15 Months

I know, I know. I am AWFUL at this whole blog thing. But let's focus on me for just one second. I got a new job!!!! What does this mean for Tori's blog? Clearly, more time to maybe focus on this thing more than once every 3 months. So here's to more frequent future posts.

height - 30 3/4 (50%)

weight - 19 lb, 4 oz (7%)

milestones - holy miss independent! Tori does not need us anymore, nor does she want us! She walks on her own, which is great, but she won't hold our hand. Which is awesome. ... She recognizes friends her age, including our neighbors who are 2 months younger and 3 months older. She blows kisses, which is the cutest thing and waves good bye. She gets pickier and pickier with her food every day. Isn't it suppsoed to get better?? One day she likes something, the next day not at all. So we just try to roll with it and not commit to any one food. She has started to be more interested in some things if she can feed it to herself. Like yogurt. We tried this one out in a restaurant. (see below) She has 12 teeth fully in and her 4 I teeth coming in now.

problems - still dry, itchy skin all over her body. The doctor finally decided it was time for allergy testing. He decided we shouldn't still be talking about her itchy skin, so I took her yesterday to get blood drawn to get her tested. She did sooooo well. She cried out when the needle went in and when they took it out, but there was no squirming, no screaming, not even a tear!! I went in with so much anxiety, and left feeling so proud of her.

On a random side note, we finally had to start putting her hair in pigtails to get it out of her face. I think she looks like an anime character now, but at least her hair isn't in her eyes anymore.

12 Month Checkup

...almost a month late...

height - 29 1/4 (50%)

weight - 18 lb, 4 oz (10%)

milestones - stands up with no help; creeps all around the place with the help of furniture and "walks" holding on to our fingers; speaks a number of syllables non-stop; tries eating almost everything we give her but often decides all of a sudden she doesn't like it; we are working on having her feed herself with her fork; started drinking milk from her sippy cup but doesn't love it; 4 bottom teeth and 4 top teeth; separation anxiety is more pronounced;

problems - still dry skin all over her body; and I think we are removing her earrings until a much later date due to her skin's reaction to them.

Dr. said that although her weight gain is slowed, he is not concerned. (Although, I was a little bit unsettled myself when I just typed 10%...) Said developmentally she is doing well. Once we run out, we will stop formula.

She is definitely developing her own personality. And we definitely have a daycare baby. She picks up other babies' attitudes while I'm sure developing her own. She yells when she doesn't get what she wants, and definitely knows what she wants. I'm sure my sister is smiling right now...I did get a daughter just like me. ;) Some of it might be our fault. Like when we offered her a crumpled up bag and took it away right as she reached for it. She thought it was funny, so we did it some more. Yeah, now she does it to other kids...we're jerks...

And since I'm a month late, I can add the update that Tori is walking just before 13 months. :)

Tori turns 1!!!

My baby turned 1 yesterday!! We went to dinner with my family and had a little cake for her. She loved diving in and grabbing a handful of icing. :) She finally figured out how to clap on her birthday. She was in such a good mood at dinner...singing, dancing, making silly faces.

I am so happy to see her growing and developing and learning. But what I wouldn't give to be hanging out at home with my newborn girl again. Mostly because 1. I would be with Tori and 2. I wouldn't be working.

Looking forward to her birthday party this weekend. 30 of our closest friends and family at the park. It's going to be good times! Here's to a great 2nd year!

Finger foods

Tori just this week decided she's done with baby food. They wanted to switch her over to finger foods at daycare anyway to get her ready for the next room. Do you guys have any unique ideas for meals I can send to daycare? Here are some things I have so far...

toast
cheese stars
pasta (we use the Muellers garden delight pasta...made w/ veggies!)
fruit (although we still have to experiment with this one)
rotisserie chicken pieces
baked chicken nuggets
yogurt (clearly not a finger food but they will feed her that)

Anything else you can think of?

Tori's new fascination

We have one of those barnyard magnets on the fridge for Tori. You know, the kind where you match up the front and back of the animals and farmer Bob plays his banjo. We also have her bumbo on the kitchen floor for when she used to sit in it while I gathered her bag for daycare in the morning. Well, this is what we witnessed on Christmas morning. She pulled off all the animals, one by one, and dropped them in her bumbo. She was so proud!


She does this more and more often now. We have the Playskool ball popper. While it's on, she pulls them all off and puts them on the floor next to her. Once they aren't coming out anymore, she puts them all back in through the chute they came out of. Same thing with her box of blocks. It absolutely fascinates me to watch it.

Tori's first Christmas

Christmas season started with pictures with Santa! As my sister and Shawna and we were getting out of the car at the mall, some random told us not to bother. Santa's elves were having computer problems, so the line was forever long. We agreed to eat lunch first then go check it out. We got to Santa while he was at break, but decided we'd wait it out. Yay, he came back! First kid goes...computer stops working again! But this time it was fixed much quicker. But by now, Tori's getting tired, so any chances of a smile were shot. Still a cute picture.

Later, I was wrapping presents while Min was out one day. Tori decided to help me. She's not so great with the tape yet...

On Christmas Eve, we went to church. We switched out the usual midnight mass for the 6:30 mass. After that, we went to dinner at Bash with Min's family. After such an exciting night, we had a sleepy baby on the way home.

Yay! Christmas morning. She didn't do as good with even the wrapping paper as I would have thought. But she still really loved all of her gifts. She was interested for literally a second, then decided it was too much work. But here are a couple of Christmas morning pictures.

These were her gifts from us.

We went to my sister's for breakfast. Shawna got a Zhu Zhu pet that Tori did NOT like. :( It came towards her. She pushed it away with 2 hands, screamed, and ran to Min. She kinda dug Tim's new socks, though! She got a Little People dump truck and SUV and a play phone from Aunt Denise and Uncle Tim.

Then off to mom and dad's for Christmas dinner. And more presents!!! She hasn't figured this out completely yet, but she got a cool walker toy. As well as some fun blocks and a xylophone.

We had a great turkey and ham dinner. Tons of desserts. Of course, Tori ate anything and everythign we put in front of her. Except for the second bite of watermelon. She spit that one back out at me. I guess she didn't like it so much...

All in all, Christmas was great!

10 Month Checkup

Has it been 2 months already?!?

height - 28 1/4 (53%)
weight - 17 lb, 13 oz (19%)

milestones - pulls herself up to standing and has started letting go; speaks a number of syllables non-stop; eating almost everything we give her and drinking water and a mix of grape juice and water from sippy cup; 2 bottom teeth and 4 top teeth; and loves investigating her hands and wrists and using them to wave and pull her fingers on either hand (her idea of the "more" sign, I think); mimics us with kissing, sticking out her tongue, and playing hide and seek with a shirt or blanket herself; eczema is showing improvement!!!

problems - still dry skin, but face is getting better

The appt went great. I think it's weird that her growth slowed down so much. She only grew 1/4 of an inch from last time, which explains why she's been in the same onesies for what seems like forever! But the Dr. didn't seem concerned, so I'm not concerned.

Our living room floor will temprorily be less cluttered as we decided to put away the Exersaucer, the play mat/gym thingy, and the swing. I'm sure something bigger will take it's place soon, but it will be nice to have some free space again!