Tag Archives: infant

Piper’s 11 Months

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Piper turned 11 months last Thursday, while I was in Austin for work – tear, sniff, tear. Before Piper was born, Brian and I talked about nursing and I was pretty adamant I wanted to do everything I could to nurse until she was 1 year old. Now that she’s 11 months old, when I got home from Austin, Brian asked me if I was excited I was almost there. After a day or two of that setting in I started to get really excited that I’m ALMOST THERE! In a few weeks, I’ll have an hour+ back every day and we won’t be washing pump parts every other day. I won’t have to pack an extra bag for work every day. I won’t have to pack a bigger suitcase when I travel for work just to house my pump parts. I won’t have to have the hotel deliver a fridge and arrange for everything to be put in a freezer when I have a later flight. I can go on a diet and not be scared about my production. I can stop taking Fenugreek!!! But…enough about me…

Piper’s 11 Months old and I can really hardly believe it. She’s such a fun little girl. She’s started wanting to go down stairs (gasp), so we’ve started holding her hand as she goes. She has started bending her knees every once in while, but most of the time we’re confident she would have fallen if we weren’t holding her hand. That’s how babies learn though and every time she’s about to fall but we save her, I can tell on her face she’s learning from her mistakes.

I can’t imagine being more in love with our little girls. It’s so incredible how much joy I feel watching their progress and their personalities. Of course it’s incredibly difficult, exhausting and sometimes stressful, but what’s the cliche?  Oh yeah, nothing good ever comes easy. Ellie has gone through so many different stages as a big sister. In the beginning she was slightly ignorant, then she became a little jealous, and now she’s mostly excited to play with her sister and “guide” her to do certain things with her. She loves to show Piper how to use the toys and she takes her around the house doing all the fun stuff like washing the windows and calling to Max. I can just imagine them when they get a little older, and even when they become teenagers and young women. Of course every parent wants their kids to be bosom buddies. I’m sure there will be times of that, but also times of conflict. All of the good and the bad is what really makes a relationship stronger and I truly don’t want our girls to have a perfect relationship, just a true, genuine and strong one.

This month, my Grandma Geri was in town, so we took our Piper pic while Ellie and Brian celebrated Nana’s birthday. I combined all the photos so we could see the progress throughout the months. Here are a few shots from the night.

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Piper’s 7 Months!

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Piper turned seven months and she’s just been going going going. She is one of those babies that’s very engaging, very smiley, very excited and very on the go. In fact, she will seldom lay on the changing table long enough for us to change her diaper. Most of the time we can lay her down to take it off and wipe, but then we have to stand her up to put a new diaper on and put her clothes back on.

She’s progressing quite quickly as far her mobility goes as well. She loves to pull herself up on anything possible. She went through a phase for a week or two of not being able to hold herself up once she got up or crawling so fast she would run into stuff. That was a very difficult couple of weeks because no one likes Piper bruises. It seems that time has come to an end though. Every time she pulls herself up she stays up and she knows how to let herself down more gently. She’s also letting go sometimes and standing for a few seconds, which is very exciting. While no parent wants to hover, I find it very difficult to not be ready to catch her when she’s exploring like this.

Piper’s also been experiences the same “teething” Ellie did around this time. I put “teething” in quotes because there aren’t actually any teeth. Ellie was the same way – there are spurts of massive salivation, gnawing on pretty much everything, some fever and discomfort. It’s no fun at all, but we’re done with the most recent teething event, so nothing to complain of for the time being.

Piper’s still not sleeping through the night, although she has gone for long stretches. She sometimes won’t wake up until 3:30 or so, which means 7-8 hours of straight sleep. The problem is, it’s straight sleep for her, but not us, since we don’t go to be until 11ish usually.

Ellie’s also still joining us in the middle of the night every night. We pretty much gave up on trying to take her back to her bed because it just caused us to lose more sleep. So instead we get kicked and woken up by crying almost every night. Oh the joys of parenting. I know I’ve said it before, but it really is all worth it. To see these cute little faces every day, to see them giggle and grow and play and sleep is totally all worth it.

7MoPiper

 

 

 

Family Photos 2014

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I remember being a kid and going to the family photo shoots. My brother and sister were always terribly unexcited about it, whereas I always thought it was a fun reason to get all dressed up. Now that we’ve got two little peanuts to dress up, my excitement has more than doubled! We decided to do our family photo shoot this year with Sasha Reiko. Sasha was great to shoot with. She wasn’t a weirdo (we’ve all had those weirdo photographers, right?), she was good with the kids, she was efficient and I think the pics turned out great. I’m so excited to print a couple off to hang in the house. Sharing for your viewing pleasure:

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All images © 2000-2013 by Sasha Reiko Photography

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All images © 2000-2013 by Sasha Reiko Photography

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All images © 2000-2013 by Sasha Reiko Photography

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All images © 2000-2013 by Sasha Reiko Photography

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All images © 2000-2013 by Sasha Reiko Photography

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All images © 2000-2013 by Sasha Reiko Photography

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All images © 2000-2013 by Sasha Reiko Photography

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All images © 2000-2013 by Sasha Reiko Photography

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All images © 2000-2013 by Sasha Reiko Photography

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All images © 2000-2013 by Sasha Reiko Photography

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All images © 2000-2013 by Sasha Reiko Photography

Milestones: Crawling & the Potty

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Two major milestones have happened this week, one was very easy to identify and one has been a work in progress that I think I can knock on wood and say we’ve achieved.

The first is that Piper is crawling! Or at least that’s what I think it is. Here’s the video – you tell me. She moves her hands in a crawling motion, but then most of the time does this little bunny hop thing with her feet. I just think it’s so adorable and I think it counts. I always had a feeling she was going to go against the grain in her own little ways, so of course she couldn’t crawl like all the other babies! Who knows, I’m sure in a few days she’ll pick up the leg thing.

Piper is so funny. She’s such a determined little girl and I can tell when she puts her mind to something she’s just going to do it and no one is going to tell her any different – we’ll see how that goes later in life! It’s a very admirable quality in a lot of ways though and she’s so laid back I think it will bode well in her favor. I enjoy so much and count myself incredibly blessed that she is so easy-going. It’s not all peaches and cream of course, as her sleeping is pretty terrible and I’m pretty sure I’ll read this blog post later and none of it will make sense because my brain does not work anymore, due to sleep deprivation.

The second milestone is that I think it’s official Ellie is going potty in the toilet. Ever since the week after Thanksgiving she’s been “training” and for the most part she’s been able to go on the toilet. However, it’s definitely been a longer process, likely due to the emotion of having a little sister around. The last few days though we’ve had no accidents and I think if we keep it up a few more days we may have turned a corner.

We also had a very fun Easter this weekend. Ellie enjoyed doing two egg hunts, dying Easter eggs and getting a basket from the Easter bunny. It has really just been so much fun to see her grow and really start to understand things. She is such a compassionate little girl and even though she definitely goes through times of being very emotional, she always seems to end up just wanting a hug or a kiss…which I LOVE!

Here are a few recent pics of the girls and the fam, for those who have missed them on Facebook or Instagram.

Ellie's new swimsuit Family on Easter Easter egg hunt Playing before bed Getting ready for Thompson Easter Playing together Sitting in the sun

Piper’s Four Months!

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Piper turned four months old on Sunday, so we did her typical monthly photo shoot (see below). Today we went to the doctor for her four month checkup and everything looks good. She’s doing great developmentally and growth wise. Here are her stats:

Height: 25″/75%

Weight: 13 lbs, 7 oz/25-50%

Head: 16″/25-50%

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Developmentally, she is rolling (see previous post) and Ruoyun said she scooted about five feet yesterday, but I’m not sure if that was assisted or not. It’s a very exciting time to see all these firsts! Honestly though, the only thing we’re really hoping and praying for is the day she starts sleeping all the way through the night.

Our doctor also gave us the green light to introduce foods. He said waiting until six months is really a thing of the past and they’re starting to find evidence that introducing foods earlier, around four months, may actually be beneficial for food allergies, etc. He also said sometimes when parents wait until six months the baby has lost interest in solids, but that’s not super common.

We had a vaccine today at the doctor appointment and it was so fabulous! Oh, is that an oxymoron? I know it’s weird, but I nursed her while they gave her the shot and she didn’t wince or cry. It was wonderful. I hope she doesn’t get a fever or have any side effects. When we dropped her off at her daycare, Ruoyun told us she would give her some massage today – that makes me so happy!

Here is her four month photo and a compilation of every month until now:

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Piper’s First Roll

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Wow, a busy week thus far! Piper has been working very hard to roll from her back to her front for a few days now and today she accomplished her mission. I didn’t get the first roll on video, but I set her down and she did it again, so I set her down a third time and turned on the camera. 

While this is wonderful and joyous, especially being that she did this on my last day of maternity leave, there are some unforeseen downsides. Like now all she wants to do is roll over. And by all, I mean ALL. I think this girl might be some sort of perfectionist. I’ve gotten her all the way to sleep several times. I put her in the crib, I hold my hand on her belly to make her feel secure and comforted and she falls into a deep sleep. Then about 15 minutes later, she rolls over. It would be fine if she stayed asleep, but of course that is not the case. I think sleeping in a sleep sack took Ellie a couple of days to get used to, so maybe that’s what we’re dealing with here. Now that I see her doing this in her sleep in the sleep sack, it’s apparent to me that she has been trying to roll for the last several nights in her swaddle, which is why she’s been waking up and I’ve been getting up so frequently. Argh…an awesome beautiful thing, but still with it’s challenges. At the end of the day, I will just keep reminding myself how happy I am I got to see this milestone for the first time and how excited I am for her that’s she’s reached this stage in her development. 

Piper turns 3 Months

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Piper turned 3 months old on Sunday, the day the Hawks won the Superbowl! 

She’s all smiles all the time now and all she wants to do is sit up or stand. She seems like she’s trying to talk to us all the time. She’s very amused by funny noises, so every once in awhile we make baby noises and funny faces. Outside of that she sleeps, eats and poops, just like your typical 3 month old. 

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Since we’re from and live in Seattle, we are obviously very excited about the Seahawks winning the Superbowl. We were fortunate to catch a family pic on game day of everyone in their Hawks gear. 

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Last but certainly not least, Ellie is having so much fun at school and she’s very fond of her classmate Lucy. Her teacher took such a sweet picture of the two of them hugging, which I just had to share.

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Piper’s Two Months Old!

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Where has the time gone? We had so much fun over the holiday season, but it just flew by.  I can’t believe it’s almost Brian’s birthday and then Ellie’s birthday and then I’m back to work – I don’t see it slowing down any time soon:(

Today we went to Piper’s two month doctor visit and all is well. She’s a strong little bug and enjoys pulling herself up to sit and sometimes stand. She loves being on her belly, which I think is highly unusual for babies her age. She’s such a calm baby, which makes us so incredibly grateful!

She’s in the 75th percentile for height and the 50th percentile for weight. She’s been sleeping great and the last two days, she’s eaten right before I go to bed and then only once in the middle of the night. Let’s cross our fingers that trend continues; I can’t complain about only waking up once during the night.  Well, I could, but I won’t.

Here’s her two month baby pic; I have to find a way to combine it with her one month pic to see the growth:

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Piper’s Photoshoot

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We did a photoshoot when Piper was 8 days old. Below are the results.

Piper’s One Month Birthday

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Piper turned one month old last week, which is always a big milestone for parents. With Ellie one month seemed like an eternity, but this time we’re trying to get things to slow down. I just love Piper’s little size and her cute little quirks. I’m really enjoying her infant-hood and I don’t mind if it lasts awhile longer! Piper is quite the strong little squirt. I can tell she’s already trying to roll over and climb up me when I hold her. At her one month checkup she had great growth. She weighed in at 8 pounds 15 ounces:

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We’re also doing the traditional monthly photos, which we didn’t do the first time around. Here is the one month photo:ImageIn other news, Ellie’s new favorite thing to say is “all the pretty lights, Mommy!” whenever we drive by a business or a house with Christmas lights on. I just love it so much. Every time that little peanut speaks (which is very frequently these days) it just melts my heart. It’s so nice to be off for the holidays and to be able to really savor these moments! Here is a video of Ellie practicing her ABC’s: