Outgrowing things

The rate at which Callie outgrows things has blown my mind since the very first onesie that became too small. From the clothes to the diapers to the bassinett to the sleep positioner to the first bathtub to the playmat to the bumbo seat. It's hard to give these things up because it proves she is growing up.

And now it's her swing. I put it up in the attic last night. It was a lifesaver for us for many, many months. 8 months to be exact. It traveled with us on a few trips because for a bit, it was the only place she'd go down for a nap. But now that she's become so mobile, being in the swing is the last thing she wants to do. Pulling up on the swing is a more favored activity. Crawling under the swing is fun too. But being in it..not so much. So, we put it away. I have to say, as sad as that is, it's really nice to have it out of the midddle of our living room though!

We also had to lower her crib yesterday. I walked in to her room on Friday morning to get her to find her standing up waiting on me. Arms outstretched towards me...and there goes more heart exploding feelings...but also, it made my heart about leap out of my chest because the crib rail hit her just above her belly. If she knew how, I really think she could have gotten out of there. Soo, down went the crib. To the lowest level. Because who wants to mess with lowering it again in a month when she gets even taller? Not me!!

My heart might explode...

Tonight I put Callie down on the floor of her room and went into her bathroom to start her bath water. After starting her water, I turned around to go back to her room to get her. As I turned around, there she was. She had followed me in there. Crawled after me. As I turned around and noticed her, she squealed in pure delight as her eyes met mine.

And I thought my heart might explode right out of my chest.

Now every day when I pick her up from daycare, she recognizes me when I come in the door. There is not much better than that moment. When she sees me and starts kicking her legs and smiling and squealing. Today she crawled to me when I came in. Such sweetness. There went my heart feeling like it would explode again.

Tonight as I prayed with Callie before putting her in her crib, I thanked God for those heart exploding moments. I know there are many, many more to come. And I can't wait.

  

8 Months Old

Callie Tate is 8 months old today! She is growing up so fast.

I love her big silly two-toothed grin in this one.

Taking these pictures is getting harder and harder! Don't believe me? check out all the others...

She's all over the place!

A few things about our girl...

-She is crawling now! Check it out HERE.

-She is wearing mostly 9 month clothes or 6-12 month. Some of her one piece outfits are 12 months.

-She wears size 3 diapers.

-She is starting to get a tooth on top.

-She has started making the m and d and g sounds. But mostly she just says dada. Or dadoo or dadadada or daaaad or just plain old dad. See where I'm going with this? Every thing is DAD.

-At her 8 month appointment (which was supposed to be a 9 month appt but the receptionist scheduled us wrong), she weighed 18.4 pounds (57 percentile). She is 27 inches tall (48 percentile) and her head is 47.5 cm (99 percentile).

-She drinks six 6 ounce bottles a day. Because my milk supply is slowing down somewhat, those bottles are 4 ounces breastmilk/2 ounces of formula.

-She eats baby food like crazy now! She loves it! All of it, every kind. She eats two 4 ounce fruits and two 4 ounce veggies a day + rice cereal or oatmeal. She makes quite a mess now when she eats and loves to rip her bib off. If I drip any food on her tray, she is quick to rub it all around and make a big ole mess. Blowing raspberries at me when she has a mouthful of peas is fun too. As you can see.

-She loves going on walks so much!

-She had her first trip to the zoo last weekend. She loved it! You can see that HERE.

-She consistently wakes up once a night nowadays. Gone are the days of our baby sleeping through the night. *sigh* But I'm embracing the middle of the night snuggles. Those happen at about 2:00am each night. She drinks a bottle and goes right back to bed. Then she sleeps until 6am when she wakes to eat again. Sometimes she goes back to bed then, sometimes she stays awake and plays gets into everything while we get ready for work.

-We had to take her headrest out of her carseat this past month. She has gotten too big for it. She rarely cries in the car and she cried all the way home from school and all the way to school the next morning. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I took the headrest out and voila! She was happy again.

-She takes at least 2 big naps a day. Typically she takes one in the late morning that is an hour and a half and one late afternoon/evening nap that is an hour and a half too. She sometimes takes a few smaller 30 minute naps as well. She takes those naps in her crib at home or her crib at daycare. 

-She doesn't like her swing very much anymore. She tries to get of it so we don't put her in it much anymore. She still really likes her excersaucer. She has many toys that she loves, many of them are the ones that sing songs and make a lot of noise.

-She loves "reading" books. She opens and closes the books over and over.

We love our little 8 month old sweetie pie!



On the move!

  We've got a crawler on our hands!!

She's been working on it pretty seriously since Thursday. 

(video taken May 12, 2011)

 

But she officially took off crawling for the first time yesterday, on Sunday. 

(video taken May 15, 2011)

And today she proved that she can do it quite well, including going from laying down to sitting up. 

(video taken May 16, 2011)

She's on her way!

(video taken May 16, 2011)

She hasn't quite figured out how to go very quickly yet and still has to be bribed to move from place to place, but I'm sure it won't be long before she takes off on her own all the time. Maybe I want it to be a while before she gets to that point! I have a feeling it will just be a day or two though. ;)

Zoo!

We woke up this morning and it was such a beautiful day...not too hot, but sunny and pretty...and we didn't have anything else going on, so we decided to take Callie to the zoo. She absolutely loves to take walks, so we figured that this would be like a glorified walk for her. She might not notice the animals too much, but we knew she would enjoy it. Courtney and I had such a great time! Callie was the perfect little zoo-goer. :)

 She is ready to see the animals!

Daddy and Callie

 Getting her pose on.

The giraffes were the highlight for Courtney and me. We acted like we'd never seen one before! 

I could have sat and watched them for hours. They're really beautiful.

The more I looked at them, the more amazed I was at what interesting creatures they are.  

Callie liked them too.

They have a petting zoo area where you can pet and feed the goats. When we first walked up there, I put Callie's stroller right in front of the little window of the fence. The goat below stretched out so far and stuck his face right in Callie's. Scared me to death! HA!

Courtney bought some food to feed them and he put it in the tray of Callie's stroller. That goat ate it right out of there. Callie just watched him.

Courtney fed one out of his hand. Apparently, that's pretty gross. hehe

When this little goat stuck his head out, Callie let out a strange scream sound. She didn't like him so much.

Our little family

What a fun day!

If we have it, she will eat it!

The title of this post makes me think of the movie Field of Dreams…“If you build it, they will come.” And that quote makes me think of my dad. I watched Field of Dreams with him when I was a kid. I think I might have fallen asleep during the movie. I remember trying so hard to stay awake and knowing he really liked the movie and wanted me to see it. My memory is hazy as to whether or not I actually fell asleep or not, but I just remember being tired and trying very hard to stay awake.
Anywhoo…

Back to the point of the post…if I try to feed it to Callie now, she will eat it. Basically whatever IT is. You may [RECALL] that is a far cry from where we were when I started baby food with her when she was just shy of 6 months old.

I’ve been trying baby food with her every day since I first started with her and she would maybe take a few bites, but more often she would blow raspberries at me and push the food away and cry. She really wouldn’t have any of it. Then about 2 weeks ago, it just clicked. She first started to eat YoBaby yogurt and she loved it! I had seen a commercial for it and decided to give it a try since she wasn’t digging any of the baby food or rice cereal or baby oatmeal or pureed banana or pureed avocado. I bought the blueberry kind and the apple and sweet potato kind. She loved the apple and sweet potato but would have none of the blueberry. So, I just fed her the apple and sweet potato yogurt every day. Then I started adding in other baby food and she would open her mouth and eat whatever I put in front of her! I couldn’t believe it! So we stocked up on all kinds of fruits and veggies and yogurts and baby oatmeal and rice cereal. She loves it all. There isn’t anything she hasn’t liked yet. When we eat out, we give her bread and samples of our food in tiny pieces. She also eats baby food now at daycare too. We've come a long way in the food department! YAY!

Big Girl

Callie has reached some “big girl” milestones at her ripe old age of 7 months. I am constantly amazed at the things that she is doing now or wants to do.

For example, she always wants to be standing up. Usually she does this with our help. As I’ve said for months now, she will pull herself up while holding on to little more than one of our fingers. Now she tries to pull up on everything in sight. She doesn’t want to be sitting. She doesn’t want to be crawling, which might be why she still isn’t, at least not in the traditional ways of crawling. She doesn’t want to be rolling around, which she can do quite well.

She wants to be standing. Like this.

And now she can do it, while holding on to something for support, all by herself!

Another “big girl” moment came when we put her in a high chair at a restaurant for the first time. We tried that out on Mother’s Day. My first Mother’s Day, except Courtney reminded me in my card from the dogs that he gives me every year that it isn’t really my first Mother’s Day. I’ve been celebrating Mother’s Day for the last 7 years since we got our first fur baby, Lambeau. ;) Anyway, we tried putting her in the high chair on Mother’s Day. She’s been ready physically to do that for quite a while, but we always feel like she is more easily contained in her carseat when we are in a restaurant. But, she did great! While sitting in the high chair, we fed her bits of bread and she played with her table top toy.

Callie has also gotten big enough to ride in the shopping cart! Until now, we’ve always taken her into stores in her carseat. We still do that on big trips to Wal-Mart because it’s just easier that way. She is big enough to ride all by herself in the cart now and she really enjoys it. Of course, she tries to grab at everything within reach now too.

I say it all the time, but I just want to freeze time right now. She is growing up way too fast! This age is such fun and I want to keep her here for just a little while longer…or maybe a long while!!