (although she did have a really fussy weekend). We headed up to Appleton, WI to visit one of Troy's college roommates. Kerala had a pretty rough time sleeping over the weekend, which makes me a bit nervous for our trip to Phoenix. Kerala used to sleep great in the car, so we would plan our trips around her sleep schedule. This was the first trip with her car seat facing forward and she just couldn't fall asleep, so halfway up to WI we had to pull over and turned her car seat around. It was really sad because within minutes of us being on the road she was asleep. The other not so great aspect of the weekend was Troy's college roommate teaching Kerala how to throw food at a restaurant. We are working on re-teaching her not to throw food.

Kerala has been super into the alphabet and numbers lately. She gets really excited and starts to dance everytime she hears the alphabet song and will throw in what sounds like letters at various times. Her favorite letter by far is "A" and if you ask her what a letter is she will say "A" regardless of what letter you are pointing to (although she did correctly point to B, T and Z about a week ago but hasn't done it since). Also, if you ask her to count she will generally say "two, three." Her newest thing is to say "hi baby" to anyone she sees. Troy and I took her for a walk this evening and she said "hi baby" to hipsters, elderly people, babies, you name it. It's cute though because she is kind of putting words together. We also realized that she is getting very good at repeating what we say.

So we leave soon for our trip to Phoenix. Thanks everyone for your input. Our plan of action is to give Kerala a new toy every 30 minutes or so (hopefully longer if she doesn't get board with the toy). The toys will be farily small, but things to keep her busy. Our friend Lara has also lent us her portable dvd player, so we will use that when she gets fussy. We did end up buying her a seat, so hopefully the fact that she is in her own carseat will make the flight a bit smoother. Troy and I are prepared for a rough flight. I will try to post in the next few days since we have over 300 photos that I need to download from our camara.

16 weeks, 1 week, 5 days

 

Kerala has had somewhat of a rough past week. As you can see by the July photos, she had a bit of an accident that left a horrible mark on her face. She fell at the pool and got a cement burn. Fortunately, it has significantly faded since it happened last Wednesday. I am still a bit worried about scarring - particularly, since two parents totally freaked me out about the possibility of scarring. Don't people know that I am a paranoid mother? Anyway, we spoke to the nurse at Kerala's pediatrician last Wednesday and she said that it most likely wouldn't scar because Kerala's skin is so young. I have been trying to have Kerala avoid a lot of sun to minimize the possibility of scarring.

Kerala also has had a horrible time sleeping lately. Kerala used to sleep about 11 hours at night and then a 3 hour nap during the afternoon. For the past two weeks, she seems to be pushing her nap back so that she was consistently going down at 1:30 rather than her normal 1:00. This past weekend, she went down at 3:00 and then 2:30 which is not ideal. Today, she did not take a nap. Every time I would go into her room she would look up at me and say "hi!" We finally gave up on the nap, but on our way home from dropping Troy off at his hotel for the bar exam she fell asleep. I ran into a mom in the neighborhood that I regularly talk to and she told me that her son does the same thing whenever he is teething. It seems like Kerala is getting two new teeth, so hopefully our sleep troubles will go away. All, I know is I am exhausted - I usually use Kerala's nap time on the weekends to catch up on my own sleep. It's been rough.

As far as some positive news about Kerala, she still is developing a vocabulary. The latest three words that I can recall her adding are hose, pool, and door. She is also really funny with saying "hi" and "bye-bye." We will walk around the neighborhood and she will waive at people and say "bye-bye." Last week, she kept taking my cell phone and our home phone and taking into it - every few seconds she would say "hi" into it. Kerala is also pretty funny with her stuffed animals. She consistently tries to share her milk with her duck and the other day I gave Kerala some cheese that she tried to feed her duck and would say "mmmm" when the duck was "eating" the cheese. She also likes to try to diaper her stuffed cat, but she hasn't quite figured out the cloth diapering system. Although she does know that you need a liner, a shell and some rice paper which is pretty funny.

For a family update, Troy is off to take the bar exam. He has been studying really hard and I can't wait for this to be over for him. So everyone keep Troy in your thoughts tomorrow and Wednesday. For me, my most exciting news is that I am officially reduced hours at work. Generally, this means that I don't go into the office on Mondays. It's been great to have another day with Kerala at home. Finally, Kerala will be going on her first plane trip this month. If anyone has any advice on how to get a toddler through a 3 1/2 hour flight, I would love to hear it.

15 months, 3 weeks, 6 days

 

Our biggest news to report is that Kerala can feed herself with a spoon. Sometimes, as you can see, it gets pretty messy - but she seems to have caught the hang of it. She was actually really messy in this photo because she would clap for herself in between bites and there were a few bites where she didn't get all of the oatmeal off the spoon. She has also added spoon to her vocabulary - although she refers to it as poon. Troy and I have been keeping a list of her words and she is up to just under 50. It's crazy - she will be using a word and we just don't realize it. Her pronounciation of some of the words is pretty cute - for instance, for coloring she refers to it as caracol. I don't know how she got that from coloring, but she will say caracol and then get out her pad of paper and go to the drawer where we keep the crayons. We are also proud to report that she has been signing and saying "thank you." You have to tell her to say it after you do something for her, but it's a start.

Kerala has a new game that she loves to play - hide-n-seek. The only thing we have to work on is teaching her to hide in different spots. If you ask Kerala to hide, she will run to the kitchen door and hide behind or stand next to the curtain. If you are trying to find Kerala then you have to go through our first floor and call out her name until you get to the kitchen door and then you tickle her. She thinks its really fun and signs for "more" so that you typically play it for 15 minutes or so which is an eternity in toddler time.

That's about all we have to report. Kerala gets to be more and more fun each day - she is laughing more and overall a pretty happy baby.

15 months, 1 week

 

Kerala had her well baby visit last week and it went really well. She jumped from 5% to 10% in weight and the doctor was really pleased with her weight gain. This is the first time since she was a tiny baby that she has jumped up a weight category, so I was pretty psyched. The doctor was also pleased with Kerala's language and general development. Kerala's latest two words are "flower" and "Elmo" (although she also refers to a Cookie Monster doll as Elmo). We are not really sure how she picked up Elmo since she doesn't watch tv, but she does have an Elmo doll that she loves which I guess we have called Elmo. The doctor also noticed that Kerala is getting her molars in, which may explain why she has been waking up at night (last night she woke up at 1:00am and 4:00am). I couldn't have been happier with the appointment, although Kerala wasn't psyched - she basically cried the entire exam and only seemed to briefly calm down after the doctor left the exam room and before her shots (poor girl).

As you can tell by the photo, Kerala has been getting some time in her baby pool. She also went to the local pool once and had a blast. Kerala is still pretty obsessed with her doll stroller. She now tries to lift the stroller up the stairs - fortunately, she can only lift the stroller onto the first stair. She also will roll over you if you are sitting or lying down in her way. Finally, Kerala's new thing is to blow on or tickle your belly to make you laugh. The other night she kept blowing on Troy's belly before bedtime and was getting the biggest kick out of it. Every time Troy would start to laugh, Kerala would laugh and fall down.

14 months, 4 weeks

 

I know, it has been forever since we last posted. Troy has been busy studying for the bar exam, Kerala had a bad cold and fever and I was busy with work. Things are a bit better now, although I do have to work this weekend.

We have Kerala's 15 month appointment this week and, suprisingly, I am not dreading the weigh in. Kerala is tiny and I get really anxious prior to her weight check. Tonight though we weighed Kerala on JT and Tamra's scale - Troy stepped on the scale and weighed himself and then he stepped back on with Kerala. The scale said she was over 20 pounds! I didn't believe it, so I weighed her again and we got the same result. We will see on Tuesday just how accurate their scale is. If she is over 20 pounds, then that means she gained over 2 pounds since her last check up. I do think she has been eating better thanks to Ellen who has come up with some very creative and delicious recipes.

Kerala has been doing really well with developing her verbal skills. Today she started to respond with "ooh, ooh" when you ask her what an owl says. She also loves to say "uh oh." The other day she said "uh oh" when her friend dropped her water. She also went over and handed it back to her friend! Last Sunday, I swear she said something that sounded like strawberry, but she hasn't repeated so I am not going to count that one yet. All in all, she is up to about 20 words or so. The crazy thing is we don't know how she picks up some of the words. For instance, a few weeks ago in bath she kept pointing to my hands and saying "bubble" when I was soaping her up. Troy and I really don't recall saying "bubble" a lot, but I guess it only takes one or two times and she will pick something up.

14 months, 1 week, 3 days

 

Thank you everyone for your responses regarding milk. I received a number of great suggestions and Kerala's milk intake is getting better. Unfortunately, we have to add Ovaltine to her milk to get her to drink it, but at least we are getting somewhere. Today, she was actually really excited to get her milk, which is such a nice change. Her improved milk intake has made up for her not so great appetite the last couple of days.

This past weekend we bought Kerala a doll stroller that she absolutely loves. She saw the stroller at a bbq on Saturday and was quite obsessed with getting her hands on it. I ran out that evening and picked one up for her and she has been playing with it ever since. It's pretty funny because it's the same brand and style as her actual stroller. She looks pretty cute walking around with it. She usually puts either her duck, a doll or my phone and a sippy of water in the stroller as she pushes it around. Unfortunately, she now wants to push everything around - today at the zoo, she insisted on pushing her stroller rather than sitting in it or walking with us. It made some slow going, but we still had a good time. She got very excited when we saw the dolphins and elephants, but other than those animals she didn't really want to have anything to do with animals.

Over the past couple of weeks, Kerala has added quack, tree and bowl to her vocabulary. When you ask her what a duck says she will generally respond with duck and when she picks up her duck she usually says "quack quack." She also seems to be having conversations with herself, which are pretty cute. I can't wait for her to really begin talking because she sounds like she has the sweetest little voice.

13 months, 3 weeks, 4 days

 

I know we have not posted forever. Things have been somewhat hectic and Kerala actually has not been feeling very well the past few days. She had a somewhat high fever towards the end of last week and, while the fever is gone, has been super super cranky this past weekend. We did make it to music class yesterday and Kerala had a special treat with a visit from my friend Tania. Tania and I became friends in 4th grade and she has been traveling around the world for the past 2 1/2 years. Kerala got to meet Tania and received a beautiful dress from Ethiopia.

Kerala continues to do well with developing a bit of a vocabulary and knowing her various body parts. This past week we realized she would point to her hair and feet if you asked her where they were located. Also, when you ask her what a horse says she will respond with "neigh neigh." Occasionally, she will also respond with panting if you ask her what a dog says. With respect to words, she may say a word a few times and then not say it again for a while. It does seem like most of her vocabulary is based on food - wa wa (water), apple, nana (banana), cracker, cheese, chex, and kix. We have also been working on high fives, which she seems to be getting somewhat.

We are still trying to figure out the sippy cup thing. I think I mentioned before that she takes water just fine, but refuses to take milk out of the sippy cup. This has definitely been a more difficult transition than when we transitioned her from nursing to the bottle. I am actually quite stressed about her milk intake. We still do a couple of bottles and are supplementing with extra yogurt and cheese, but the whole thing has me a bit freaked out so if anyone has any suggestions we would love to hear them. Today I sent to Target to get some different sippy cups to see if that would work. A number of people suggested using the sippy cups with the straw, but Kerala is having a difficult time figuring out the straw thing. We will keep plugging away, but beware Ushma (my roommate from college who is now a pediatrician) you may be getting a panicked call from me shortly.

As far as general family matters, this week is a very exciting week for the Smerry household - Troy is graduating from law school! We are so excited. Unfortunately, this does mean that he will have to start studying for the bar shortly. His graduation is this Friday. Northwestern does allow parents to bring their kids across the stage when they receive their diploma. While seeing Kerala up on stage would be adorable, the ceremony begins at 1:00 which is when Kerala goes down for her nap so she will miss it.

13 months, 5 days

 

We all had a great weekend. On Saturday, we went to Kerala's music class where she had a blast running around. We finished the day off at Henry's and Silas' birthday bash. Kerala had a great time playing with all of the little ones. Unfortunately, I didn't take a ton of photos, but check out Kerala and her bud Valerie Violet in the April photos. Kerala was sporting her new party dress that her Auntie Heather, Uncle Ryan and Cousin Hannah bought her for her birthday.

Yesterday, we took advantage of the fabulous weather with a trip to the park and a walk. We spent an hour (which in toddler time is an eternity) at the park. We had a great time and Kerala got to hang out with Silas and JT. On our evening walk, Kerala walked the entire time. She did fall a couple of times, but she got right back up. She was super psyched by the puppy that she met a long the way and even tried following the puppy when his owner and him started to go off in a different direction.

The only mishap from the weekend was when Kerala was flattened by a little girl in music class. Both Kerala and the little girl were running around and Gracie (the little blue eyed linebacker) ran into Kerala knocking Kerala down. Kerala was fine - I think she was more shocked than anything else. I felt really bad for little Gracie - she kept asking her mom if she was going to receive a time out.

Lately, Kerala has been doing the cutest little dance when we sing "Five Little Monkeys." During the song, Kerala will tap her head when we sing "one fell of bumped her head" and she will point her finger as if she is saying "no" when we sing "No more monkeys jumping on the bed." It's so funny how she picks things up. I always tap her head when I sing the song to her, but I didn't realize she was making the connection between her head and the song.
Kerala has also added "apple" to her list of words and today she pointed to her "mouth" when I asked her where it was.

1 year, 3 weeks, 5 days

 

Kerala and I have had a fabulous week. I have been home on vacation and Kerala and I have had such a blast. We have been really really busy with trips to the Nature Museum and the Children's Musuem in Oak Park. Kerala really enjoyed the butterfly haven at the Nature Museum and was enthralled with two dead butterflies. The Children's Museum was okay, but I don't think we will make the trek out there again. We also went to story time at a local book store. Unfortunately, Kerala did end up making a little boy cry during story time. He seemed to be a pretty sensitive little guy, but I did feel pretty bad about it. She didn't hit him, just yelled at him. While we can't really reason with her, we have been trying to say no. She clearly understands no as evidenced by her repeatedly telling me no when I was trying to put a diaper on her tonight.

Kerala has picked up a number of new skills this past week. She is now quite capable of climbing on furniture. Unfortuantely, today she has been trying to climb onto the window sill, which is problematic. She seems to be doing well with her communication skills. She typically points to her nose and tongue if you ask her. We have been working on belly and cheeks, which she seems to be figuring out as well. She also responds with what sounds like "moo" when you ask her what a cow says.

As far as food, let's just say Kerala enjoys somewhat spicy and flavorful foods. Troy made chili this week and I thought that there was no way she was going to eat it because it was too spicy. She gobbled it up and seemed to really enjoy it. One of her favorite dinners is this dish called the Chila Fry that we get from a local mediterannean restaurant. It's pretty fun to expose her to different foods and see her reaction.

1 year, 2 weeks, 4 days

 

Well, it isn't easy managing a blog and being a working mom - so that's why I haven't posted lately. Kerala has been doing fantastic. She primarily walks now, which is quite exciting. She loves to walk down the hallway carrying something (usually a box, a ball or these two huge red plastic pot holders that flop while she walks). She also seems to be doing pretty well with developing a vocabulary. While she isn't consistent, she seems to trying to say new words everyday. Yesterday during breakfast she kept looking at Cloud and saying what sounded like Cloud. Also, in the last two days it seems like she is pointing a lot more, which is helpful for us to figure out what she wants (although, sometimes she just points for the sake of pointing).

The only down point in the last couple of weeks was Kerala getting a fever. Last weekend she had a pretty high temperature Saturday and Sunday. This resulted in some restless sleep over the weekend for the whole family since Kerala was up quite a bit during the night. While her fever went away on Monday, Kerala did not resume sleeping through the night until last night.

As you can tell by our photos we are still trying to get organized with all of the fabulous birthday presents she received. Her favorite toy lately has been this duck that sings the chicken song. She just hugs that thing as soon as it starts to sing. Because of space constraints, we are going to have to rotate her toys, so some of her birthday toys will be going away for about a month.

So lately I have been on a big kick about the family eating healthy. With Kerala eating what we eat, Troy and I realize that we are going to have to change our eating habits. While we aren't horrible eaters, we do order out a lot and tend to rely on very quick and processed meals for dinner. Lately, I have started to try to make meals the night before so that all we have to do is heat them up when I get home. Troy has been enjoying it, but Kerala wasn't the biggest fan of what I made this week - stuffed shells, stuffed peppers. Hopefully, Troy and I can come up with recipes that please the whole family.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KERALA!

 

Okay, we didn't post on her birthday, but that's because we were busy celebrating it. Kerala had a fabulous birthday weekend. It started off with a visit from her Aunt Kim from Arizona. Unfortunately, Kim was at our house for all of two minutes before Kerala fell walking and cut her lip. This was the first time we have seen blood. Kerala is fine, but it was a bit scary.

On Saturday, we hosted two birthday parties for Kerala. It was pretty crazy and, I must say, very exhausting. Kerala did really well at both parties. She even danced to her favorite song while watching the video of herself dancing on tv - it was pretty funny to see to Kerala's dancing at once. She really enjoyed her cake and she would say "ooh" in between bites. Not only did she eat cake for the first time, but she also tried pizza and loved it.

Kerala was able to show of her new walking skills at the birthday parties. She is definitely very wobbly, but seems to be getting better at it each day. She has even figured out how to turn into her room from the hallway. We have a couple of videos of her dancing that we will post soon.

As far as other developmental milestones, Kerala is actually getting a small voculabulary. In addition to saying "cheese," she consistently says "dada" and "baba" (for bottle). She has said "mama" in the past, but that is not as consistent as "dada" and it seems to only come out when she is really upset. She has also said "shoes" when playing with her shoes and "moo" when you say the noise.

Finally, we had our 1 year doctor's appointment yesterday. As many of you know, I am always worrying about Kerala's weight. Troy and I were going into the appointment thinking she would be somewhere in the 18 lb range, but we were wrong. She is a bit under 18 lbs, but is still in the same weight bracket. The doctor wasn't worried at all and told us not to worry. The shots didn't go as well as they had in the past and she really hated her tb test.

11 months, 4 weeks, 1 day

 

Well, we are down to our last week before Kerala turns one. The blogged photo is of Kerala and our cat, Cloud. Kerala LOVES Cloud and Cloud tolerates Kerala pretty well. Kerala has gotten into the habit of giving Cloud a hug everytime Cloud comes near her. We don't usually let Kerala pester Cloud, but Cloud does seem to come up to Kerala to antagonize her. Kerala has learned to play games with Cloud, which is pretty funny. Troy and I will help Kerala waive a string at Cloud and Kerala just cracks up everytime Cloud goes for the string. Also, Kerala likes to play catch with Cloud (for those of you who have never met Cloud, she actually does play catch). The only problem with Kerala playing catch is that she typically throws the wad of paper (Cloud's favorite catch toy) at Cloud's face.

Since our last post, Kerala has been making great progress towards walking - she has even taken a few steps on her own before toppeling over. She will generally try to walk if you hold something out for her that she really wants (i.e., cheerios, tv remote, phone). She has also been doing really well if you hold onto her hands. Kate, a friend of Kerala's and Ellen's, told Ellen that she doesn't think Kerala will learn to walk, but instead just learn to run. I thought that was pretty cute and sums Kerala's personality up really well.

Kerala's babbeling is really sounding more and more like words and it really does seem that she is trying to have a conversation with you. Troy and I also think she was saying cheese this evening. It really sounded like it and it wasn't the first time that I had suspected her of saying cheese. She was saying it during snack time. Kerala has also been signing "more" which is very fun. I must give the credit of her learning sign language to Ellen since Ellen has been really consistent with it. Troy and I try to be consistent, but sometimes we just forget.

Kerala is still working on her top two front teeth so she has been pretty fussy at times the last couple of weeks. Her top left tooth has broken through the gums, but we are still waiting for that top right which we can see just beneath the gums. Her recent teething has resulted in a horrendous runny nose.

11 months, 1 week, 1 day

 
 

I know it's been awhile since we have posted. I have been really busy at work so at night I usually end up working after Kerala goes to sleep and haven't had time to blog. I am not complaining though because my job has been flexible enough so that I can come home and play, feed and put Kerala to bed. Since our last blog, Kerala has been mastering her push toy and everything else in the house that she can push (i.e., landrey basket, box of goldfish crackers, etc.). Kerala also figured out how to push her little monkey stuffed animal around on her push toy - it was pretty cute and, I thought, quite clever of her to figure out. She is also still obsessed with her books. At least once a day, she takes all of her books (and there are a lot of them) off of her bookshelves and reads them.

Today, we took Kerala to her first haircut - we did splurge and take her to one of those fancy kid hair places (mainly because we were afraid to cut her hair ourselves). Anyway, she did pretty well until about halfway through it when she decided that she just had enough and she wanted out of her little car chair. The first hair cut package included a film of tte haircut, which we watched when we got home. Fortunately, the experience wasn't too traumatic for Kerala as she was laughing at the film.

Kerala is in the process of having her two top front teeth come in. She has been drooling like crazy and pretty fussy. With the teething and her giving up her morning nap, there has been some major fussiness at the Smerry household lately. We still try to get her to take a morning nap, but we may be giving up the nap completely after her top teeth come in. We are hoping that the teeth have been interfering with her sleep schedule and that she will resume her am nap.

Also, I must say that I think Kerala may be going through a growth spurt. She has been eating her table food like lately (although she has not been drinking as much from her bottle). Today, for instance, she had 2 1/2 pancakes and a serving of fruit for breakfast and then another pancake and a good portion of a banana two hours later. Troy and I are kind of shocked at how much she has been eating lately.

10 months, 3 weeks, 5 days

 

Well, it has been chilly in Chicago. On Saturday, we ventured out to go to Kerala's music class. We had the pleasure of bringing Henry, JT's and Tamra's almost 3 year old, to class. Both Henry and Kerala seemed to really enjoy the class. Henry told me that his favorite part was the singing and that it was super fun. Kerala's favorite part appeared to be playing the drums. She managed to play every drum in the classroom. On Sunday, we stayed in because it was way too cold to take Kerala out. We occupied our time by letting Kerala explore the textures of cool whip. She had a pretty fun time putting her hands in it and playing with it with a spoon. She did get to try a bit and, as evidenced by the photos, she seemed to like it.

Lately, Kerala has been fascinated by her books and flipping the pages. Given how active and on the go Kerala has been, I am amazed at how long she will sit and read books with us. She does flip the pages at warp speed, so we try to tell as much of the story or describe the pictures as fast as we can. It's pretty cute though when she is reading a book by herself, she will lay on her tummy and just flip and stare at the photos. She does have a couple of favorite books that she lights up whenever you read them or get them down from her bookshelves. Her favorite one for the past month or so is a dog book that she received for Christmas. The book is very interactive and lets babies feel different textures and make the dogs move - unfortunately, she has read the book so much that a couple of dogs are missing their heads and legs.

Kerala still is making progress toward walking. It seems like she will stand and bear crawl the most right before her bath after we get her out of her clothes. Hopefully, she will put together the fact that she can stand and wear clothes at the same time.

10 months, 3 weeks

 

Lately, Kerala has been standing more and more on her own. She is able to get to the standing position by herself, but usually plops down after a couple of seconds. Last night, she stood for maybe 5 seconds and then fell on her butt. She is a really good sport about falling and rarely cries. Ellen also noticed that she may be saying her first word (or sort of word). Today, while making a bottle, Ellen asked Kerala what she was making on a couple of different occasions and Kerala responded by saying "ba ba." Ellen and I both refer to her bottle as ba ba, so this is very exciting. Kerala has also mastered her two favorite push toys - a little car push toy and a laundry basket. It's the funniest thing watching her push them around the house since she looks like a little penguin.

As Kerala is getting older she is getting to be more of a handful. She really likes to crawl under furniture or a couple of her toys. There is one toy in particular, her Leap Frog table, that she likes to crawl under. Unfortunately, once she is under the toy, she usually gets stuck. She has also figured out how to get out of her exercauscer. Troy and I relied on it as a place for her to play for about 15 minutes in the morning while we both got ready for work and school. The other day she figured out that if she leaned over far enough, she could shimmy her way out. Unfortunately, this means I have to wake up about 30 minutes earlier. Waking up a bit earlier normally wouldn't be that big of a deal, but for some reason Kerala decided to wake up at 5:30 am the last couple of days which is killing us. Hopefully, she will sleep in tomorrow.

Everything else is going well here. Troy and I have been pretty busy with work and school. Right now, Troy is studying for the patent bar which he plans to take in March - wish him luck.

10 months, 1 week, 1 day

 
 

Since our last post, Kerala has been quite busy. This past weekend we had a three day weekend that was jammed full of fun activities. On Saturday, Kerala had music class and two play dates. The first play date was with our friends Deb and Chris and their son Felix. Kerala and Felix did really well together - it was one of the first times that I felt like Kerala was actually playing with another baby and not just doing her own thing at a play date. Kerala had a blast chasing Felix around and playing with Felix's puzzles (we need to order some for Kerala based on how much she enjoyed Felix's). After the play date, Kerala had another sort of play date at our friends JT and Tamra's. We shared a babysitter (Ellen) w/ JT and Tamra that evening and Kerala played a bit and then went to sleep over at JT and Tamra's while the adults attended Festivus (a party our friends host to celebrate Festivus from Seinfeld).

On Monday, we went to the Children's Museum with Tamra, Silas and Henry. Thank goodness we were going w/ Tamra because our car broke down on Sunday and Tamra was able to fit three car seats in her car. Henry, Silas and Kerala had a blast at the musuem - there were a ton of activities for Henry and a number of baby friendly crawl spaces for Kerala and Silas. Check out the photos from the museum to see Kerala standing on her own in one of the baby crawl areas.

Kerala has been cracking us up lately. She has been really high energy and fun. As far as milestones, she was bear crawling tonight, which means she was crawling using her feet rather than knees. We don't know if this means she is closer to walking or what - it was quite amusing seeing her crawl around with her butt in the air. Also, Kerala is standing more and more on her own, so long as what she is standing on is soft (i.e., our bed, the mats at the Children's museum). She won't really stand by herself on hard surfaces unless she is distracted by whatever she is playing with.

Our biggest issue with Kerala lately has been sleep (isn't this always our biggest issue?). She is sleeping really well at night - typically 7:30/8:00 - 7:00 w/ very very very little, if any, fussing during the night. The problem we are having is with naps. She cut out her afternoon nap 3 days last week. On Monday we thought we would experiment and try to cut out her morning nap so she would take a longer afternoon nap - that didn't work very well (actually she had a major meltdown over it). This past week Ellen has been experimenting with pushing her morning and afternoon naps back a bit. She has been going down around 9:50 or so for her morning nap and then not going down until about 3:30 for the afternoon nap. We have decide if this is going to work since it does mean that there are some days she doesn't wake up from her afternoon nap until after 5:00. So far this hasn't messed up her bedtime routine, so we will see.

9 months, 4 weeks

 

As you can see by the photo, Kerala's two bottom teeth are coming in. They are above the gums, but not completely through yet. She is also working on one of her top front teeth. You can also tell by the photo that she is in a desparate need for a haircut. We are planning on getting it cut this coming weekend.

The weekend started off on a great note but ended on a not so great note. Kerala had her first music class with mixed age students. I was a bit nervous about how she would do since sometimes she gets a bit shy in new settings, but she did amazing. She was crawling all over the place, playing with the musical instruments and even crawled up to the teacher during the good-bye song and gave her a hug. After music class, Kerala got to visit with Grandma Sue and Connie, a friend from downstate. She had a very nice visit, but you could kind of tell Kerala was a bit out of sorts.

On Sunday morning, Troy and I woke up on our own without Kerala crying to wake us up. We were shocked that she had slept in and we started to think that maybe she inherited our love of sleeping in. Troy brought her upstairs at about 8:30am (almost 2 hours later than what she has been sleeping to) and after about 15 minutes of playing Kerala threw up all over us. We took her downstairs where she continued to be sick - it was not pretty. Both Kerala and I changed our clothes at least 4 times. After being up for an hour, she went back to sleep for two hours. When Kerala got up from her morning nap she threw up again - not a good day. Kerala was up for two and 1/2 hours and then took a pretty short afternoon nap. Fortunately she didn't get sick again, but she was still really out of sorts - tired, cranky at times, super cuddly at times. When we spoke to the doctor earlier in the day, she said there really wasn't much we could do other than pedialite, nurse her often, and introduce bananas, rice, apples and toast back into her diet slowly. By bedtime, Kerala was in better spirits, but still sick. Hopefully, she will be better tomorrow.

9 months, 3 weeks, 3 days

 

I am happy to report that our sleep training is still going really well. At night, I can put Kerala down in her crib and she rolls over and goes to sleep - no fussing at all. Hopefully, this isn't a short lived phase. Troy and I are still shocked at how well this has gone - she really hasn't cried at all. I still rock her for a bit before she goes to sleep, but I generally put her down while she is a bit awake so she can learn to fall asleep on her own. Also, we have eliminated the night feedings, since she really isn't waking up for them now. Because Kerala is sleeping through the night, she is waking up about 45 minutes earlier. It's nice to have Kerala up a bit earlier in the morning so I can play with her for an extra 30 minutes or so before I head off to work, but some days I also really miss my sleep since I can no longer sleep in.

Kerala is now getting really good at waiving on command and she now consistently waives good-bye. This morning I was practicing blowing kisses to Kerala while she was eating breakfast and it really seemed like she was imitating me. Hopefully, she is picking up that as well. Her babbles continue to sound more and more like words and Troy, Ellen and I swear that she has said "daddy" twice when looking at Troy.

I am looking forward to the start of our music class this Saturday. Our last music class ended about 2 months ago. This class is for mixed age students, so Kerala will be in a class with 9 month year olds - 4 year olds. I am anxious to see how she does with the older kids. Usually she is fine w/ older kids. In fact, she tends to freak someone of them out because she chases them around or grabs onto them. Over New Year's she had backed Rollie and Henry (both 2) into the corner of their little play school bus - it was quite funny.

Below are some links to some additional videos Troy made. Don't worry everyone, someone was behind her during the stair climbing video (in fact you can see Troy's hand in places). Hope you all enjoy.

9 months, 3 weeks

 

First of all, I apologize that we have not been posting very frequently. We went away for New Year's and have been trying to get back into the swing of things around here. Kerala had her first trip out of the state over New Year's. Every year we get together with friends over New Year's in Michigian. In the past we have rented three houses - the quiet house, medium noise house and loud house. This year we still rented three houses, but instead of the medium house it was the kids' house. In our house there were two other families and Kerala had a blast playing with all of the kids. We did have some trouble with sleeping while we were away, but it did seem to get better as the trip progressed. Kerala also had her first major injury (check out her nose in the photos). She was pulling up on our bed on the trip and fell and hit the bridge of her nose on the bed frame. We felt so horrible. Fortunately, she only cried for about 30seconds when it happened and the bruising is basically gone now. Poor girl.

Since we have been back we have done a bit of sleep training and (knock on wood) it has worked really really well. Troy and I realize that we can't go on forever rocking her to sleep, so we now put her to sleep when she is a bit drowsy and lately she has fallen right to sleep. Also, I have begun to cut out her night feedings. At first we were just going to cut out her 3:00am feeding, but last night she slept through the night completely (missing her midnight and 5:00am feeding), so maybe she has decided she doesn't need them either.

Since we last blogged Kerala has learned to waive when you say hello to her and, occassionally, good bye (although she typically claps her hands when you say good-bye). She is also babbling a lot more and I feel like some of the sounds she is making are sounding more and more like words.

One final note, my friend Kristy e-mailed me a very sweet story about her son Rollie. For those of you who know Troy, you know that he just has a way with kids. Kids just absolutely adore him and want to be around him. Anyway, Kristy and Dave and their two children, Val and Rollie, stayed in the kids' house over New Year's. Rollie who just turned 2 this past October really enjoyed playing with Troy over New Year's. Kristy e-mailed me to let me know that when she was tucking him in bed when they got back home from the trip she said "I love you Rollie" and Rollie's response was "I love Troy."