She started signing!

Well, I think that some people probably thought that I am crazy for doing sign language with Zoey (even my husband kind of rolled his eyes about it), but I think it will be really great for Zoey to be able to communicate with us before she is able to talk and tell us what she wants/needs, etc.
So, I started introducing some signs with her when she was around 7 months old. Nothing too elaborate, but I have been using the signs for "nurse, more, all done, and kitty" mostly. I could tell that was definitely picking up on what the sign for nurse meant, but it seemed like she was never going to actually do it. But a few days ago, she just crawled over to the couch where I was sitting, pulled herself up, and did it. So, I nursed her right away so that she would get the association, and she definitely gets it now. She has been signing it all the time these past few days, and she gets so happy and proud of herself. It's adorable. So now when I go get her from her crib in the morning, she will stand up and immediately sign to me that she wants to nurse. I just think that's so amazing that she is able to communicate with me. Maybe I am a little dorky, but I get so excited to see how much she is learning every day! It's like you can see the little wheels in her head turning and she's taking it all in.

Lots to share

Well, I haven't been too good at keeping up with the blog lately, and I feel like SO much is happening. Here are some of Zoey's newest accomplishments:


*She is getting really good with her little "baby steps". It is the cutest thing ever because she will get really excited about it, and basically try to run to me. She takes about 4 or 5 steps and then plops down, or puts her arms out and lunges into my lap - it's absolutely adorable!


*She has started clapping when she's excited, and if you say "YAY", a lot of times she will start to clap - she totally "gets" that "yay" and "clapping" go together - what a smart girl!


*She has started to give kisses when you ask her. If I say "Zoey, give mommy a kiss", she will (usually) bring her face really close to mine and sometimes she even will purse her lips a little bit. Then again other times, she will completely lick my face. I think that she has learned her kissing techniques from the dog! She will also kiss her toys if I tell her "give the baby a kiss", she will give her little doll a kiss - SO cute!


*And finally, she is really trying to talk! I don't know if it quite counts as her first word, but she is really working on saying "kitty". Forget "ma-ma" and "da-da", she loves those cats! She has said both "mama" and "dada" already, but she doesn't use them in the right context so I know that she doesn't quite associate them with us yet. But, everytime she sees one of the cats, she seems to make the same sounds. It's not quite "kitty" yet, but she will say "kuh, kuh, kuh" and occasionally "ki ki", or "ti ti".

First steps!

I can't believe it - I'm in shock!!! She has been walking holding on to the furniture for a while now, but still seemed pretty unsteady, so I thought it would still be a while. Well, I guess not! These past few days I noticed that every once in a while when she let go of the furniture, she would sometimes would stand up for a few minutes before plopping down. So, I knew that she was starting to get better balance, but I still really didn't think she would take steps on her own yet. But today after her bath, we were hanging out in her room, letting her have some "naked time" before getting in her jammies. She was standing up holding onto my hands, and when I let go she kept right on standing. So I backed up a little bit, and held out my hands to her, bribing her with her little Ernie bath toy - lol. And completely unexpectedly she took about 3 or 4 steps, grabbed Ernie, and then plopped down into my lap. I clapped for her and gave her a big kiss, and she giggled and it was a great moment! :) I figured maybe it was just a fluke, but when I tried it again, she did the same thing - only about two steps, but still, they were steps all by herself! My baby is growing up! So we continued to practice some more and she was so happy and excited, she would take a step or two and then plop down into my arms and smile and laugh. It was so sweet! What a great night - this was definitely one of the best mom moments so far.

Ten months old!

Oh my gosh - ten months!?! How did my little baby girl get to be ten months old?

Well, Zoey is definitely on the move now, so there is no way to get her to sit still for a pic, but here is a pic from today for her "official" ten-month-old pic.

It's with her lion that we bought her for Easter and she can hold onto it and pull herself up, and then walk behind it - such a big girl! She is "cruising" all over the place now. It's exhausting because there is no more just putting her down somewhere and leaving her. She is into everything so I have to constantly be right next to her. I feel like I spend my whole day chasing after her! She has even started to stand up for a few seconds without holding onto anything. So I have a feeling that she will be walking soon - yikes!

Other than that, nothing major too to report. I think that she has finally outgrown the falling asleep sitting up thing. Most days she goes down for a nap or bedtime without too much of a fight but we still have bad days here and there.

I think that's about it. I'll try to update more often, but it's hard because I'm not on the computer as much anymore - a baby on the go keeps you busy! :)

First mother's day

Well, my first Mother's Day was really great. I told Joe that the only thing that I wanted was to sleep in, and have him get up with Zoey and then bring me breakfast in bed (I requested Tim Hortons :). I was doubtful if it would really happen though since he is not a morning person, so for him to get up at 6:00 am after working a 6-day week would be quite the accomplishment. But, it all worked out. :) Things didn't go too smoothly at first - I had to wake him up since I heard Zoey first on the monitor, then when he tried to give her a bottle, she was refusing to take it and getting all upset. Just very recently, Zoey has started to have a little bit of separation anxiety and doesn't want anyone except for me when she first wakes up, or when she is getting overtired. So, she was starting to get really upset and Joe said she was turning her head and looking all over for me, so he wanted to bring her into the bedroom just so that she could see me and know I was there. So, I just ended up nursing her rather than having her take the bottle. It was just easier. But, then Joe took her and gave her breakfast and entertained her for the next few hours so that I could go back to sleep. I stayed in bed until about 9:30 and it was heaven! I probably haven't slept in like that since before she was born, so it was great! And by the time I was up, it was just about time for Zoey to go down for her morning nap, so I nursed her, red her story, and laid her down and then went back to bed to eat my Tim Horton's and laze around and watch TV. It was a very relaxing, laid back morning and exactly what I wanted! Later in the day Joe's mom came to see us, and then after that I went with my mom to visit my Grandma. Overall, it was a very wonderful, relaxing mother's day!

Happy belated easter!

I haven't had much time for the computer lately, but here are a few pics of our little Easter bunny! Just a few days late :)

9 months old!

Well, I have been a little MIA lately but finally have a few spare mintes to post Zoey's 9 month pic. I pretty much gave up having her pose with the little signs because it is pretty impossible to even get her to sit still for the picture, so I know that sitting and holding onto the sign just would not happen.

So, here she is....9 months old today -such a big girl! Where did my little baby go?

This past month has been a big one! She has started crawling and pulling herself up and will cruise along holding onto the furniture or our hands. It's exciting, but exhausting! I can't turn away from her for even a minute because then she just doesn't stay put. So I spend a lot of the day chasing her around and trying to keep her from getting into things that she shouldn't. She also has finally got some teeth in. The two on the bottom have broken through. And another big milestone this month is that we started finger foods. Anytime I tried to feed her off the spoon, she would try to just grab the food off the spoon and then shove it in her mouth, so I started experimenting with just cutting up her food really tiny and letting her feed herself. She loves it and it's really surprising what she can handle eating. She eats pretty much all of her fruits and veggies in pieces rather than purees and she's also done some grains like Cheerios and toast. I feel like I'm always a nervous wreck when she is eating because I'm afraid she will choke, but she does really well.

Bedtime and naptime has turned into a nightmare!

Well, of course I have read and heard that when babies learn a new skill, it can affect their sleeping, but I never would have imagined what we were in for! These past few days, putting Zoey down to sleep has been just awful. Whenever I put her into the crib, she will not lay still to settle down. She crawls around, or holds onto the crib slats and pulls herself up. When she gets sick of this, she will continue to hold onto the crib slats, and then just cry and cry. I will watch the whole process on the video monitor, and she looks so sad, like she is in jail! :( She does know how to get herself back down and lay down but she just doesnt. I try not to go get her right away to see if she will settle down, but so far she hasn't and I have to go get her, and then I will nurse her to calm her down again and then put her to bed all over again. So, at any given naptime/bedtime it is taking 2-3 attempts to put her to sleep and I think I'm getting back in the bad habit of nursing her until she is actually asleep and then putting her into the crib. But that isn't even working that well because she has started to either wake up shortly after going down for the night, or in the middle of the night. So I finally decided that it looks like we are going to have to re-do Ferber/sleep training with her and let her "cry it out" a bit. I hate to do it, but I really think we need to so she will start going to sleep without a fight.

So, Thursday night when I put her to bed, of course she started screaming her head off. She was not happy with me - as you can see:

Don't those pictures just break your heart? :(

Well, after about 45 minutes of crying, all of a sudden it was quiet. Because of where she was in the crib, I couldn't see her on the video monitor. So, I snuck quietly into her room to take a peek and see what she was doing. This is what I found:

She had fallen alseep sitting up! Poor little thing, she was just so exhausted! I couldn't imagine that she would be comfortable sleeping like that for the whole night, but I was afraid that if I moved her, she would wake up. I was debating what to do and decided that I would let her sleep a little bit so that hopefully she would be in a deep sleep before I tried moving her. But...it never got to that point and she woke up crying about a hour after falling asleep. Luckily, when I lay her down that time, she settled down and went to sleep almost right away. She must have just been so exhausted!

I was hoping that after falling alseep sitting up once, that would be the end of it, but no such luck. Here is Friday's morning nap:

Bedtime was a little better that night, but here is today's morning nap:

Do you see a pattern developing here? LOL. All I can do is laugh about it at this point, but it's getting a bit ridiculous! And the worst part is she is only napping for maybe 30-40 minutes, and only once a day, so I know that she isn't getting enough sleep. But, I'm just not sure what to do! I'm really hoping that this phase passes quickly.

Wow, that turned into a really long post! If you made it this far, thanks for reading!! :)

pulling herself up

Well, now that she has crawling mastered, Zoey has started working on her latest trick - pulling herself up. She has been using the couch, her toys, etc to pull up to her knees all week and has also just started pulling herself up to her feet to. She is still pretty wobbly, so I'm sure we still have a ways to go until walking, but it's exciting to see how much she is learning so fast!

8 months old!

Well, I can hardly believe that it has been 8 months! It is no longer possible to get her to pose with the little sign (she just wants to eat the paper!), so had to edit in the words after taking the pic. Such a sweet happy baby - we are more in love with her every day! :)