On a Mother's Love

I was just listening to a song from a mix-CD I burned when I was pregnant with Addelyn.  There's a song on it called "In My Daughter's Eyes" by Martina McBride.  The first line in is this:  "In my daughter's eyes I am a hero.  I am strong and wise and I know no fear."  And I got to thinking...why is that?  I don't doubt that it's true, because I feel the same way about my mother, so why wouldn't Addelyn feel that way about me?  But in this case, surely it's not justified, right?  Me...be strong?  I can't bench-press my own weight and I cry at movies that aren't even sad.  How could I be considered wise?  I go through most of my life these days guessing at how to be what I'm supposed to be - a good parent.  And I'm certainly far from knowing no fear:  I'm the girl who quakes with fear when anything with more than 6 legs is nearby.  So what reason would Addelyn have to hold me on a pedestal?

And then I realized...it's because I am all of those things.  When I am with Addelyn.  When I'm around my daughter I could do anything it takes to protect her - body and soul.  I feel like a super-hero I have such quick reflexes (yesterday I caught her when she dove off of her chair head-first.  She didn't even touch the floor).  I no longer feel the false limitations my mind puts on my muscles and suddenly I could lift a car off of her if I needed to.  I make all of my parenting decisions with confidence and without hesitation.

But most of all, I am fearless.  My flight reflex turns into a fight reflex and I go from scared little girl to a force to be reckoned with.  For instance, I was taking Addelyn out for a walk one day and saw a dog running at us full-speed.  I couldn't tell whether it was being aggressive or friendly, but my mind just fully kicked into fight mode.  I put myself between the dog and Addelyn's stroller, faced the dog, and waited what seemed like forever for the dog to cross the street.  I wasn't even scared; I wasn't thinking about how the dog could hurt me or whether I would be able to protect Addelyn from it if it tried to go around me straight to her, because failure wasn't even a possiblilty in my mind.  There was no reason to be afraid because there was no doubt that I would succeed.  (The dog ended up being friendly, so all turned out well).  It just amazed me how calm I was able to be.  It seems that way every time Addelyn is in danger.  I never get the adrenaline-rush I always thought I'd get - that rush of fear that says we're in danger.  I just do what needs to be done in the situation without hesitation or emotion - when I'm with Addelyn, I know no fear.  (Unless there's a spider near us...then I'm still kinda scared as long as it's far enough away from Addelyn and she's not in immediate danger :-)

Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice

I took some good pictures of Addelyn yesterday, so I thought I'd share :-)

Addelyn picks me flowers whenever we go outside.  Sweet girl :-)

"Here, Mama!"

Addelyn and her slide.  She just learned to go up the ladder and slide down all by herself:

Here's a nice video of Addelyn's two new favorite things to do outside:  play with her friend the tree (or her friend the fire hydrant when we go on walks).  The game is always the same...she goes up to them and gives them a warm greeting, maybe with some hugs, then says bye-bye and walks away.  After a few steps she turns around and runs back to them.  If she's playing with tree, she'll "scare" it, and if she's playing with the fire hydrant she'll just go give it a hug and, much to my dismay, a kiss.  Rinse, repeat.  Addelyn's other favorite outside activity is playing on her slide.  This video shows the very first time she's actually climbed up the ladder and successfully transitioned to slide down all by herself.  I was quite surprised :-)

Feed the baby some milk

Gotta burp the baby (complete with sound effects from Addelyn)

Now give the baby kisses :-)

Our First Weeks in France

These last two weeks in France have been great.  We had a bit of a rockey start with the apartment having an ant problem and not being able to go to the store for necessities until Tuesday evening (we arrived on Sunday afternoon, but everything in France is closed on Sundays and Monday was a holiday).  But now the bugs are gone and we have food in the cupboards and books and toys for Addelyn, so everyone is happy :-)

Addelyn has a couple of new French books - this is one of her favorites - a matching numbers book.

Jake and I got e-book readers before we left - Addelyn likes to play with mine.  Here, she's telling me that the lady in the picture is smiling.

Addelyn likes to play with belts...oh, the things they decide are fun...

Addelyn has been working hard on potty-training.  We started just after her first birthday.  I bought her a potty-seat just so she could get used to the idea, and she's picked it up very quickly.  I didn't want her to forget while we were in France, so we got another potty seat here and she's been going usually twice per day.  She's even told me she's needed to go twice.  The second time was so cute...she signed "peepee", then she signed "come here" and lead me to the bathroom where her potty chair is.

 On our first weekend in France, we went to the African Safari zoo here in Toulouse.  We all had a great time.  The zoo is set up so that you drive through a sanctuary area where the animals (non-preditors, of course) are just walking around freely.  I saw a rhinoceros for the first time...they're HUGE!  Then you park and go through the walking portion where all of the animals are in cages as normal.

Addelyn in her new FOWARD FACING car seat on the way to the zoo

The first animal of the walking portion:  the emus were very curious

Addelyn got to pet a very friendly mini-horse

I feel like I should make some reference to the Black Swan movie here, but I'm not feeling clever enough.

Addelyn and I in front of the macaws.  She didn't care for them as much as the waterfall beneath them.

 We even saw a sea lion show.  Addelyn sat very patiently as we waited for it to start, and then her favorite part was right at the beginning:  all three sea lions belly-flopped into the water making a big SPLASH.  She thought it was hilarious!  We didn't have the camera out at the very beginning, but here's her a couple of minutes later still laughing and talking about the splash:

We've made some friends already which helps pass the days and really helped when we first got here and didn't know where anything was.  There's a nice family from Dublin, Ireland just down the sidewalk from us who have 3 and 5-year-old girls.  The girls adore Addelyn, and Addelyn likes to watch the "big kids" play.  Also, a French family moved in next door a couple of days ago.  They have three kids:  a set of 5-year-old twins (one boy, one girl), and a little boy a couple of months younger than Addelyn.  So we've gotten the 6 of the kids together to play a couple of times.  Even with the language barrier, they have a great time.  Just last night I took Addelyn outside to play and the twins and the Irish girls were outside playing already, so Addelyn and I were of course joined by all of them plus another French boy from the other side of our apartment (it seems like I always attract the neighbor kids whenever I go outside...even back home Addelyn and I can't play outside without attracting at least 3 kids from 3 different families - do parents play with their kids anymore?  because these kids all seem so starved for attention).  I swear the man that walked by and saw me with 5 kids under 5 and a 9-year-old with no other parents in sight thought they were all mine and thought I was insane.

Here's a couple more pictures I've liked of Addelyn the last couple of weeks.  She's looking more and more like a toddler and less and less like a baby every day.

we spend a LOT of time reading these days

One last funny story:  before the French family with the three kids moved in next door, there was another French family with a probably 12-year-old girl and a baby boy living there.  I didn't talk much with them until the day they left, when the little girl decided to steal Addelyn's ball from our yard.  I was doing laundry, so I had to walk back and forth between our apartment and the laundry facility all morning.  At my first pass of the neighbors' apartment, I heard the girl bouncing a ball, looked over, and saw that it was exactly like the one Addelyn has.  I gave her the benefit of the doubt and just thought it was a coincidence.  When she saw that I saw her, she quickly picked up the ball and turned around to hide it from my view.  Okay.  Probably not a coincidence.  So I put the laundry in and walked back.  As I passed by her a second time, the same thing happened:  she's bouncing the ball, sees me, then quickly picks it up and hides it from me.  I got back to our apartment and confirmed that the ball was, indeed, missing from our yard.  The next time I went to do the laundry 45 minutes later it was the same story, except instead of just turning around and hiding it, she picked it up and ran into her house :-)  Well, I would ordinarly have let it go.  Addelyn wasn't using it and I'm sure it would've made its way back to our yard when she was done playing with it...but given that she was being so secretive about it and that I saw that the family was preparing to move out (suitcases etc...on their front yard) I decided to go confront her.  When I walked up to her the next time, I walked strait for her.  For a second, she turned to run, but you could just see the decision in her face when she realized that I was walking strait toward her - she quickly went from "oh no, run away and hide the ball" to "ohhhhh, is this YOUR ball?".  Only she didn't speak English.  I'm so glad I've been learning French.  I was able to understand her and answer in French (I decided to play along with her innocent scheme).  We ended up playing with the ball together and talking for a while, and then she brought out a delicious pastry for Addelyn, so all ended well.  

Stats:

Age: 13.5 months

Weight: 23 ish lbs

Length:  31ish inches

Drinks: about 2-3 8-ounce sippys of milk per day (all of which is regular whole-milk) with meals and a couple of drinks of milk before bed every night

Eats: yogurt, and some cereal for breakfast; leftovers for lunch (spagetti, sandwiches etc...); and a fruit pouch, and whatever we're having for dinner. 

Sleeps: 11-12 hours/night - 10pm-10am (most nights...sometimes she still wakes up in the middle)

Naps: 2-3 hours per day - her nap is 4 or 5 hours after she wakes up for the day 

Awake for:4-7 hours at a time during the day.

Clothes size:  mostly 18 month, some 24 month

Motor skills: spinning in circles, trying to jump (she rarely gets both feet off the ground at the same time), going up stairs well, going down stairs very slowly and with supervision, running, climbling the ladder to her slide, getting down from high places by herself

other skills:Does hand actions to songs like itsy bitsy spider and little bunny foo foo, starting to pretend-play
words:  mama, up, dada, nana (banana), "Aye" (light), "Bah" (ball), and "Ba (bath)" "ah duh" (all done), "buh buh" (puppy), hi, bye-bye, and NO-NO (is her newest), and I'm not even going to try to list all of the words that she tries to say, but doesn't say regularly.  She's getting much  more clear with her talking now.  I think it won't be long before she explodes in her speech.

signs:  around 50-60 that she does herself.  And she makes up signs for words she doesn't know.

An adventure at the doctor and a conversation with Addelyn

Addelyn had her 12-month checkup (yay!  my big 1-year old! A blog on the birthday will come soon).  Everything went excellently until it came time for Addelyn to get her shots.  She got three this time and, as always, she was NOT happy with them!  As Addelyn always does when she's very upset (like many babies) the initial cry was all in one big exhale.  Usually that exhale would be followed by a big breath and then some very loud screaming.  This time the breath in didn't happen...and didn't happen...and didn't happen.  The nurse and I kind-of laughed it off for the first 5-10 seconds, but then she kept NOT breathing.  I started to get really scared, and then her eyes rolled back into her head and she started to fall over in my arms and then I really started to panic.  My mommy instincts kicked in and I was rubbing her hard on the back and yelling her name and jostling her around a bit to get her to breathe.  Thankfully, the nurse remembered her training and after I sat a partially-limp Addelyn down on the table to get in front of her, the nurse blew in her face.  Looking back, I knew that blowing in a child's face will cause them to take an instinctual breath in, but I didn't think to apply that knowledge to that situation.  As soon as the nurse blew in Addelyn's face she took a deep breath in, came-to, and started crying normally.  This all took place in the span of about 15 seconds, but it felt like forever!  Addelyn did just fine after that and is no worse for wear, and now I know what to do should that ever happen again!

On a lighter note, here's a fun conversation I just had with Addelyn over dinner:
Me:  "Yay!  look, you just ate your vegetables all gone!  What a good girl!"
Addelyn:  smiles and signs all gone
Me:  "Do you want some more?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want some more squash?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want some water?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want some puffs?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no  (now I'm starting to think she's just saying no because she likes to tell me no...)
Me:  "Do you want some peaches?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want up?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Are you all done?"
Addelyn:  shakes her head no
Me:  "Do you want a cookie"
Addelyn:  smiles, nods her head yes and signs cookie.

Oh my...such a sweet tooth already.  (Though...they are cookies specially for babies, sweetened by fruit, so I don't feel too bad giving her one per day)

Stats - I'll do stats for the first birthday post :-)

Addelyn did a couple of new things today that I thought were pretty AMAZING considering her age:

1.  It seems that Addelyn has learned a little bit of self-control.  We were playing with bubbles and she took the wand from me.  After playing with it a while (blowing in it, waving it around, looking at herself holding it in the mirror) she started to put it in her mouth.  After telling her to get it out of her mouth several times I took it away, at which point she of course began to cry.  After giving her cuddles and letting her know that I still loved her even though I had to take away her toy, I told her I'd give it back to her but she couldn't put it in her mouth, otherwise I'd take it away for good.  Once she got it back she played with it some more (though still in a bad mood from when I took it away) - and here's the surprising part:  at least a dozen times she went to put the wand in her mouth but caught herself before she did it and stopped and shook her head no-no (and yelled at me because she wanted to put it in her mouth) but she DIDN'T put it back in her mouth again and I didn't even need to remind her.

2.  Addelyn has made up a sign for "pretty" and "hairbrush"  It came about because I always tell her how pretty she is when I'm brushing her hair, so to say either word she just "brushes" her hair with her hand.  When I realized what she had done I was quite impressed to say the least!

3.  Addelyn has started shaking or nodding her head to say "no" or "yes" in answer to my questions - it is so nice!  Before she started doing that she still had pretty obvious no and yes responses (just using body language), but she just seems so much more grown up now that she has started shaking her head.  I've also noticed that she definitely likes answering no much more than answering yes.  I think that she just likes that she has some control over the situation, and she's exploring the concept that not everything mommy suggests has to happen :-)  Asserting her independence and she's not even 1 yet...boy, am I in for it!

4.  Another first - I've heard it a couple of times today and it's so cute!!!  Addelyn says "uh-oh" and "oh no!" now when she drops something etc...she also has been turning her palms up in question for a week or two now...I'll try to get a picture and edit it in soon :-)

Finally, here's a video of Addelyn being her cheerful/playful self.  She usually gets into a very playful, very active mood about 1 hour or 30 minutes before bedtime, and I thought I'd get it on video just so everyone can see how adorable it is :-)

Stats:
No stats today - not much has changed since last time :-)  Finally, 2 posts in one month!

Fluent Gibberish and NO-NO!

b nm n , gh bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb  <--- that is Addelyn's contribution to the blog and also a lot like how she sounds these days :-)  Addelyn has become confident enough in her voice that she just babbles to herself now...it's so cute!  I think she sounds like an alien when she does it :-)

Addelyn's newest word is NO-NO!!  And the temper has developed along with it.  She now outright yells at me when she is upset about something - if she's not getting her way, it's NO-NO! NO-NO! NO-NO! broken up by a couple of high-pitched wines and angry-sounding yelling.  It's kind-of hard not to laugh at her at first, but after a while it gets pretty old!

The past week or so Addelyn has just been absorbing SO much!  For the first time, she really mimicks me very well, so she's speaking (a little) more clearly and, most importantly, she's learning TONS of signs!  According to my most likely incomplete list, Addelyn now regularly uses 29 signs and is inconsistently doing 6 more.  Here's a video of her showing of a few of them, as well as her knowledge of her body parts (it's a bit long...sorry):

At Addelyn's 9-month checkup the doctor said that she should be weaned from the bottle by her first birthday, so we're starting that.  We've begun replacing one bottle each day with a sippy cup of milk instead. She doesn't seem to mind too much, except that the milk doesn't flow as fast from the sippy cup as it does from her bottle, so she's drinking a little less for that feeding.  Hmmm...maybe we need to try a different type of sippy cup?  (the problem is finding a happy medium, because if it comes too fast then she just spits the excess out all over herself). 

In good news, Addelyn's clogged tear ducts finally seem to have cleared up!!! Yay!!!  She's had goobery eyes since she was born, and at her 9-month checkup the doctor said that if they didn't clear up by her 12-month checkup, then she'd have to have surgery, so we dodged that bullet - I'm so relieved!

Jake and I went on vacation to Italy this month - while we were gone Addelyn stayed at her Aunt Tara's house and got to play with cousins Kylie and Madi.  Based on the reports from my mom (who watched the girls during the day) and Tara, Addelyn had a LOT of fun!  She enjoyed watching the older girls play, but didn't like it so much that they got to eat different food than her, and Addelyn downright got upset when anybody got told no-no...(she's a sensitive one!).  We got back from Italy late at night, so Addelyn didn't see us until she woke up the following morning.  When she started crying, Tara and I both went in to get her.  She was expecting Tara, so she didn't even look at me and when I picked her up she got a little upset and wanted to go to Tara.  Well, I had missed her terribly, so I wasn't about to have that...we went and stood in front of the mirror, and as soon as she saw that it was mommy that had her she was all smiles!  She was pretty clingy that next few days, and even now she's much more cuddly than she's ever been, but I'm not complaining!  

The girls all matched!  Addelyn was mad that I made her stay that far away from
me for long enough to take the picture...she was feeling a bit clingy :-)

The weather is getting nice and with that we've been going outside a lot!  If we haven't gone outside to play at least once by late afternoon, Addelyn starts to get pretty upset and insistent...she's even learned the sign for "outside" and uses it to tell me when she wants to go out and play :-)  

Addelyn LOVES to swing - every time we go outside she makes a B-line to the swing!

Got her cool shades and her new helmet on and all ready to go for her first ever bike ride!

Attached to daddy's bike in her new ride

Stats:

Age: 11.5 months

Weight: 23 lbs

Length:  29ish inches

Drinks:  about 3-4 8oz bottles of milk per day (all of which is formula) one before her nap, one in the middle of the afternoon, and one before she goes to bed.

Eats: yogurt, and a fruit for breakfast; puffs, a veggie, and a cheese stick for lunch; and a fruit, and either a meat or noodles or something for dinner.  We just discovered that she likes peas!

Sleeps: 11-12 hours/night - 9pm-9am (most nights...sometimes she still wakes up in the middle)

Naps: 2-3 hours per day - her nap is 4 or 5 hours after she wakes up for the day 

Awake for: 2.5-5 hours at a time during the day.

Clothes size:  mostly 18 month, some 12 month

Motor skills: WALKING, dancing (in time no less), crawling well on hands and knees, standing standing alone well, pulling herself up to standing without any support, self feeding several things (as long as it's not too slippery)

other skills: putting balls into her toy (then the balls fall out and roll away and you do it all over again), clapping, waving, playing peekaboo, Does hand actions to songs like itsy bitsy spider and little bunny foo foo.
words:  mama, up, dada, nana (banana), "Aye" (light), "Bah" (ball), and "Ba (bath)" "ah duh" (all done), "buh buh" (puppy), hi, bye-bye, and NO-NO (is her newest), and I'm not even going to try to list all of the words that she tries to say, but doesn't say regularly.

signs: 29-35 that she does herself.

I know that bragging about yourself is frowned upon, but bragging about your kids is okay, right?  Because Addelyn is sooo smart and beautiful and talented and strong, she just amazes me every day...

Between walking so well and signing (and speaking) a LOT, Addelyn seems like she's grown up so quickly!  Every day she seems more like a little kid and less like a baby.  Here's a list of all of the things that Addelyn can sign (The ones with the stars by them are ones she's not very consistent with yet):

Animals:
Puppy, Owl, Bunny, Monkey, Bear, Elephant*, Kitty
Food:
Banana, Cheese, Milk, Eat, Apple*
Other:
Aunt Becki, Flower*, Bye-bye/Hi, Fan, Light, Ball, Yay, Up, Car*, Bath, All Done, Night-Night*, Baby, Binkie, Airplane (sort-of...):

She can also find her toes, fingers, eyes*, ears, mouth, nose*, head, belly*, and hair (as well as all of those things on me); and she can point to a picture of a kitty, puppy, lion, tiger, bear, girraffe, zebra, rabbit, owl, and pig if asked, as well as all of the things that she can sign and more!

Addelyn understands so much of what I say...I try to challenge her with new commands every day (like telling her to put a ball on her head or to wash her belly during bath time...or even incorporating new words and concepts into known commands or vice versa like "show baby the shoe" (where show is a new verb for her))  and, to my astonishment, Addelyn almost always succeeds in doing the right thing!

Addelyn has started to do a few new cute things this month - She gives me a big cheesy grin if I ask her to, blows bubbles with her mouth, and she loves to hide behind the door frame just outside of a room and then jump out and scare me :-)

Ok...that's probably enough of me going on about how smart she is...now you can see for yourself how cute she is :-)

I loved this outfit so much we just had to do a photo shoot with it...and she did so well!  she just sat there and smiled :-)

just sitting and reading a book - she is her father's daughter!

Addelyn loves to flip the pages of chapter books.

To be honest, I totally just sat there and let her do that...she was having so much fun!

My big helper!

Beautiful girl!

Action shot!  Running across the room...

Addelyn loves to play the piano

Big Smiles!

Too cool in her new shades

She's such a rockstar!

Another big cheesy smile!  That's her new thing...

mmm...ice cream!

Another recent development - Addelyn realized that she can blow bubbles with her mouth!

It's finally getting warm enough out to swing!

way up high!

Kicking mommy is her favorite thing to do in the swing...

Stats:

Age: 10.5 months

Weight: 22 lbs

Length:  29ish inches

Drinks:  about 3-4 8oz bottles of milk per day (all of which is formula) one before each of 2 naps, and one before she goes to bed.

Eats: yogurt, and a fruit for breakfast; puffs, a veggie, and a cheese stick for lunch; and a fruit, and either a meat or noodles or something for dinner.  We just discovered that she likes peas!

Sleeps: 11-12 hours/night - 9pm-9am (most nights...sometimes she still wakes up in the middle)

Naps: 2-3 hours per day - one nap is 3 hours after she wakes up for the day and one is usually somewhere between 4 and 7:00 - but we're trying to phase that second one out.

Awake for: 2.5-5 hours at a time during the day.

Clothes size:  mostly 18 month, some 12 month

Motor skills: WALKING, dancing (in time no less), crawling well on hands and knees, standing standing alone well, pulling herself up to standing without any support, self feeding several things (as long as it's not too slippery)

other skills: putting balls into her toy (then the balls fall out and roll away and you do it all over again), clapping, waving, playing peekaboo (very well with a blanket, and she just started with her hands on February 4), Does hand actions to songs like itsy bitsy spider and little bunny foo foo.
words:  mama, up, dada, nana (banana), "Aye" (light), "Bah" (ball), and "Ba (bath)" "ah duh" (all done), "buh buh" (puppy), I've also heard hi a time or two, and I'm not even going to try to list all of the words that she tries to say, but doesn't say regularly.

signs: see above