Elliott: 18 Months Old

Better late than never writing this post.

On the food front, Elliott still enjoys a good variety of foods. Yogurt and cheese are favorites, and she can get to that drawer on her own if the fridge is open. She Loves fruit and is fascinated with bananas. She pretty much likes everything, though does have a major sweet tooth. She knows what a package of Oreos means... 

Girlfriend had 16 teeth in around 13 months of age (read: she is a mutant). Tylenol was our friend for a while at bedtime because of it. There was a time she slept through the night but she definitely regressed. We just made our first trip to the pediatrics dentist and all is well! Then she got Strep throat in July. She had been super cranky and boycotting sleep, not to mention not eating well. I took her to the doctor because one night she was awake straight until 5am!! We finished 10 days of antibiotics and thought it was over. Nope. A few days after finishing she was acting the same way. Another positive test and we tried another med. She got another virus of some sort in October that left her with a low fever and some slight puking. She was a total crabby pants for a good week. We have now begun another cold:(

One major development has been sleep! In the beginning of August, she finally transitioned to her crib at night. We didn't really do anything different than normal so it's like she just decided to stay asleep in there. Although she occasionally wakes up at night if she's hungry or sick, she mostly sleeps a good 12 hours or more. Bedtime is at 7 but she takes a while to fall asleep and will sleep till 8 am or so. It is so wonderful to have nights back!! Nap length is really sporadic. Sometimes they're 3 hours or 1 hour or not at all.

We are still nursing but are almost phased out. She doesn't have to nurse before naps or bed and the timing of our sessions is completely sporadic. I know she pulls for me when she's genuinely hungry (mostly right when I get her from bed in the morning). It comes out to be once a day or so. She doesn't drink a ton otherwise so I'm fine with this arrangement.

Personality wise, Elliott is a blast. As long as she isn't sick, she's usually pretty happy. She does get stir crazy if we have a few slow days at home and wants to be outside at all times. We don't have much to do outside at our house but she is fine just running around the property exploring. We've started in on more of a toy phase too. We still have fewer toys than most but our collection will surely grow at Christmas. I am sure to not go overboard and know we still have many fewer toys than the typical American family (and I am a sahm)! Hopefully we have a playroom space in the basement in the near future.

Elliott loves other kids and seems to interact well. If other kids are at the park she usually isn't shy. We took a Kindermusik class and she was not into it, but I don't think she was feeling well then. We've started tumbling and she is absolutely in love. It's only a 30 minute class and she is always sad to go. Her cousins are her favorite and if I tell her we are going to see them, she instantly perks up and runs to the door. She calls Holland Sissy and has a good attempt at Barrett. She says Jace super clear. We are working on Luke and Landry!

She can repeat most words if you ask her. A few recent ones have been "Safe" and "Jesus" :) I can't even list all the words that she says, there are too many. She says Thank You in the correct context without prompting which as parents we are really proud of. She can name several body parts as well, belly, nose, eyes, and toes are favorites. She also loves to mimic burping, coughing, etc which is pretty adorable. I've taken her to cheer practice with me a few times already and she copies the girls as they stretch 😍

At the beginning of harvest she was real obsessed with combines. Everything was a combine and she loved a daily ride in the tractor with dad. Her current obsession is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She's always had a love for Minnie but it's becoming a problem and I have to limit her to like 2 episodes a day. Anytime she sees a remote she grabs it and asks for MiMi. Of course we had to be Minnie for Halloween! 

Even though we've had a few rough patches, overall she is so much fun.

Elliott: One Year Old

We made it! Although it's been a fast year, it seems like forever since we came home from the hospital. At this point, the newness of parenthood is long gone (although we are still learning a lot as we go) and we can't imagine life without Elliott.

She is so much fun. Really. Elliott has such a personality and has always been outspoken (as a colicky baby and now a spunky toddler). She is chattering all. the. time. So much babble to be heard. She plays games with you and is big on imitation at the moment. She takes 3-4 quick steps at a time before stopping, although Elliott will walk everywhere if she has a wall or piece of furniture to use as a guide. She's getting an interest in climbing, so we will see how that goes.. 

I'm still breastfeeding her three times a day and probably once a night. She eats three meals a day and loves all the food that I do. Meat is the toughest thing to sell - deli ham seems to be the best. Elliott has a sweet tooth because she has enjoyed the several special occasions we've been to with cake and other treats.

Sleep is a freakin' hot mess. After vacation messed with her schedule, she got a really gross cough, followed by a round of teething. It's been a rough 6 weeks around here. When Elliott is getting teeth, she will not sleep by herself. I spent a good week holding her for every nap (otherwise she went all day without and was miserable). She's always been clingy at night but any free time for me is nonexistent. After a few nights when crib sleeping seemed imminent, all went haywire. She's still in our bed at night. And because of the teething issue, she's waking up crying a lot. Sometimes she's awake for hours in the middle of the night. It's awful and I wish I drank coffee. Here's hoping for a better phase of sleeping. I have discovered that she can manage without a morning nap if needed, which is nice. Remind me that my #1 parenting fail is not forcing Andy to put her to sleep from birth. I'm the only one who can ever get her to nap or sleep without a moving vehicle. This is extremely inconvenient and a definite pro for her going to one nap a day. 

With a few glorious and sunny days, I've discovered Elliott enjoys the outdoors. She doesn't mind being in grass and loves a good breeze. The water table will provide a lot of fun this summer. We have visited daddy in the field once and Elliott was into it - we rode with him for over an hour!

We had her first birthday party a few days early on Sunday, April 17 with just close friends and family (maybe 25 people total). It was pink and gold Minnie Mouse themed and a big success. she got a few big ticket items (water table and slide/climber, as well as outdoor picnic table from us) but otherwise clothes and a few puzzles and such. Although we do our best to encourage a love for Disney, Minnie is a real favorite for Elliott. It's fitting because her Minnie doll was the first ever thing we really bought for her while I was pregnant on our last WDW trip. I'm so itching to take her there but know that a real life visit probably wouldn't live up to the expectation in my head. 

Elliott: Eleven Months Old

My baby isn't going to be a baby much longer! Elliott is still thisclose to walking. She's getting gutsy and stumbles pretty quickly along the couch. She can also walk using her push toy (mini baby stroller). She will use any and everything to get herself to standing position! 

Missy took her first airplane ride and trip to the beach this month. I'm planning to do a separate post, but in short, she loved the beach. The plane rides could've been better but were certainly manageable. All three of us were sick, so that was a bummer, but we did manage to have a good time. Overall, we learned traveling with a baby is HARD WORK. Gone are the days of napping on the beach all day.

On the eating front, we haven't introduced anything too exciting, although Elliott did get some of my fish in Florida (she also got her first French fry, followed by many more). Elliott is starting to eat a bigger volume of food and really does seem to enjoy it. Cottage cheese, applesauce, Ritz crackers, puffs, and yogurt drops have been the biggest favorites this month. I feel like we haven't been home at all for dinners, so variety has been poor. One goal this month is to push the sippies. At this point, she can survive just fine without milk when I'm away, but it'd be nice to have that option. Plus she needs to start liking water. She nurses 3-4 times a day with a few quick sessions throughout the night. No end in sight for us and breastfeeding.

If motherhood has taught me anything it's to expect the unexpected. Consistency doesn't seem to exist

(atleast for very long), and Elliott is forever teaching me to break the rules. Vacation really screwed up her sleep cycle. We got it back only to have it messed up again thanks to back to back to back nights of late bedtimes for social reasons. Now I understand why some parents are so strict about being home early! Her sleep cycle is all over the place currently but on a good day we will get back to the 7:30pm-8am nights with 1.5 hr naps at 9:30 and 1:30.

One good thing is that we may be edging toward getting her out of our bed. Since we got back from vacation, she has actually been letting me put her in the crib at bedtime! It's still typically for short spurts, but I have been able to stay up until a decent hour. There were even a few nights when she stayed in her room till 1 or so (getting out of bed to tend to her will never NOT be a dread for me-I'm lazy). Truthfully, I miss her when she's not in bed with us. Getting over my anxiety and overprotectiveness will be a big feat for me, but if Elliott is telling me she's ready, I need to do it.

Elliott still has some anxiety when I am away. She always is fine if Andy is around, and she is definitely making a lot of progress with others, but it seems to be hit or miss. Last week, I filled in working at the hospital and she stayed with my mom and sister for 5 hours with virtually no tears! However, Andy and I had a wedding to go to and took it as our opportunity to have an actual night out away from her. I'm the only one to ever put Elliott to sleep so I knew it would be interesting for my mom. She surely wanted to pull her hair out, but Andy and I had a great time and it was really needed. I'm thankful that my mom never pressures me to rush home even when Elliott is being awful. I can still always sense how things are going, though. 

One adorable new trick she has learned is clapping. It's constant and super cute. Elliott is also an expert at 'sharing.' She takes her paci out of her mouth and puts it to your mouth until you put it in. She does the same thing with food. At first I wasn't sure if sharing was her intention, but the more she does it the more I'm convinced that it's definitely to show us whatever she's got at the moment. It's precious. She's also still loving books and constantly is flipping through them. They are all over her bedroom and our living room. I also keep a few in her crib, and when she wakes from naps, she will sit quietly and read for a while. Sometimes I don't even know she has woken up. This also melts my heart. 

Now that we are back from our trip and the cheer season is over, I'm really looking forward to slowing down this month. The only things on the calendar in April revolve around her birthday. With the cold Midwest weather wrapping up, I'm looking forward to some outside fun, too. :)

Elliott: Ten Months Old

We have such a big girl. Elliott still loves to stand and can crawl wherever she wants at the speed of light. I think she will be taking her first steps sometime this month thanks to Andy basically forcing her (he is so into her physical milestones and things like handedness). She is babbling nonstop and is overall much more social thanks to the independence that moving gives her. When meeting new people, she is still guarded and really examines them, though. Elliott is happy all the time unless she gets tired.

As far as sleep goes, naps are either awesome or not happening. I aim for one morning and one afternoon nap. If she does sleep, it's usually for 1-2 hours.  Teething messes us up and makes it tricky to get Elliott to sleep sometimes (the fighting is still way better than what is was when she was younger). She is also moving toward not wanting to be rocked to sleep, which is wonderful. We have yet to master getting her to fall sleep on her own while in her crib, but I'm hoping we are close, otherwise she doesn't know how to fall asleep! When Elliott learned how to sit up/stand up that really pushed us back in that department, she would wear herself out eventually when all she could do was lie there.

Night times are pretty great. She sleeps a 12-13 hour span with maybe two very brief wake ups (I'm usually awake for about 1 minute, no lie). However, she is still in our bed. I don't mind sleeping with her one bit other than the early bedtimes it forces upon me. Even though I have always started bedtime in her room and move her when she just won't have it anymore, she is becoming increasingly more resistant. There was a time when I could get 20 minute spurts of her in her crib, but now she won't even accept being in there for one second after nightfall (she has ALWAYS napped in her crib so I don't know why she fights so much at night). And like I said, she doesn't want to be rocked, so I pretty much just take her to our room right away. She tosses and turns in our bed but can fall asleep on her own with me next to her. It's actually really adorable to watch her switch positions and lie on me. I can't blame her for being more comfy in our bed, so we are working on making her crib a little more plush (yeah, I know kids shouldn't sleep with pillows, blah blah). I keep saying I'm just going to transfer her to her crib while asleep but I'm too chicken. Elliott is incredibly smart, knows what she wants, and doesn't take no for an answer. She better get Atleast a 30 on her ACTs...

Elliott eats whatever we eat. Frequent foods are avocado, mango, grapefruit, and pears. She is also becoming a big fan of cheese sticks and yogurt. Meat and bread she just does okay with. She has a more exotic diet than most adults, I feel (ahem, her father). Baby girl does hoard quite a bit of food (and paper and floor crumbs unfortunately) in her chipmunk cheeks.. Nursing is still happening about 5 times over 24 hours. Sippy cups are being introduced at most meals but I have to tilt it for her and it has to drop into her mouth on its own..

Elliott's fifth and sixth teeth just poked through. Even though it feels like forever since we brought her home from the hospital, I can't believe we aren't far from having a toddler. And yes, her birthday party is already planned.

We are looking forward to nicer weather and a trip to Florida. Pray for us that miss thing does well on the flights and we don't have SW airlines hating us...

Elliott: Nine Months Old

I know I say this every month, but our girl gets to be more and more fun each day! She is pretty content and happy all day and is starting to be okay with others holding her. Although it totally depends on the day, her mood, and where we are, she is for sure making progress. This is the age most kids get stranger anxiety, but my kid has had it since birth so I don't think we have anywhere to go but up! I only left her with my MIL for 2 hours, but other than that she's been with Andy or me this month. However she goes where we go most of the time so that social aspect is good for her. She still enjoys going to the store as well as my practices and basketball games.

Elliott is crawling all over the place, though it is more of a gorilla crawl than a traditional one. She super heart loves the independence it gives her and is content roaming all rooms of the house. She can pull herself up to stand and walks with some assistance. Andy also loves to 'run' with her, which makes her giggle like crazy. Track star in the making, I guess. 

I try to feed her two meals of solid foods each day with two or three components to each meal. Elliott is starting to really love eating and trying everything when before she was pretty indifferent. Avocados, bananas, bread, pears, and deli turkey are a few of our biggest repeats. We just need to work on proteins. Otherwise we are still going strong nursing with no end in sight. She eats about every 4 hours now but if I'm gone, she seems to do fine just going without. He fails at feeding her food, though... Poor kid. I got tired buying new sippies so I haven't been trying them at all this month. Maybe soon we will get there.

Currently, we are in a good patch in the sleep department. It was pretty debilitating for a while, but we are back to just one or two brief wake ups at night, the kind when I can roll over for a quick feed and we both are back to sleep immediately. I will take that! She is still in our bed and I need to stop pushing the crib. It makes things worse when I force it and she sleeps much better when I just put her in our bed from the start. My foot is in my mouth for all those times I ever knocked bed sharing...

Naps have also improved. I'm back to putting her in her crib to wind down a bit before rocking her. She is still crying much more than she originally did with this method, but at least it's mostly just whining. She hasn't been fighting me as much this week and we've even had a few days with TWO, TWO HOUR NAPS! That has never happened in the history of her life and has to be part of why she's been much more happy go lucky. 

If parenthood has taught me anything, it is the importance of going with the flow. I'm not sure if Elliott even knows that she's the boss of the house, but I love her feistiness and determination. I wonder how next month will go...

2015 Recap

I like to read these surveys and figured I should do one too. Stealing Allyson's because I'm too lazy to find my own.

1. What did you do in 2015 that you’d never done before? Birth a child and all that comes with it :)

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for 2015? I'm not one for resolutions but I did want to update our office and that still hasn't happened. 

3. Did anyone close to you have a child? Aside from myself, my sister 

4. Where did you travel? Walt Disney World January 3-8

5. What would you like to have in 2016 that you lacked in 2015?  A desire to be more outgoing 

6. What dates from 2015 will remain etched upon your memory? April 21, March 23, Jan 3-8

7. What was the best thing you bought? Oh boy.. My phone upgrade gets used the most but that seems like a lame answer.

8. Where did most of your money go?  Baby stuff and bills, investments and farm equipment #adulthood 

9. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Becoming a mom

10. What song will always remind you of 2015? Bad blood 

11. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? Happier, thinner, and about the same

12. What do you wish you’d done more of? Travel, day trip activities, go out with friends, read, get out of my comfort zone 

13. What do you wish you’d done less of? Be boring

14. How did you spend Christmas?  Christmas Eve dinner with my parents and siblings, Christmas morning with my in laws, Christmas night with extended Gschwendtners, December 26 brunch with my Gschwendtner cousins, December 27 lunch with the Baumans  

15. Did you fall in love in 2015? With one special little lady 

16. What was your favorite TV program? I don't really get the opportunity to watch much tv and what I do must be recorded. The ones I looked forward to most were People's Couch, Below Deck, Top Chef. 

17. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? not that I can think of. If anything I have fewer complaints and annoyances than ever before. 

18. What was the best book you read? Sadly, I only remember reading one book: Cuckoo's Calling and it was good.

19. What was your greatest musical discovery? My 2006 self would be mad but I can't think of a single thing. 

20. What did you want and get/not get? Cabinetry for the office was a no go. A king sized bed was also not accomplished.. Unfortunately.

21. What was your favorite film of this year? This is tough. The only ones that come to mind are Inside Out and Cinderella live action. 'Her' made me fearful for the future.

22. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I celebrated 25 by going to my cousin Logan's wedding at Allerton Park.

23. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2015? Lazy mom

24. What political issue stirred you the most? I saw snippets of the debates but mostly just don't want Carson or Trump.

25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2015? It really is pointless to worry about the little things. Even though I've always known this, I feel like this year I was able to follow through more than ever.