Daddy's little beauty

Taylor Update

My apologies to those faithful readers out there who are wondering where we went and to those who would much rather read about and see pictures of Taylor instead of our house. With that said, here is a little update on Taylor. She will be 10 months in 5 days, and she is all over the place. She is a champ at the army crawl that some babies do and every now and then she'll crawl on her hands and knees. I haven't gotten a picture of it yet, but she is also squishing up her face and breathing in and out real fast through her nose...you know, that thing that all babies do. Another thing she has learned is to push herself from her belly into a sitting position. It's so cute to see her sitting up in her bed sometimes when I go in to get her up. Last Friday she had her 9 month check-up with her new pediatrician and all went well. I really, really like her new Dr. and am very glad I switched. Taylor weighed 18 lbs. 13 oz. (after drinking a few ounces while in the waiting room), was 27 inches long, and her head circumference was 44 cm. Speaking in terms of percentages she was 60th for weight, 30th for length, and 50th for head circumference, so it looks like we have ourselves a short little chunk with an average noggin. Not that we have any problems with that whatsoever. They don't get any shots at the 9 month appt, but they do have blood drawn to check for anemia and have an eye test to make sure they're focusing correctly and make sure they don't have a lazy eye. She did great on the eye test and didn't even make a sound when her toe was pricked - she's a tough little cookie. Her iron was fine, but her white blood cell count was a bit elevated. The Dr. didn't seem concerned and said to just watch her and make sure she's not coming down with something. She's been fine with the exception of an occasional runny nose. The Dr. said to start giving her more finger foods and protein, to start her on a sippy cup so she can try and figure out how to use it, and to lower her crib mattress to the lowest setting because she'll probably start to pull up soon. I know every parent says this and I pretty much put it in every post that I talk about her age/development, but they really do grow up too fast! It's about time for me to start thinking about her 1st birthday party. Here are some random pictures from the last few weeks. I don't feel like trying to put captions as it is sometimes very frustrating, so the pictures are as follows: 1. Rocking back and forth on her hands and knees in an attempt to crawl, 2. Big bow and ponytail, 3. Post-ponytail holder hair-do, 4. Quite pleased as she watches a video of herself, 5. Pretty little profile.

Uh-oh

We had a bit of an accident at the house today (although it was more like a freak incident). I (Nick) was painting the crown moulding in the den and I had to use a ladder to reach it. When I got finished with one section I left the 3/4 full paint can on top of the ladder (use your imagination as to where the story goes next) because I had to climb down so I could move the ladder a few feet forward. However, there were a few things in the way of the ladder so I had to move them and that apparently completely took my concentration off what I had just done. So after moving the things out of the way I proceeded to pull the ladder towards me. The ladder hadn't moved a few inches when I hear a loud thud. I look up and I see little globs of paint flying through the air. It then occurs to me that there was a can of paint on top of the ladder. Long story short, in about a second everything in the den that was within 20 feet of the launch site looked like it had been splatter painted. And I mean everything, as you can tell by the pictures.

Here's a brief list of what got hit: the kitchen table, every single thing on the table, my phone, Robyn's phone, the camera, several of Taylor's toys, the couch, the loveseat, the coffee table, the ceiling, the chandelier, the rug, all the pillows, the exersaucer, and the high chair. We were able to get all the spots off the couch, but the $100 love seat didn't share the same fate--it's got a slipcover in its future. We also got a good bit of paint on the brick wall so we'll try to get that off tomorrow.

It took us close to an hour to clean up the majority of the mess, but we haven't even started to clean several things. All in all we took it well--I couldn't stop saying "I can't believe that just happened" and Robyn took it in stride and started cleaning without complaining.

We're very thankful that:
1. Taylor wasn't in the room -- we had put her down for a nap not 5 minutes earlier
2. Our new carpet wasn't installed yet -- we get new carpet put in this Monday and it would have been ruined if it was installed earlier in the week.
3. We don't love our "stuff" -- we take good care of what we have but there are much more important things than our possessions

Do you like my dress?

Well, do you?

She's a True Cuban

Abuelo, this one's for you! Taylor loves black beans! Those cuban genes are coming through. I'll have to try the avocado again later, I guess. I have this awesome book that gives you suggestions on what to feed babies when and how to make your own baby food, and black beans are listed in the 8-10 month section. Without the book I wouldn't have thought to feed them to her, but I think she's glad I did. Though she doesn't have her happy face on, she really does enjoy them.

It's Just a Phase

This is what one of my clients (who is a mother of two) says when talking about the various things babies go through. I hope she's right and I hope this is a short one. The past 2 nights Taylor has woken up and stays awake for quite some time. I assume that her gums are bothering her or that she's starting to need more food. Or perhaps it's that she's starting to need less daytime sleep so that's messing up her nighttime sleep. It's all a guessing game. Last night as I fed her around 4 or so, I thought to myself, "I feel like I'm in the newborn days all over again." There are some aspects of the itty bitty newborn days that I miss, but the screaming baby who isn't sleeping well is not one of them. I'll try feeding her more at dinner tonight and hope that it works. But I'm afraid that it's mainly because she's teething...which, unfortunately for Taylor (and a little for me if I'm eing honest), is a phase that lasts for years.