Quick Milestone update

Katen's been busy learning lately!
Here are some of her new tricks....

Her bottom teeth are definitely in. They're really cute and she's been feeling them with her tongue. She's also started biting so that needs to stop.

Much to my surprise, she's going from sitting to standing all by herself without leaning on anything. She just gets up on her knees, squats and then stands like a big girl! She can stand alone for quite a while and is coordinated enough to wave at me and not fall over.

Did I mention that she's waving now? Yep, that's cute too. She's also fully caught the swing of using the sippy cup. Too bad it automatically gets thrown overboard every time she uses it though. I ended up tethering it to the high chair tray with a suction cup, and a bungee cord.

Each night before bed we read a book. Usually I point things out to her on the pages but now she gets out her little pointer and points things out to me. That lonely little digit is so sweet.

What else? Ohhh... how could I forget? For mommy's birthday Katen said her first word. Guess what it was.

"Dada."

Oh she's a turkey. Now that's all she says over and over and...

Our music classes seem to be paying off. Play a little music at our house or sing a song and little Pickle immediately begins rocking back and forth or if she's standing she has to do a little dancey dance. I need to get some video.

We're working on weaning from overnight feedings this week. At 10mos Katen should be able to make it through the night without a bottle. She's great about going to sleep in her crib by herself but really pushes for that bottle around midnight and 4am. I've been successful at patting her behind and giving her a lovey to get through the midnight feeding. The 4am one hasn't been so successful so I'm going to start putting half water and half formula in the bottle. If her body learns not to expect the extra calories at night then it won't signal her to wake up hungry. (I have no doubt that she truly does feel hungry.) If she can make it from 7pm to 6am without waking this will be one happy momma!


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Pickle VS Swiffer

Here's a little video of Katen making her kitty sound, and also she and Swiffer "playing" with each other.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

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Katen is a Finalist!

UPDATE: We Won!!

Here's Mommy talking with the morning radio personalities

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And Here's the magazine cover that Katen is on.



Funny story about this. As you can see from the original message below, I thought that I'd submitted a different picture. You'll hear me tell the radio station that she was 6 months old in the picture. I'll bet they thought Katen was the smallest 6 month old they'd ever seen. Oops!

*************** The previous message below ************************

I just got a message that we've been picked as one of three finalists in our local radio station's baby picture contest. They're going to put the winning mother and baby picture on the cover of their magazine. It's a spoof on "People" magazine called "Person Magazine." I can't remember the exact details, but the winner gets a savings bond and something else. They'll announce the winner on Monday so we'll know then if we've been picked. Cross your fingers!

This is the picture I submitted. (I think.)




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Two parental traits linked to academic achievement

I found this article interesting and thought I would share.

"Recent data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has found that two parental traits-warmth and what researchers term "low intrusiveness"-are linked to academic achievement in first grade. Warmth, that is, showing affection and emotional support, is important to encourage a baby or toddler to explore, persist, and learn. "Low intrusiveness," or letting a child play and to try to solve small problems on her own, also adds to cognitive growth. Sometimes being supportive means moving a desired toy within a baby's reach, rather than handing it to her. And sometimes learning requires a moment of frustration. A study showed that anger was associated with active attempts to overcome an obstacle, while sadness was related to giving up. So, while it may be hard to watch, know that when your baby gets angry when she can't do what she wants, it's a healthy response."


--Week 43 of your baby's infancy; Mercy Medical Center Newsletter
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10/10/08 Headlines: Dow and Gas $ drops after US Financial Bail Out Plan

Katen, some day you're going to look back at this and wonder what the heck our President was doing during his time in office.... (I think he was busy picking his nose instead of leading the country but you make the call.)

Headlines for today -

• Investors have shrugged off an array of market-stabilizing efforts by world governments, including a $700 billion U.S. financial rescue plan, several bank bailouts and a coordinated interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve and central banks around the globe.

• The $700 billion US Financial Bail Out Plan, passed by the House and quickly signed into law by President Bush Friday(10/03/08), was supposed to jump-start the crippled credit markets and get the money flowing normally again to consumers, businesses, corporations and governments. But it remains to be seen whether it will work.

• Frozen credit markets and a loss of confidence in the world’s financial system have caused the Dow to drop 21 percent in just 10 trading days.

• Oil prices plunged in another violent sell-off today, briefly tumbling below $78 a barrel as investors grow more pessimistic about the prospects for resolving a mushrooming global economic crisis. Gas price as of Friday, October 10, 2008 is $2.899/gallon in our city. A barrel of oil hasn’t been this cheap in 13 months. These steep losses came as Wall Street extended its staggering decline for an eighth straight day and headed for its worst weekly drop ever.

• The Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 500 points in mid-afternoon trading.

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Pickle Tricks

Here's a little video of Katen showing off her tricks. If you listen closely you can hear her do her immitation of the kitty. (She does it the first time I ask but not after that. It's a high pitched nasaly sound.) Instead of making her "meow" sound again she decides to wave bye-bye and play so-big.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

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Just in time for Halloween... a jack-o-lantern!

With Katen being out of daycare this entire week we've had lots of fun.

She and mommy went shopping for pants one day. (For both of us.) Katen's 3 month size pants are finally too small so we need some 6 monthers so she wasn't wearing high waters anymore. We've been passing them off as fall cropped pants long enough. ;) We also found a cute book at Baby Gap that has a finger puppet built in. It's about a ladybug and the face of the ladybug is the puppet. Katen gets a real kick out of that and she's finally really sitting in my lap long enough and interested enough to read a book or two at a time.

If you look closely you can see the rash.

Another day we ran a few errands, got groceries, and brought home a couple of jack-o-lanterns. We tried taking a few pictures but Katen really hates grass. Hate might not be a strong enough word. She hasn't been exposed to much grass because of her awful outdoor allergies and sitting her in it without socks about put her over the edge.

On Friday, Daddy came home early to relieve Mommy so we all went to a local apple orchard. There Katen carefully picked out a pumpkin and we were even able to snap a picture of her standing all by herself. (My goodness she's growing up so fast! It's nuts!) We also brought home some apple and pumpkin pie.

...and just in time for Halloween, (so she can look like a jack-o-lantern too) Katen is finally getting her first teeth in. The bottom front two are working their way in which is causing the poor kid a lot of grief.

Do you think she has enough toys?

So is her Halloween costume. We tried it on to see if it would fit okay. She was SO.Not.Impressed. Good thing we didn't go with the Lamb costume.

It's Sunday night now our little pickle is peacefully sleeping. Her rash has finally receded and life has to go back to normal tomorrow. We'll get up at the crack of dawn. She'll scream like mad and wiggle in every direction while I do my best to change her diaper and dress her. (It's like nailing jell-o to the wall.) Then she'll tell me "na na" (no, no?) and crawl off as fast as she can to go find Daddy. I'll get showered and dressed while she takes a bottle and watches sports center with Dad. Then we'll head off to daycare and work. I'll realize half way to work that I'm still listening to baby songs... and love every minute of it.

Typical Katen. Running around with one sock on and one sock off. I'll find the match laying somewhere all soggy. I hope it tasted good.

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Nine Month checkup and Roseola

Here are our big girl's stats at nine months:

Height: 27 inches - 50th percentile
Weight: 19lbs - 50th percentile

They also took blood to check her hemoglobin levels. This tells us how much iron is in her blood. Sometimes children become anemic if they don't have enough iron in their diet. Normal levels for children are 11 - 16 g/dl and Katen's level waws 14 which our pediatrician said is the highest she's seen is quite a while. (Yay!) It really helps that Katen loves her fruits and veggies. She's also doing pretty well with chicken and turkey now. (She used to be a sensitive to chicken.)

Those first two bottom teeth are working their way in and Katen is chewing and drooling on everything. She'll even try to teeth on the stairs. yuck. She's enjoying a little star that vibrates when she chews on it, and also a little raspberry shaped soother that looks like a binky but has bumps to soothe those gums.

Other milestones we discussed are that she's crawling, cruizing, standing with one hand and sometimes no hands, saying a few words (ma, da, cat, baba = bye bye) and waving. She's a pro at throwing her ball, and her latest development is so cute. If you ask her what the kitty says, she'll make these tiny, high pitched little sounds to mimic the cat. It's not "meow" but its more like "eek eek eek." The pediatrician says that kids often times have their own words for things like that and eek eek eek to her means meow. Either way, it's really cute.

During our appointment, I also had our pediatrician check a rash that was taking over Katen's body. On Saturday and Sunday Katen had a pretty high fever. She was hovering in the 102 - 103 degree range even while taking Tylenol every four hours. Late Saturday night I ran out to get some Infant Motrin and that started helping on Sunday night. Katen was still grumpy, having several loose poops, and not sleeping very well though. On Tuesday, I noticed some spots showing up on Katens belly and neck behind her ears. By the time I undressed her for her pediatrician appointment a few hours later, she was covered in red dots. Our pediatrician said right away that it was clearly Roseola.

Katen has to stay out of daycare until the rash is gone. Some sources say it's very contagious and others say its not. Nonetheless, mommy is home with Katen until she's spot free. I'm sure we'll find some fun stuff to do. :)

Here's another time where I sure wish Katen were still nursing. She seems to pick up every little virus despite our best efforts to keep her germ free. (Or as close as it's logical to be given she's a mobile infant who is teething.) She does get a very balanced diet though so we're doing our best!

I also brought up that Katen doesn't like to eat very many oz from her bottles at daycare and the pediatrician said that if she's a good eater, we can move to three meals per day and two snacks. She'd like to see Katen get at least 12 oz of formula though whether that's in a bottle or in a sippy cup. That shouldn't be a problem. I'm planning to try a new eggless recipe for breakfast bars very soon. That will be a handy little breakfast for her during the week. We'll see how that goes.





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