On the move

Claudia has taken leaps forward with her mobility in the last two weeks. She can now sit up on her own from laying down and also switch between sitting and crawling with ease. She's getting up on her knees more to play, but she still crawls "commando style" by dragging her belly and actually prefers butt scooting. She loves to stand up (with help), walk (with help), and pull up on furniture (sometimes on her own). It's cute when she "walks" because she kind of stomps without much knee flexion. She's doing a lot of climbing especially at daycare because they have a few good baby jungle gyms. At home I've pulled out the Bobby pillow again because she likes to climb around on it, as well as in my lap. She has always been a back sleeper, but with her new found maneuverability, she's switched to her tummy, usually with her bottom in the air (so cute). Besides mobility, she's also comprehending more vocabulary. It's hard to tell exactly what she knows, but she knows her name and she can follow simple directions. For example, Glen taught her to hold a toy telephone up to her ear. Or I can tell her to "come here". And she has learned a new sound: la-da-la-da.

We went out to Alta Lake with grandpa & grandma this weekend. Claudia now gets her own meal at our dinner stop at El Sol. She gets a kids quesadilla. Claudia had fun playing with some of grandma's new toys and some old favorites like the nesting cups. It's crazy how much she loves those. Us adults got in some rounds of golf, started a new puzzle, and played Wii Fit Plus. The season is still early so the course was practically empty, which made for a speedy round. Claudia and I went on our usual walk to the lake and we also made a quick trip into the Chelan Walmart because we forgot to bring her warm sleeper. They only had one in her size, so she got a "quality" $3 Buzz Lightyear one. It did the job though and she was sure cute in it (see photo below).

Practicing standing.


Sleeping with her bottom up.


My little basket baby. As you can see, she still loves to make her razzing noise.


To infinity and beyond!

Early Spring

Late February and early March brought us some early spring weather. Sad for the ski season, but good for hanging out in the city! We had sunny weather reaching around 60 degrees, so we got out a lot. We took Claudia to a few parks and she enjoyed the swings.

Last week was a tough one because Claudia caught a parainfluenza virus and that turned into another ear infection and croup (an upper respiratory illness that's common in kids under 3). And poor timing, her second tooth started poking through during all of this. She missed an entire week of daycare and was feeling miserable. Thankfully Grandma watched her two of those days and Glen & I juggled our work schedules the rest of the week. Three people got puked on in the process (Grandma, me, and a nurse). The virus got passed on to me now and Glen is struggling with tree pollen allergies, so we're a sniffly bunch! But we didn't let our illnesses stop us from having fun. We went over to Alta Lake to escape the pollen and relax and recover. Glen was able to do some golfing and Claudia and I just enjoyed the sunshine.

Now that she has a few of her own, Claudia is fascinated by teeth. She likes to bite things with hers and touch mine. I get big giggles from her if I playfully bite her fingers. Her favorite toy lately is the Tupperware drawer. She is also very interested in the mechanics of books. She can spend a lot of time turning the pages on her board books and as a special treat, she sometimes gets her hands on one of my books or magazines.

First time by herself on the swing.


Weeee!


The cherry blossom trees starting to bloom in the Quad (UW campus).


Playing at Alta Lake, which was still frozen, but it was 63F degrees out (17C).


Playing under a shade tent on the deck at Alta.

10 months old and crawling

Claudia is officially crawling. She has decided on the "commando crawl" (all arms, dragging her legs behind her) and "butt scooting" as her preferred methods. She gets around pretty well and we now need to install cabinet locks (the garbage can is very exciting for some reason) and do some other baby proofing. Her classroom at daycare is so much fun for her because they have a tunnel to crawl through and lots of low shelves and other things to climb on. She also likes to interact with, and watch the other babies. It's cute to see them crawling up to each other to "say hi" or steal a toy. One sad thing is that Claudia now cries when Glen leaves her at daycare. They found a good solution though; they feed her breakfast right when she arrives and the food distracts her so that Glen can leave without tears. It is so adorable to see her at the tiny table in her tiny chair eating breakfast.

Glen & I celebrated a nice Valentine's Day by going out to dinner at Djan's (a Thai restaurant in Wallingford, our old stomping ground) while my mom & dad had Claudia for the night. We took Claudia to the zoo on Monday because it was a holiday (President's Day) where she got to ride on the carousal for the first time. She was mostly interested in people watching, but she did notice the animals occasionally too.

Claudia can now clearly say "mum", "dad", and "nan", although it's indiscriminate. I think she knows her name now because she usually turns toward me when I say it. She is very cute playing with her big stuffed bear. She yells greetings to him, bites his nose, and snuggles against him. I tried her on two new foods: strawberries and hard boiled egg. She loved the berries, but she was a little uncertain about the egg.

Caught playing in the Tupperware drawer.


Scooting towards mommy.


And she's here! Look carefully and you can see her tiny bottom tooth.


Trying out the carousal. She wasn't sure what to think.


Snuggling with me before bedtime.

Everything is so funny

Lately Claudia thinks everything is funny -- pulling off my glasses, trying to put her binkie in my mouth, grabbing my face and hair, or dropping a toy on the ground. It's so cute to see her laugh that I have a hard time not encouraging her behavior. Glen has taught her to put both hands in the air when he says "so big" and she is waving now. She's still experimenting with locomotion. She's doing mostly bum scooting, some belly and bottom twirling, and occasionally dragging herself forward with her arms. She can get up on all fours, but then she had no idea what to do next. It will be interesting to see what type of crawling she ends up doing.

She loves her blanket. She has a couple soft ones and she cuddles with them in her carseat and in her crib. She has also taken to sleeping on her side while cuddling her blanket. It's very cute; I wish I had a photo. Her favorite toy lately is her nesting cups. She can entertain herself for a long time putting the three containers together and then taking (throwing) them apart. Also, big news... she is finally getting a tooth. One of her bottom ones started to poke through.

We're having a mild winter, so Glen has been able to get out and play golf about every other weekend. He's also been playing a lot of darts with his friends. Soccer ended up being too much for me because my hips are still so loose from the pregnancy, so I'm doing a Pilates mat class on Tuesdays instead. My health issues with ulcerative colitis are getting better and I've been able to go off one of my medications (prednisone). Prednisone tends to make you gain weight, so I haven't made any serious attempt to loose my pregnancy weight. I was surprised when I went to the doctor for a check-up and learned that I'm back down to my pre-pregnancy weight! I certainly don't feel like I am -- I think pregnancy rearranges things. So my new goal is to tone up by keeping up with the Pilates.

Playing on the bed.


Stacking toys on the coffee table.


Pushing and throwing toys around on the floor.

9 months old

Our baby is growing up so quickly. She continues to get more snugly and likes to cling to the clothing of the person holding her. I love it! She also likes to "play shy" by diving her head into my shoulder and then peaking back at the person she's playing shy from. She's making slow progress on the crawling because she can now get up on all fours and rock. Now that she understands this rocking in her hips, she likes to "bop" while she's sitting. We're trying to teach her how to wave and she's done it a few times randomly. She is getting to be quite the card when we go out: smiling at strangers, grabbing for things, and making little noises (she's learned how to smack her lips). She is still a great eater and is ravenous when she sees fruit. Her favorites are Mandarin oranges and blueberries. Our biggest news is that Claudia is now sleeping through the night! She's been doing it for a few weeks, but I didn't want to announce it until I was sure. She sometimes wakes up a bit between 8-10pm, but once she is in her room after we go to bed, we don't hear from her until morning. Yay! Her statistics from her 9 month checkup are 17 lbs 14 oz (25-50%) and 27 inches long (25-50%).

With Grandma and Auntie at Alta last month.


Claudia's first time in the snow.


Go Huskies!


Helping mommy with laundry.


Play date with friends.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

The holidays were fun and fairly stress-free this year. After getting snowed in last year, we were on top of our Christmas shopping, and we're lucky to not be responsible for hosting any events or flying anywhere. Leading up to Christmas we had two holiday parties in one weekend for Glen's work, one for his lab at Four Seasons Hotel and one for his department at Salty's Restaurant, so we got spoiled by lots of good food. I also made it up to Bellingham that same weekend for my friend Jenny's baby shower. We were busy! I was fighting off a cold that weekend and crashed the next day and got very sick with a viral infection that turned into a bacterial sinus infection. My body is not able to recover well because I'm still on various drugs to treat my ulcerative colitis. So being sick was a bummer, but I had lots of happy distractions with the excitement of Christmas.

We spent Christmas Eve with Neely and were able to Skype with Glen's family and then attend church. Claudia was full of beans and was hard to wrangle at church because she got all excited seeing the people and music; she was quiet at least, just hard to hold on to! Then on Christmas day we had a relaxing morning together with Glen making breakfast before we headed to my parents' house for the gift exchange extravaganza and a yummy dinner. Surprisingly, Claudia understood the concept of unwrapping and getting new toys. She started hollering when I helped her unwrap this dump truck toy and I couldn't get it out of the packaging fast enough. Her favorites right now are the dump truck, the Little People bus, and her baby doll. I've held a few out to introduce later. With the help of the bus toy and her classic favorite, the shape sorter, she's now learned to put toys back into a container, not just dump them out. This makes the activity last a lot longer and doesn't require as much help from an adult.

For New Year's we spent the week at Alta Lake along with my parents, Neely, Gina & Jeremy, and Dan & Diane. Glen got some needed down time from work and we both got to go skiing for the first time in two years. We went to Mission Ridge on a snowy cold day and had a ton of fun. We rung in the new year with adult beverages and fireworks. Also to start off the new year, Claudia started in a new classroom at daycare called Smurfs. She is now with all the crawlers, so hopefully that will encourage her to start herself. Her first day was rough being with new teachers and she cried every time she saw her favorite teacher from the infant room through the window, but I hear they adjust quickly and that it's harder on the parents than the kids.

Some of her early Christmas gifts -- a big teddy bear and Ugg boots.


At Four Seasons Hotel enjoying her highchair on wheels.


My Dad played Santa and passed out all the gifts.


Claudia's red Christmas dress. She had her hands in her mouth the whole day so it was hard to get a good photo.


Playing with her dump truck.

December milestones

I'm a little behind on posting, so I'm going to write a post about December even though it's already January. Claudia was 8 months old in December. We thought she would crawl by the end of the year, but it's slow going. She is able to twirl around on her belly and push herself backward, but she hasn't figured out her legs yet. She continues to amaze us with her love of all food, especially anything she can put in her mouth herself. She is really starting to understand "object permanence", which means that if a person or toy is out of sight, she knows they will come back and she can even anticipate it. This makes peek-a-boo especially fun because she giggles and gets so excited. She has discovered her tongue and likes to stick it out constantly. We haven't seen any teeth yet, but she has been gnawing on her hand and toys a lot, so it might be soon. Lastly, Glen has been working hard on teaching her to clap her hands by singing "if you're happy and you know it clap your hands" and she finally worked it out and now loves to do it, especially when we celebrate and say "yay" when she does. Most of her antics have been fun, but two have not. One, she gets constipated a lot and does gigantic poops, so she's always grunting and hollering when it's time to go which is frustrating and painful for everyone! And second, she is really challenging us with sleep. She has never been a great sleeper, but once we got over the hump of no nighttime feedings, we thought things would be better, which is not the case. She seems to wake up even more now trying to get our attention and wanting to be held. That girl has a strong set of lungs and "cry it out" is not always an option when you live in a condo.

Big toothless smile.


Look at that belly. This girl likes her food.


See, she can scoot backward.


Backed into a corner.


Yay, meal time again.