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.