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.