Some Emmeline video...

Here's a video of Emmeline.  She loves the forward faving camera on my iPhone.  Thanks, Steve Jobs, for making it easier to take video of my child!

Some shopping

After church today, Emmeline and I went to the Super Oriental Market on West Valley Avenue. It is a really interesting place. There is a restaurant there that I'd really like to try. We were edging up on naptime so we didn't stay too long.

The picture shows our haul. Emmeline's favorite bowl has a smiling pig on it, so our trip to the Super Oriental Market was in search if more like that, and it didn't disappoint. We got four new bowls; a dog and a rabbit bowl like her pig one and four shallow bowls with cartoon-ish characters. I also found a new bento box for my lunches.

We might have to go back when we can spend some more time!!!

For the nursery...

We found this piece of furniture yesterday at the thrift store. It is so perfect for Emmeline's room. I just can't stand how cute it is, with it's rounded to and short stature. It needs a little work, but only on the finish. It is a little "distressed," so I have to decide whether to go farther with that or clean up the finish. What do y'all think?

I love thrifting!!!

Mmmmm...

Emmeline's favorite book for bedtime has ling been Goodnight Moon. No different from many children, to be sure. My mom put her to bed the other night and noticed something new. Upon arriving at the "goodnight nobody, goodnight mush" page, Emmeline must pause for a "taste" of mush and then say "mmmm."

No one taught her this. She just saw a spoon in a bowl and knew it was food. Tonight we went back for more mush four times.

Kids are smart. Really, scary smart.

Emmeline - 1 year

Oh. My. Goodness.  I can't believe that she is a year old.  Let's see how we got here.

Seconds old.

One month.  All swaddled and big smiles.

Two months.  New hairdo!

Three months.  Sitting pretty!

Four months.  Loves her paci!

Five months.  Sweet cheeks!

Six months.  Even with an ear infection, she's all smiles!

Seven months.  Sweet toothy smiles.

Eight months.  Pretty in pink, and getting more curious.

Nine months.  Into everything!

Ten months.  So happy to be outside!

Eleven months.  Here I come, ready or not!

One year.  Steppin' out!

My girl has had a great month, with only a little bit of sickness thrown in.  She started walking (at camp, big surprise) and is a master crawler.  Emmeline's intellect seems to be expanding exponentially.  All of a sudden, she is doing a great job communicating with us, and in less baby-like ways.  

Her vocabulary includes: Mama, Dada, wuh-wuh (the answer to the question "what does a puppy dog say" and the dogs themselves), du (duck), doh (dog), tya tya (thank you), ba ba (don't know what that one means), hi, bye and many many other noises.  She also does well making her needs know in ways without words, including pointing, grunting, screaming and screeching!  

She loves playing and reading books.  She has a few toys that are favorites, but loves the books the best.  She loves babbling to herself in the mirror.  Another new fun game is throwing the ball to us, and catching it when we roll it back to her.

She follows simple instructions very well.  She can stand up, walk, help get herself dressed, and give hugs when asked.  She is starting to get frustrated when she doesn't get what she wants, which is usually a product of her inability to communicate what she wants to us.  I'm just thinking that it is a terrible two's temper tantrum preview.  I'm just really proud that she is doing such a good job getting her point across.  We'll work on volume control next!

Still not sleeping well...  She's just about the sweetest think other than that, so I'll call it even, I guess.

Emmeline -11 months

Thankfully, this month has been much less eventful that illness-ridden month 10.  I forgot to mention in last month's update that she had gotten her top two middle teeth.  Now she has the next two top teeth coming in!  We're up to 6 total.

Here are some milestones for the month.  I have dates for some, and not for others.

• Licked Winni (May 22) Yep.  Crawled right over and licked her on her furry face.  I guess she figured that was the appropriate greeting, since that is what the dogs do to her.
• Points and says dat (May 10)
• Nods head yes and shakes head no (May 31)
• Says Ma Ma and Da Da consistently.  When I get her out of the car after daycare, she points to the house and says "Da Da" because she expects him to be home before us.
• Knows what hugs are, and may or may not give you one.  Usually, she just shakes her head no.
• Recognizes pictures of me, David and the dogs.
• Stands alone for 10ish seconds.
• Cruises around on the furniture.
• Takes a bath without her bath seat and likes to throw things out of the tub.

She is about to start walking, but I'm thinking she's saving that for her first trip to Camp Winnataska next week!

We sure do love her!

 

(Please note her full body hugging technique pictured below!)

Emmeline - 10 months (sorry so late...)

  So, what a month.  Emmeline started the month off with another double ear infection for two weeks (April 12-23) which took two rounds of two different antibiotics to solve.  The next week (April 26-30) brought the lovely roseola - an illness characterized by a high fever (we made it to 103.7 degrees), followed by a rash.  We ended up at the Children's ER one night.  Of course, by the time we got there her fever was at a much more respectable 101.5.  Roseola = a bunch of crap, thank you very much.

Not to be outdone by the past three weeks, next on the illness agenda was pink eye (May 1-6).  Really spectacular, that one.  So much so that I just had to try it as well (May 6-12).  I really don't want to get it ever again.  My eyeball was swollen - the actual eyeball.  I spent 3 hours of my first Mother's Day alone at the Callahan Eye Foundation Hospital Emergency Room to make sure that my eyeball didn't explode.  Having spent a lovely 12 weeks at home with my baby after her birth, I burned some comp and vacation time to be out with one of the most contagious disease imaginable.  Fantastic.

On top of all of this fun, David designed and built the set for Samford Theatre's production of Thoroughly Modern Millie which ran April 30-May 2.  The show was so wonderful.  The production looked great, and the students did a fantastic job with a very big show.  Once the show came down, so did David.  I think he picked up the pink eye virus which, on him, showed up as a really, really bad case of the ick.  He had a terrible fever and chills for about 5 days and then has felt run down and awful for two weeks.  It started on May 4 and is still lingering about.

All in all, a banner month in wellness for the Glenn household.  I know I'm whining, and I know it could have been so much worse.  It just seemed like last month was a doozy health-wise!  Nothing was major, but all the little stuff seemed to add up.  Thankfully, we are all on the mend!

But onto the more fun stuff.  What Emmeline is up to nowadays.

She consistently says Da-da to David.  She consistently says duh, which means dog.  She consistently says mmm which means I'm hungry for food, milk, formula, cheerios, that couch cushion, a kleenex, your grocery list - whatever she might want to eat at the time.  She will on occasion say Ma-ma and really mean it.

She laughs when you laugh.  It is her most endearing trait.  If David and I laugh at something, she laughs right along with us.  If the cashier at Walmart laughs at the manager, she laughs, too.  And I mean side-splitting laughter.  You can tell it is forced, but it isn't fake.  She is really laughing.

Another cute new development is hugging people and things.  Her stuffed animals were on the floor one day when she got home from school and she crawled right over to her teddy bear (which is as big as she is) and laid right down on it and "hugged" it.  Then she crawled over to the other stuffed animals and did the same.  She hugs the dogs, too.  Chica HATES it.  Winni and Ginny don't mind too much until the hair pulling starts, then it's off they go.  Emmeline has also gotten very good at hugging David and me as well - so sweet.

Developmentally, I think she's right on track.  She bangs things together (the louder, the better).  She eats with her hands (mmmmmmmm).  She plays pat-a-cake ("roll it up" is a struggle, but she tries and says "rrrr" while she does).  She stands by herself for a few seconds, and looks like she wants to walk, but doesn't really like to cruise too much or walk while holding our fingers.

All in all, it was a crazy month.  Health-wise it was a 3 (ranked that way because all three of us made it through, relatively unscathed).  Personality-wise, it was a 10.  Emmeline could not be a sweeter child.  A better sleeper, yes, but sweeter, not a chance.

 (Where is my 2 week old that slept through the night...)

Breadmaking...

So, I'm hooked. I love making bread. The method outlined in Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day is fantastic. It is so easy a caveman... oh you get the picture. If you haven't checked this book out yet, please do. Follow this link to the JCLC catalog to put it on reserve or really, just go buy it. (They are all checked out anyway.) I promise you won't regret it.

I've make a few things from it including Whole Wheat Master Loaf, Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich Loaf, Avocado Guacamole Bread and another one I can't remember right now. The marvelous thing is that out of these batches of dough, I've made a multitude of things from artisan free form loaves and sandwich loaves to pizza crust to garlic rolls to a bog round flat loaf that I've been making focaccia sandwiches with.

The Avocado Guacamole was the best. Really good flavor which made it great for many things, breakfast toast with mozzarella cheese, dinner bread, etc. Anyway, please give this method a try. It is totally worth it.

Emmeline - 9 months

Well, Miss Emmeline has been out as long as she was in! I really can't believe it. She is growing up to be such a cute baby. Her biggest development this month is her appetite! She will eat anything, and I mean anything, that you feed her or put in front of her. I was a little worried that she would turn into a Cheerio, so we are working in a few other kinds of finger foods. Her daily food and milk/formula intake looks like this:

6:00 am Nurse
7:30 am 4 oz of fruit or applesauce with baby cereal with Cheerios after
8:15 am Nurse
10:45 am 4.5 oz. milk bottle and 4 oz. of pureed veggies or stage 2 fruit
1:45 pm 4.5 oz. milk bottle and 4 oz. of pureed fruit or stage 2 fruit
3:00 pm 4 oz formula bottle and puffs and cheerios
5:30 pm Nurse
6:00 pm 3-4 oz. of pureed veggies, an ounce of pureed meat, an ounce of avocado and an ounce of brown rice with diced peaches and Cheerios after
7:30 pm Nurse and bed
Usually she wakes to nurse between 2 am and 4 am, but sometimes she sleeps through.

Next week we are going to two 6 oz. bottles at daycare and upping her food some by adding some finger foods for her to have there. I think that I'll switch her over to stage 3 baby foods and chunkier home purees as well. I hope that she continues to be an adventurous eater!

Some milestones this month include incessant chatter. This child talks all the time! (I'm sure that isn't that much of a surprise if you know me.) She talks to us, to her friends at "school," to the dogs... all the time. She has really started to interact more with us, the kids in her class and, most hysterically, the dogs. Every morning she crawls over to the dogs and "hugs" them by pulling herself up to kneeling onto them and then flopping her head down on top of them. The grudgingly cooperate. The other afternoon she grabbed the other end of the toy Winni was playing with and started shaking it and laughing. I think she really enjoyed "playing" with her.

Emmeline also enjoys going outside, which is great because David and I do, too! Every afternoon she spends some time outside after we get home from work. The last few days we have gone to the track at Irondale Middle School to walk after she eats dinner and she enjoyed that (when she wasn't too sleepy).

She is developing a sense of humor as well. She laughs when we laugh, even if she doesn't know why. Also, she thinks it is super-funny to put her pacifier in your mouth. Much hilarity will ensue. Just don't try to take it from her, because that is clearly NOT funny.

Here are some items from the babycenter.com milestone chart. She is right on track developmentally, and slightly advanced in the social aspects, I think.

• Stands while holding onto something

• Jabbers or combines syllables

• Eats with fingers

• Bangs objects together

• Plays patty-cake and peek-a-boo (she doesn't do too well with the "roll-it-up" portion of patty cake, but she gets the rest)

• Says "mama" and "dada" to the correct parent (with absolutely no regularity, and sometimes not at all)

• Waves goodbye (or sometimes, if she is really feeling fancy, she claps goodbye)

• Picks things up with pincer grasp (oh, Cheerios, how much you have taught us)

• Crawls well, with belly off the ground

• Understands "no" and simple instructions (albeit she doesn't follow those instructions)

We do love her so!

Making baby food...

So I've been making Emmeline's food for a few weeks and we both are enjoying it. She still eats some store-bought foods, but a lot is home pureed fruits and veggies.

So far we've tried sweet potatoes, butternut squash, yellow squash, broccoli, green beans, avocado, chicken, peaches, blueberries, pears and bananas. She has loved it all, as you can see in that picture! I've also gotten a stash of food cubes stored in the freezer, which is the only way a working person could handle doing this, in my opinion. I try to do two to four ice cube trays worth every weekend.
Next up, English peas and more green beans!

Spring...

has sprung.

The time change happened last weekend, but it has been dreary and cold most of the week. It finally warmed up on Friday and we all went out into the yard to play.

So nice.

Emmeline - 8 months

I can't believe that it is time for another update. Emmeline has had a big month. She moved up a class at daycare, which I think accellerated her physical development. Her new class doesn't have any "containers" like excersaucers or bouncy seats. It is just a free for all baby-pile and a toy box. I was very nervous at first because when she moved up, Emmeline wasn't very mobile yet, only crawling backward, so I wondered how she would do. After a few days of adjustment, she adjusted very well. By the second week she was crawling and playing just fine. I think that it is good for her to learn how to play with the other children in her class. Also, she was getting very attached to one of her teachers in the other class. She likes her new teachers, but doesn't seem to cling as much to them as she did to Miss Amy.

Another change for this month was the addition of more foods. I've started making some of her baby foods and she likes them, once she gets used to them. So far I have the following stock in the freezer: green beans, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, bananas and blueberries. I have some brown rice and some peaches to puree one night this week. All of this eating seems to agree with her. I weighed her last night and she weighs 17 lbs. 13 oz., up 9 oz. in just a week! I couldn't believe it. Before that, she had only gained 4 ounces in two weeks.

We have added breakfast and dinner into the mix last week, which probably accounts for the weight gain. She has home-pureed fruits with baby cereal for breakfast, store bought baby-fruit for a morning snack, store-bought baby veggies for lunch, puffs for an afternoon snack, and home-pureed veggies with a little protein for dinner. She nurses four times a day and gets two milk bottles and one formula bottle during the week. On the weekends she just nurses on demand, but her food schedule stays the same. I was hesitant about adding formula, but she takes it fine at daycare. (She won't touch it from me, David or my mom who keeps her on Fridays. Oh well...)

She loves the dogs so much. When we get her home everyday, she kicks and kicks until she sees the dogs - then she laughs and wants to get down on the floor with them. She and Ginny are bestest friends, and Emmeline thinks that Winni is hysterical, probably because Winni smiles all the time.

New milestones this month are:
waves hello and goodbye
reapeats ma-ma and sometimes says it (It's more like maaaaaaaaaaaaaa when she wants something, but it is a start)
smacks and says "mmmmmmm" when she wants to eat
mouths bye-bye sometimes
chatters on and on, but we have no idea what she is saying
understands "no" and HATES it
crawls really well
pulls to standing
stands for a couple seconds on her own
uses pincher grasp
feeds herself puffs (really she just puts everything in her mouth hoping that it is puffs)
bangs things together and on the ground (and thinks that really funny)
"claps," but sometimes misses
still loves peek-a-boo

We are having some difficulties sleeping again. Right now, I think it is because she is sick with a cold, so I hope that it goes away on its own. She is getting up at least twice at night to nurse, and usually has trouble getting back to sleep once and is up for about 45 minutes to an hour. I know that she can sleep through from about 7 pm-5 am (with a dream feed around 10:30 pm) because she has done it a few times, but I think I'll wait until she is feeling better to work on any sleep re-training. Maybe (hopefully) it will work out on its own.

Anyway, as always, we love her so. I cannot believe how easily and well she melds into our family. Her little personality comes through more and more everyday. She is bright, happy, inquisitive, darling, loving and beautiful - inside and out. Sweet Emmeline, we love her so.

In my kitchen this Lent...

In years past, I have had a more fulfilling Lent when I take something on rather than give something up. My most memorable Lent was 2003, my brother's senior year of high school, when he, my mother and I made a conscious effort to spend time together on a weekly basis. We didn't miss a week and had a good time. Emotionally, that was a very full year for me, and starting it that way really helped. My least favorite Lenten discipline was giving up chocolate one year while I was in high school. I was miserable. My mother told me on Easter that I was never allowed to do that again.

My Lenten discipline this year is going to be baking bread and making baby food. This will serve two main purposes, and multiple other ones as well. In the main, we will save money and eat healthier. It will also taste better, which is always a good thing. I made a batch of the master loaf from the wonderful book Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. (That's the jclc.org library link. If you want to buy it, visit your local independent bookseller. They need the business more than amazon.com.) The premise of the book is that you make a large batch of dough that gets refridgerated and used over a two week period. The resulting bread tasted good. I've baked three loaves and a pizza from it and I really like it. I think I'm going to enjoy this. My grandfather (who passed away in 2003) used to love making bread. I think he would be glad that I have picked up his habit.

Winni Wednesday, take 1 . . .

Here's old one-track Winni. Single-minded in her concentration on a milkbone. So much so that her ear stick out like that. So cute.

Could you just give it to me already!

Winni is such a photogenic dog that I might try to include more pictures of her and her furry friends on the blog, least y'all think Emmeline is taking over.

Emmeline - 7 months (Can you believe it!)

So Emmeline is 7 months old. I cannot believe how quickly she is growing. David bought be an infant beam scale at the thrift store, so I can tell you her exact stats.

Weight: 16 lbs. 15 oz. (59%)
Height: 26 inches (46%)
Head Circumference: 17 inches (62%)

She is really enjoying floor time and is getting the hang of playing now. I was checking the babycenter.com Milestone Chart and trying to find out what they mean by "object performance." (Edited to say: What this really is is "object permanence," which makes a lot more sense. Perhaps Dad should teach reading comprehension. Thanks for pointing out my typo, LAG!) They use the example of peek-a-boo. Well, Emmeline has been playing peek-a-boo for a LONG time. Starting at about 4 or 5 months, when I would take her pants off during her nightly routine, I would put them over her face. She would then pant with excitement, and wait a few second and then pull them off and grin really big. This went on until she was about five and a half months old and then she started to put anything within reach over her face, pant with excitement and then pull them away and give me a big grin. Who knew that this was "object performance" and was a normal milestone at 7 months! So smart, my child!

We have gotten back into a normal sleeping schedule after the craziness of Christmas and two infected ears. She now nurses 4 or 5 times during the day, one of which is a dream feed before I go to bed, and then once at night. She takes three bottles at daycare. She has finally gotten the hang of solids and LOVES them. Amy, her favorite teacher, mentioned to me that Emmeline would screech every time anyone else was being fed. Incredulously I sent a container of sweet potatoes to daycare the next day. We had been trying for weeks to get her to eat solids. I made my own baby food, I mushed up bananas and avocados, I mixed rice cereal - all to no avail. What finally worked was peer pressure. After that first serving at daycare, Emmeline hasn't looked back and now eats anything we feed her. She ate stage one foods for about two weeks and now is onto stage two.

The picture on the left shows her about 3 weeks ago. The one on the right was taken last weekend.

The other milestones she has met this month include:

sitting unassisted
scooting / crawling backward
going from hands and knees to sitting (she does this every few days, so I think she is almost ready to do it consistently)
stands while holding onto something (she can almost pull herself up in her crib)
waves good-bye
passes things from hand to had
understands cause and effect (that's the nice way to say "throws things off of high chair tray")
the above also means that she is beginning to experience stranger and separation anxiety

A highlight of the past week was her first injury - a black eye. She was on hands and knees and lunged forward for a toy and face-planted on it instead. Can I mention that David and I were both sitting on the floor with her. Geez, we felt terrible.

All in all she is growing into a beautiful child. I am really enjoying being her parent.

Emmeline - 6 months (and an on time update)

Half a year old. Man, oh man . . . that doesn't seem possible.

Emmeline is such a smart child. I know that every parent says that, but really, she is fantastic!
We had her six month appointment today. She has gained 1 lb. 2 oz. since last month and now weighs 15 lbs. 6 oz. which is great news. The not so good news is that she has at least one, but probably two infected ears. That most likely accounts for her getting up 4 times a night for the last few nights. Hopefully with her antibiotics will get rid of the infection and she will be back to being a happy baby with good sleep habits. She also got five shots, but after her nap, has been acting like nothing is wrong.

This has been a big month for her. She has hit the following milestones:

• She has her first two teeth, the middle ones on the bottom (Dec. 13 on the right and about two weeks later for the left)
• Passes objects back and forth between her hands, especially her pacifier. If you put it in her left hand, she moves it to her right hand and then puts it in her mouth.
• She sits up for a minute or two with out support, and for a long time if she has her boppy behind her. She might be fine without the boppy, but I get a little nervous.
• She really likes "talking" now. She yacks away, even thought we have no idea what she is saying. She gets into squealing matches with my mom, too, which is quite funny! She also squeals with delight every time the dogs pay her any attention.
• She is really good at getting toys (and anything) that she wants. She rolls around in her crib or on the floor or on our bed to get whatever she wants.
• She is so mobile that I have started changing her on our bed because the changing table made me nervous. David gave me a little crafting tote a few years ago that he suggested that we repurpose as a diaper tote. It is fantastic and holds diapers, wipes, medicines, a changing pad, lotions, baby powder, desitin etc. I love it!
• Solids are going okay. I gave up on rice cereal, but she will eat bananas. Next up are avocados and sweet potatoes.
• She is really good at sitting on my hip now.
• She stands up when she holds on to me or onto the couch. She will pull herself up if she is squatting on your lap.
• She says "mama" but has no idea what it means, but I love the way it sounds.
• She plays peek-a-boo and knows that it is fun! It has always been part of our nightly routine, but she initiates play now.

Y'all have a good day, and ROLL TIDE!!!