Friends

Allison’s 9 Month Checkup

Katherine and I took Allison to her checkup today, with the high hopes that Allison would be packing a bit more weight and height. In short…she’s grown but not quite as much as we had hoped! She’s 16 pounds (10%), a slight improvement over her 5-10% trajectory. Her height improved a bit – measuring 27.5 inches (50%), increased from her 25% height at the last appointment.

OK. I think it’s fair to say that Allison really doesn’t like the pediatrician office. We walked in, looked at the fish tank and entered our exam room. Allison did well up until I sat her down on the crinkly examining table paper. Her face crumpled, and she started opening and closing her little fist – seemingly saying, “Feed me Mom and Get Me Off This Table!!” I took off her clothes and placed her naked on the scale. The wailing then started and continued while the nurse measured her length and head circumference. Of course, Katherine reveled in the experience. She sat crisscross applesauce on the table, telling Allison “it’s OK baby, it’s OK.” Then Katherine, with a huge smile on her face, turned to the nurse and said, “Allison’s getting shots?” Allison finally calmed down as I held her and the nurse left the room.

Our pediatrician came in and checked out Allison as she sat on my lap. He assured us that she looks great and that the nurse would be back in. The next several minutes were just traumatic for Allison. First, we sat in the lab part of the office while the nurse pricked Allison’s toe and squeezed out blood to check hemoglobin (all’s fine). Then we went back into the room and the nurse gave Allison two shots in the leg. I tried to nurse Allison, but she was inconsolable. We ended up going to the minivan, at which point Allison calmed down and nursed. Needless to say, it’s a Baby Tylenol night. 🙂

Where did you hear THAT?

Katherine is just a sponge. Here are some choice snippets that have emerged the last few days…

– “Bye kiddos!” – going upstairs to play in the playroom. I have no idea who says this.
– “Uh Oh Spaghettio” – this one is from Patty.
– “I’m doing the best that I can!” – working on a puzzle. I admit that this is from me.
– “I’m going spinning!” – I asked her if she knew what spinning was, and she had no idea. She’s just heard me say this before I go to the gym.
– “Ste-fe-scope” – I asked Katherine what the doctor uses to listen to her chest. She still can’t say the “th,” but she tries.

We have the most interesting conversations. Katherine, my mom and I went to an Asian grocery story yesterday. On the long drive home, Katherine was getting antsy, and they had this conversation:

My mom: “Katherine, can I take Allison home?”
Katherine: “No”
My mom: “Why not?”
Katherine: “Because Mama wants her!”

Maps and More Maps

I recently went to a teacher’s supply store in Bellevue and picked up, among other things, a US map place mat and a laminated poster of the continents. Katherine thinks these are really cool. She’s been learning a song in preschool that goes like this: “North America, South America, African, Europe and Asia. Don’t forget Australia! Don’t forget Antartica!” Now she points to the continent map and gets Africa and Australia. North and South America get mixed up and Europe and Asia are indistinguishable to her. This afternoon, I asked her to tell Allison about the continents. Katherine at length told Allison that Mom and Dad had been to Africa and that all sorts of animals lived there. She then dragged the Africa book (Art Wolfe) out and flipped through the pages naming those animals she knew. Thankfully, she managed not to hit her sister with this enormous book.

She also eats sitting at the counter on her US map place mat. I’ve been telling her stories like, “I grew up in New York…it’s the pink state!” or “Your Aunt lives in Massachusetts, where’s that?” or “Mickey has a second house in Florida!” It’s cheesy but she really enjoys these discussions. She can pick out states that she’s visited and where family lives. She also makes up silly stories about Lambey living in Lake Michigan or Katherine spending lots of time at Cannon Beach.

She’s Standing!

Allison is well on her way to walking. Today, I saw her remove her death grip from the coffee table and stand unassisted for a good second. Patty reminded me a few days ago about the walker that Katherine used at 8-9 months. I dragged it out and set it up. Allison’s eyes lit up and she was SO excited to be able to push and walk behind the walker. Initially we had to remind her to walk as she pushed it and leaned increasingly horizontally. Now both girls can push the “Baby grocery cart” and “Big girl grocery cart” shopping among the three upstairs corner rooms.

She’s also walking more surely and quickly with assistance. It’s not unusual for us to walk down the hallway and around the house. Funny enough she loves walking so much that, at times, she won’t bend her legs to sit down. Instead we’ll try and put her down on her bottom and she’ll push hard to stand up!

We’re Cruising Now!

Allison’s reaching new milestones daily it seems. Today she showed her cruising skills, moving from her Leapfrog learning table to the coffee table (learning table was next to the coffee table). She managed to turn her body and feet 90 degrees – to position herself in front of the coffee table – and then move further down the coffee table itself. Steve was the first to witness this. I saw it replayed a few minutes later. She’s still a bit wobbly but getting more confident every day.

Not only is she moving around readily, but she’s also waving her arm and hand bye-bye. Last Friday she waved bye to Patty as Patty was leaving. Today she waved to Steve when he walked into her bedroom this morning. This continued throughout the day – I think I even saw her waving to Bisco under the kitchen table!

We’re the bowels…

Steve almost spit out his dinner tonight trying not to laugh. Several weeks ago Katherine “graduated” from the Leapfrog Letter Factory to the Word Factory DVD (although she still loves watching both). With the former she learned all her letters (upper and lower) and phenomes. With the latter she’s now learning about vowels and how letters make words. One of the first songs on the DVD goes like this “A E I OU, we’re the vowels, we’re the glue. We stick words together, we’re very sticky letters…” Tonight we were singing away as Katherine was scribbling on her easel and Steve and I were eating dinner. Katherine’s rendition went something like this “A E I O U, we’re the bowels, we’re the glue…” Needless to say we think we set her straight…”Vvvv, not Bbbbb”

Reading books now has new meaning for Katherine. Her favorites these days include Amelia Bedelia, Carl and Clifford. I’ve started to use the cover pages as a way to have Katherine identify letters and me to sound them out. She said tonight “R E D B O O K” – and we sounded out “RED.” Anyway, we’ll keep persevering to see when she gets to the next stage of putting together “B and AT, C and AT, etc.”

Allison’s On the Move!!

Yes…Allison is now crawling. She took her first observed forward crawl this past Monday morning. I was watching Allison while Katherine and Patty were off on an outing. I was riffling through plastic containers full of Katherine’s old clothes. Allison was rolling around with her toys. I looked over to see her reaching for a toy just out of reach. What did she do? She schooched her foot underneath her. But instead of rolling to the side as she had been doing, she pushed off and inched forward. Since Monday she’s gained speed – even Patty on Friday (after only two days away) exclaimed that Allison was moving much more quickly – almost anywhere she wanted to go at will.

What else? She is now walking forward when we’re holding her body or hands. This also started early last week. On Wednesday I took the girls to my mom’s house for lunch. Allison surprised her grandma by walking back and forth between us – with us holding her body – slowly but surely putting one foot in front of another. Now she’s gotten very good at asserting her will. She turns her head in the direction she wants to go. Once we help position her body in the right place she starts to move her feet!

Her other source of massive excitement is the coffee table in the family room and the ottoman in her nursery. What’s the attraction? She can stand and bang her hand against the coffee table and inspect the bumper around the table. I also put toys on top so she can bat them down, have me pick them up. On Tuesday we spent a whole 15 minutes or so hanging out at the coffee table. Anytime we’re near it, she’ll roll to it and give me the look “Get me up, will you please?”

The next development floored Patty – although I have yet to see this. Yesterday Allison was at Patty’s sisters house playing with a wooden table toy. She put her hands on the top of the table from a sitting position and pulled herself to a standing position!

Now that she’s more active, Allison is chowing down much more food. Previously she’d eat maybe 6-8 spoonful’s of oatmeal consisting of one tablespoon of dried oatmeal and a little formula. Now she’ll eat twice that amount more quickly. For lunch and dinner she eats easily two ice cube sized portions of sweet potato, peas/brown rice, carrots, or summer veggie medley, etc. She also eats very thinly diced banana pieces from my fingers. I managed to coax her into picking up a piece – although she’s very adept at picking up her O’s and stuffing them in her mouth with a pincer grip.

Tea Party

Katherine and I went to a small little tea house in Redmond last Friday much to her delight. The whole tea party thing started the week before when I told her that we had a special surprise: we were going to a real tea house on Friday with her little friend and her mother! For two whole days she kept asking “is today Friday?” I also told her that we were going to use real tea cups and a real tea pot. After she climbed out of her tub, we had this exchange:

Katherine: “Is it bigger than this?” waving her pink tea kettle from her play kitchen

Christine: “Yes, it’s much bigger”

Katherine: running back and waving her beige pitcher “is it bigger than this?”

Christine: “Yes”

Katherine: waving at tea kettles on her PJs “how about this?”

The next two days she informed my mom, Patty and Dad that she was going to a tea party. I was very clear with her that she HAD to listen to me and use manners at the tea house if she ever wanted to back. On Friday she tried sooo hard to behave. We ended up waiting half an hour to be seated since we had four little girls with moms. The girls used the opportunity to read books with us. Then we sat at the tables waiting for our tea pots and food to arrive.

Katherine’s eyes bugged out when she got her real porcelain tea cup and saucer. She first tried her tea “I don’t like this” and then settled on my strawberry and cream herbal tea. We negotiated that she would get one very small brown sugar cube with it, and she drank it very carefully with both hands.

Then the food on the platter arrived. Jam sandwiches, carefully cut fruit and a small round brownie were arranged artfully on a pink platter. Her eyes got even bigger. Katherine ended up eating all the sandwiches, half the fruit and the brownie. She loved the experience and informed me that she wanted to go back!

Listening to Mom and Dad

Steve and I are working on our overall approach to discipline. With Katherine getting more adroit at “negotiation” we’re having to be very careful about the precedents that we set. For instance, on a couple rare occasions, Katherine managed to venture out of the house in her ballerina outfit. Now she is pushing very hard to do so again telling me “I wore my ballerina outfit to Subway!” She also wants to wear this outfit in the mornings before school and after school and then after her bath over her PJs!! Needless to say, we’re setting down some clear guidelines about the ballerina outfit not leaving the house, not being worn before school or over her PJs…

We decided to resurrect the potty training rocks telling her that when she fills a small cup with rocks that she can have specific tea party book now residing on top of the fridge and have a small tea party. She has the choice of having a tea party at home (courtesy of yours truly) or at the little tea house in Redmond – ONLY after she fills her cup. Surprisingly she says that she wants a tea party at home, with Allison, me and Steve!

The good news is that she responds well to semi-bribery, now helping to clean up her toys before bed to earn a rock, and that we’ve got a very attractive incentive model when we need it. She wasn’t very excited about getting her tea party book after filling her cup – having a mini-meltdown at the mall after I bought it – but she’s accepted that that’s just the way it is. 🙂 Now if we could only get her to stop freaking out over that pink ballerina outfit!!