…and more to come soon, hopefully.
Promise I’ll write some stuff and maybe post a few vids too. *When* I get around to it.
Ava’s second year through my phone lens:
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For those of you who don’t have instagram/twitter, here is the collection of photos I took for March in a ‘Photo a day’ challenge. I did get slack towards the end – not all of them are taken on the day they were supposed to be. Whatevs.
Each of the photos have a caption – you can either click on a photo and scroll through as normal, or you can hover your cursor over any photo to see its caption.
More media coming soon, but that should whet your appetite for a bit. 🙂
And what a year it has been.
Born at 50 cm, 3.2 kg and a head circumference of 34 cm, she now measures 74 cm, weighs 8.7 kg and has a head circumference of 45.5 cm.
But let’s talk about the past couple of months. Probably the biggest news that you’re likely aware of is that my little monkey is now walking. She took her first steps 2 days after she turned 11 months, and probably about a week before her first birthday she made it her primary form of locomotion. Toddling is very cute – I love the arms up in the air for balance. It was interesting to watch her develop this skill. She went from 2-3 steps one day, to 8 steps the next and although averaged about 4-5 steps for the first week quickly clocked up a record of 15 and then 30 steps the week after. It seemed to stagnate there for a few days and then bam! She just woke up and decided that she was finished with crawling. It’s exciting, but it’s getting hard to convince her that stairs need to be crawled down backwards – she just wants to walk down them now. That’s only a little bit dangerous.
We’ve also been quite sick – both Ava and I. It’s probably coming up an entire month of being infected with the plague, and it doesn’t look like relenting any time soon. I’ve got another doctor’s appointment to get some different antibiotics because clearly it’s developed into bronchiolitis again. Edit: We’re both well now, though through coughing fits I managed to strain muscles, sprain a rib facet and pinch a nerve all on the right side of my back. Almost better after a couple of osteo treatments (and about a week of hardcore painkillers).
Childcare is going well – she still cries when I drop her off, but apparently she stops as soon as I walk out the door and I’m always told what a great time she’s having there. I’m noticing the difference in her at home as well – although still clingy, she warms to people a lot quicker, and she has become very social with kids – I’m finding it hard to entertain her on my own – she wants to be playing around other kids. Edit: when I dropped her off on Thursday, she didn’t cry! Woohoo!!
No words yet, but ‘Da’ is probably her favourite sound – she says it the most and has also started pointing at things when she does. Hopefully we’ll get a contextual word soon, but for now she is refining her walking skills. Edit: Grammy thinks she might have her first word in ‘Ta’, but I’m as yet unconvinced, because it sounds very much ‘Dad’ and although she seems to use it in context, she still points at different things and says ‘Da’. Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see, Grammy, we’ll see.
We had our first night away from Monkey on my birthday, and it was fantastic. She went and stayed with Grandma and Pa in the hotel around the corner, and Andrew and I had a home-cooked risotto meal, some red wine and watched a movie. I definitely needed the wine to begin with – I felt very empty when she walked out the door, but it was absolutely worth it for the sleep in the next morning! We slept the whole night, right through to 8 or 9 in the morning. Uninterrupted! Amazing.
Her first molar is in the process of breaking through, and it really has confirmed my opinion that kids should be born with teeth. Our breasts would adjust, and our poor little mites wouldn’t have to go through all this pain.
Her climbing skills have also become quite refined – there’s almost nothing that she can’t climb on now. Technically she can’t climb straight onto the couch or coffee table, but if there’s a pillow on the ground that she can stand on (which there often is), then she can. Andrew had to make a large TV cabinet to store away all the cords because she was climbing on top of the speaker, onto the TV table then around the back of the TV to where all the cords were. Little monkey. Now that the cabinet is done, she definitely cannot get to them, which is good.
She has become fussy with food, which is very unfortunate. She no longer wants to be spoon fed – she *must* do it herself. She loves to eat fruit (her favourites are grapes and bananas), vegemite toast and pasta. But everything else (including her vegies)….hell no.
Just this morning I’ve given her some soy milk (because we discovered that she has a dairy sensitivity – nothing dramatic but her nappies smell like you wouldn’t believe if she has dairy – and that includes yoghurt, which apparently isn’t supposed to do that), and she seems to be okay with it – she certainly isn’t guzzling it down, but she’s gone back for more, so we’ll try to keep going with that so she can get some calcium in her diet. Life would be easier if she’d eat more things! I know, she’s only 1 – I’ve got a lot more fussiness to come. But at least you can communicate with them when they’re older – though that might be even more frustrating when they can’t be reasoned with. Ugh, who’d have ’em?
One of the cutest things that she’s doing at the moment, is picking up her clothes and placing them on her shoulders and around her neck (think preppy sweater placement), and then walking around. Often you’ll catch her with two to three items of clothing on her shoulders/neck, toddling around with arms in the air. Not sure why, but it’s pretty damn adorable.
She has always been a cuddly girl, but now that she’s really mobile it’s more obvious just how much she loves cuddles. Aside from walking towards you with arms open to fling around you for a hug, she will often grab a toy/book/something she’s not supposed to have, walk towards you and then turn around when she’s about 50 cm out, and then walk backwards until she falls into your lap and then sits very contentedly in your lap, snuggling into you but also investigating whatever it is that she’s holding. Lots of ‘awww’ moments.
I am also very proud to say that Ava is a natural headbanger. She does the classic baby bob-dancing, but also swings her arms and nearly always nods her head vigorously. I must try to catch it on film; it’s damn fantastic. 🙂
This is so late that today is actually Mother’s Day (I’ve been writing this post for nearly two weeks!). I’ve had a lovely day: I got pancakes for breakfast (and lunch), and Ava was mostly well behaved, plus we cleaned out the shed for our hard rubbish collection, which I always find very cathartic. I got a little candle-glass from childcare with Ava’s coloured scribbles all over it, presumably somebody helped her – but damn! It’s really lame how much you adore shit your kids do/make. I never want to throw it out. I’m sure by the millionth thing I’ll be over it, but it’s still very much a novelty for me.
I’ve got a fair bit of media here for you today: first, our regular gallery:
Next, a few nude videos for you:
First video; starting to walk (and trying to copy Dada):
Second video; happily babbling:
Third video; carrying around clothes (not on her shoulders though):
And lastly, a year in photos, from my phone:
I have *still* more media, but it can wait for another post (or two). I’ll try to get to it tomorrow!
Peace out,
XX
This, my darling daughter, is Wil Wheaton‘s response to a woman who asked him to explain to her daughter why it is awesome to be a nerd. He is a wise, wise man.
Work + family events + major sickness = very, very late updates.
Think I’ll just stick with photos for this update and give you the latest goss in the 1 year update.
Hanging out on a hot day:
It’s not centred at all, but she finds headbanging funny:
Captured on film for you all, the royal wave:
One year update coming for you all soon, I promise.
Yes, I’m late. But you’ve got twitter and instagram to keep you company at the moment, and pictures are way more awesome than blabber, right?
She’s growing up so quickly! On Friday (the 8th) she weighed in at 7.9 kg, measured 72 cm and had a head circumference of 45 cm. She got that eighth tooth at 9 months 13 days, so not long after I posted her 9 month update. She’s teething again, but I think it’s just the teeth moving rather than breaking through any time soon. Poor monkey.
That cold lasted for about a month and developed into a bronchial infection for which she had to have antibiotics. She is finally better, though probably not for long – because she’s just started childcare! It’s only one day a week and she’s coping with it surprisingly well (better than me, I think). I only cried a little bit! Technically she cried more than me, so ner. Only a little bit of crying, lots of playing (though needed to be held most of the time I think). When I arrived to pick her up from her first orientation, she didn’t even cry like she usually does when I turn up after being away – she crawled over to me, and even waved goodbye to the staff. I thought that was pretty good for a sooky-la-la.
She’s had a couple of nights now without her milk feed – we successfully went to a wedding and she ate dinner and went to bed without complaint for Grandma, which was fantastic. She has done it once more, when I went to Soundwave last week. She’s still feeding well and it hasn’t seemed to affect my milk supply, which is reassuring. It’s nice to know that theoretically I could have a night away from her!
She’s been saying mamamama a lot recently, and has added yayaya to her vocabulary – no dadada yet. Hehehe. She’s getting more and more mobile – everything is to be tackled. She can easily round corners now, and has started climbing at every opportunity, which Andrew blames on swimming lessons (I’ll elaborate next paragraph). She is also now able to get on and off her Scramble Bug all by herself, which is a little nerve-wracking to watch because you feel like she is going to fall over as it moves whilst she’s in the process, but she manages to hold it steady and get on (or off). She also doesn’t like to zoom around on it anymore – she likes to ‘pedal’ along the ground, so it’s slow, back-straining chugging along for the moment. We bought her a walker and although she was uncertain about it in the beginning, she pushes it along reasonably easily now. It’s better on carpet because it doesn’t scoot along too quickly for her.
She has started taking swimming lessons, which both she and I really enjoy. It’s mostly singing and splashing in the water so that they feel comfortable, and the most practical part of it is teaching them how to crawl out of the pool if they fall in. So, she’s started climbing on the couch up onto the windowsill, and crawling up and down the windowsill, much to the anxiety of her grandparents.
So, I have recently joined instagram at the behest of my sister. I’m not sure I’ll stick with it yet – I don’t really like to be limited to square photographs, but we’ll see. If you don’t follow me on Twitter (with which I share my instagram photos), I think that you can access the photos that I’m putting up on this link: http://instagram.com/melkoetsveld. At this stage I’m trialling it throughout March following a ‘Photo a day’ activity. That might help get you some Ava fixes if you require it.
Hopefully next update won’t be quite so late.
Chasing the screen saver:
Cruising around:
Getting Mama kisses:
Peace out!
XX
Holy crap! 3/4 of a year already. Can’t believe that in 3 months my little monkey will be a year old. It has been an eventful month. She is now 69 cm, has a head circumference of 44.5 cm and has unfortunately lost weight and is back to 7.5 kg. She has been sick for two weeks and counting. It’s definitely on the improve – she now is just sooky (as all damn hell) and has a snotty nose. Beats the 39.5 degree fever and constant screaming and crying that we had for about a week there. Which week? Oh yeah, the week we were in Swan Hill, so poor Grammy couldn’t give her a cuddle. 😦 She went off nearly all food, but now she’s back breastfeeding with a vengeance – probably almost doubling her normal intake, so I’m feeling a bit tired.
This month has been very physical. She started crawling early in the month – she had a few days of doing a few ‘crawls’ then falling back to the caterpillar, then one day she woke up and it was just like she had decided that she was done with caterpillaring. She just started crawling and hasn’t looked back. She can get a fair speed up now, which is keeping Pixel on her toes. Fun times.
She has definitely got the pulling-to-a-stand thing figured – there is not a surface within reach that she can’t get to, which makes storing things on the coffee table quite interesting. She can also now plonk herself back down well, which is good because the few days where she couldn’t and she’d just stand there and cry. In addition to that, she is also cruising (walking whilst holding onto furniture) very well. She had about two days where it was slow and shaky, but now she sees something and goes for it. She can also switch between the couch and the coffee table, which I think is pretty impressive, though she hasn’t figured out corners on her own yet – she can use me to round the corner of the coffee table, but can’t do it on her own yet – she plonks herself down and crawls to reposition herself.
Today (probably belongs in the 10 month post) she even got herself off the scramble bug, which went much better than I was expecting.
Little monkey also now has 7 teeth with another on the way in the next few days. She had three come through in 9 days and another two within another couple of weeks. She won’t even be 9.5 months when she has 8 teeth. Hopefully teething gives us a bit of a rest for a while before the dreaded molars come through.
She mostly babbles with ‘bababa’ but when she’s sooky she says ‘mamama’, which I can’t figure out if it’s a good thing or not. Awesome that she hasn’t said ‘dadada’ yet (because it annoys Andrew) but sucky that he can legitimately say ‘she wants you’. Dammit.
One advantage of her being sick for so long is that she’s been pretty tired at nights (well, her sleeping hasn’t been great), which means that she has fallen asleep on me a few times after her night milk feed. Awwww. So gorgeous. Just trying to lap it up before she’s back to normal health and definitely not sleeping on me. She also got put to bed by somebody other than me for the first time (Andrew), with no night milk feed because I went out to a birthday. I felt anxious the entire time (clearly), but she coped fine with it. Good to know, because we have a wedding this weekend and Grandma gets to put her to bed. Not sure how that will go, but we will only be half an hour away so we can come back if need be.
She had her first time at the beach as well…we went to Cam’s in Anglesea. I’d love to say she loved it, but it was the beginning of the cold, so she wasn’t doing too well at that point. I think that if she was well she’d enjoy it, but we’ll have to wait till next time to see I guess.
We’re getting more adventurous with food – we’ve had corn, peas, broccoli, cauliflower and even spaghetti bolognese, which was pretty damn messy, but a load of fun. Well, for her anyway.
Christmas was exciting – she was very spoilt by everybody and actually liked pretty much everything she was given. The big winners were her ‘scramble bug’ (a ladybug ‘bike’) and her coloured rings, but she still plays with everything else she has been given. Seeing her on her ‘bike’ has made me a bit sad – she is growing up so quickly!
Hopefully next update she will have regained that weight.
Here’s what you come for:
First time on the scramble bug:
A quick crawl:
I will also be uploading a few other photos to Facebook soon, a few more Christmas photos as well as updating the Ava photos over there.
Peace out!
XX
I know, it’s a week overdue. Christmas is a busy period, okay? She’s 7.5 kg, 67 cm long and has a head circumference of….I forget. Whatever the 75th percentile for 8 months is. Head circumference that is – she’s on the 25th percentile for everything else.
We’ve definitely nailed the reflux medication – she either doesn’t wake or only wakes once now, which is just awesome. I am finally getting some decent sleep! Woohoo!! So glad that’s sorted. 🙂 She’s also usually having 2-3 naps a day, usually 1.5 hours – 2 hours long now. Yay!
She still very much loves her solids – she’s losing interest in breast every day at the moment. I’m starting to lose interest as well, because the little beach is biting me quite frequently at the moment, and boy, does that hurt with two little sharp teeth. I can’t figure out how to stop her. I scream, yell, swear, tell off calmly, remove her from the breast, offer later, don’t reoffer….and everytime she thinks it’s hilarious. If she keeps this up, weaning is going to be sooner than I originally thought. She might be teething though – her top two teeth look a little bulgy. Maybe they’ll come through soon and she’ll stop biting. I digress though…she’s eating a piece of vegemite toast in the morning in addition to her two veggie meals, and anything else she can get her hands on.
She isn’t quite crawling yet…she still caterpillars around but she’s mastered the art of pulling to a stand. Well, mostly. She can do it on surfaces that are low enough for her (e.g. the bath, but not quite the coffee table yet), but she hasn’t quite mastered the skill of sitting back down. She’s also just figured out how to hold her sippy cup (on her 8-month birthday no less!).
Probably my favourite milestone so far though….she’s finally started babbling. She’s only on ‘ba ba ba ba’ at the moment (though last night when crying she said ‘ma ma ma ma ma ma’, but technically that belongs in the 9 month post), but it is a-freaking-dorable. Better than the squeals she usually gives.
She’s transitioning to size 0 clothing, but that should hopefully last her all through summer. She has a plethora of dresses but we’ve just realised that she can’t wear them that often because it’s impeding her ability to learn to crawl properly. Boo.
Changing her nappy has become more difficult now, because she’s always rolling over ontoher tummy in order to crawl away….pesky baby!! Not really funny when she’s pooed everywhere.
I can’t think of what else she’s done this month…but let’s be honest…you’re not here for the words! Here is what you’ve come for:
Videos:
So this one is way too long, but it’s so freaking cute I just couldn’t cut it short. Bath giggles:
The caterpillar:
Dancing with Dada:
Until next month, peace out!
XX
What a month! Not even sure where to begin.
Let’s begin with her stats: She weighs 7.45 kg, measures 66.5 cm and has a head circumference of 43.6 cm. She is absolutely sitting unsupported now, but not for very long, because she wants to be on the move! She is not crawling in the conventional sense, but she is very, very mobile – she can get all around the house if she really wants to. It’s kinda like a cross between a commando crawl and a caterpillar dance move. It’s surprising just how quick it is though. She crawls very excitedly towards her Bumbo when I bring out her morning breakfast…more excited than boob these days. She even tries crawling in the bath, which I hear makes things pretty difficult.
She definitely loves her vegies, but she’s not fussed on fruit – nectarine was absolutely rejected (see video below), and even avocado was turned down. I did give her some frozen banana the other day and she didn’t seem to mind that too much though. She is also hand feeding herself small pieces of toast and Cruskit that we give her. She takes a lot longer to eat these and it gets pretty messy, but she seems to enjoy it.
And finally…..we have teeth! First one popped through Friday night and its partner on Sunday night. She hasn’t even had very overt teething symptoms either, which given her previous troubles, was pleasantly unexpected. So much so that we didn’t even know she was teething until we saw the tooth in her mouth Saturday afternoon!
Also, we *might* have gotten her reflux sorted, though I’m hesitant to get too confident lest Murphy strikes me down. She’s waking 1 – 3 times a night, and hasn’t even had a night feed the past 9 nights! Woot!! The paediatric gastroenterologist switched her from losec to nexium and also put her back onto zantac, albeit a much higher dose. He also said he didn’t think that babies often developed a tolerance to it, more that the dosage is inappropriate. So, fingers crossed he’s right and she doesn’t develop a tolerance to this higher dose.
We also bought her a jolly jumper, which she absolutely adores! It took her a little while to get the hang of it, but now she bounces her little heart out.
I think I also forgot to mention that she loves her turtle (well, technically it’s a tortoise, but whatever) that Dane and Jacey bought her – she gets to press its foot and hear it giggle when she gets her nappy change, and her face lights up incredibly so. It’s now gotten to the point that when I say ‘turtle’ she grins in anticipation, turning her head to look at it. So damn cute.
She is developing the pincer grasp, though still prefers to use her entire hand to pick things up. She also, not unlike her older furry sister, has an obsession with tags. She will scoot across the lounge to get to a towel….to play with and chew on the tag. Crazy girl. She also, much to the chagrin of her sister, loves getting into her box of toys and pulling them out all over the loungeroom floor. You can almost see the look of ‘Hey, they’re MY toys!’ on Pixel’s face.
In other ick news, turns out my hypothyroidism is caused by an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. In a nutshell, my thyroid is completely f***ed and I’m going to be on medication for the rest of my life. Not technically a big deal because it’s just hormone replacement, but I’ll have to undergo regular checks to make sure that my levels are doing okay. Apparently it wasn’t triggered by my pregnancy, and I may have actually had this for a while and not known. Seems like a funny coincidence to me, but I’m not an endocrinologist, so I guess I’ll have to take his word for it. It has a strong genetic component and often occurs in clusters with coeliac disease (though I do have IBS which he said may be linked) and type I diabetes. Also means this excess weight is going to be mighty hard to get rid of and might be around for life. We’ll see what happens when I finish breastfeeding, because I obviously can’t restrict my food intake at the moment, and I don’t think I could exercise much more than what I am doing currently. This is frustrating because the extra weight is impacting upon my ability to exercise by placing extra pressure on my joints and already screwed up shins. Haven’t been able to run in two weeks because of a strained achilles, so I’m limited to walking, cycling and strength training. Le sigh.
I guess all in all things are going well though – I’m getting sleep for the first time in a very long time, so it’s a lot easier to handle everything! I don’t think I’ve been angry with her for a good couple of weeks now! 🙂 But, she’s just woken up so I had better go and pay attention to her rather than write about her. I’m sure there’s something I’ve forgotten, but there’s always Twitter.
Here, have a butt-load of media.
Using her jolly jumper for the first time:
Better skilled in the jolly jumper:
What Ava thinks of sorting laundry:
Bathtime decisions are fickle:
Nectarine, not my favourite:
Oh yeah….she’s now 7.1 kg, 64 cm long and has a head circumference of 43 cm. If you care.
Dancing to my own rhythm 