Cruising!

Lauren is cruising all over the place when holding on to furniture. She's getting around pretty well! She is still falling down a lot. She smashed her little face on her piggy bank last night and cried really hard. :( I thought she was going to have a fat lip but she doesn't.
Her balance is getting better by the day. I'm guessing she'll be walking in the next month or so.

Changing her clothes....Oh boy, not fun! She just can't stand to sit still that long anymore. She's constantly rolling over and trying to crawl away and she cries when I flip her back to put her clothes on. Giving her her toothbrush to chew on sometimes distracts her long enough to get the job done.

She loves her baby touch and feel books and gives kisses to all of the animals in it. It's too cute!

Tooth #7

Well, I guess the not eating breakfast episode the other day was a teething thing. Tooth #7 is poking through today! She's been blowing rasberries like crazy the past few days so I figured it was on it's way. She's not really drooling so much this time...yet anyways. Tooth #6 had her drooling BIG TIME for about 2 weeks after it came in.

She's such a sweetie. We had such a fun weekend together. She's just active all the time these days. But she's been bumping her head a lot. Today she was standing up at her leap frog learning table and she tried to sit down and hit her chin on the table. She has a little cut on her lower lip and on her upper lip, from her teeth I assume. Poor little thing. She had one of those crying so hard, no sound comes out moments. Then a minute later she forgot about it.

Her balance is getting better by the day. Today while webcamming with Grammy, Grandpa and Mewmaw, she stood for about 10 seconds on her own and even leaned towards me and took 2 little steps. Well, it was more like she was falling forward but she did take steps! She crawls and follows the dogs all over the house. If Matt or I leave the room, she crawls after us.

Lauren wasn't getting sick, just not in the mood to eat I guess. She's definitely getting a mind of her own. She's SO active, just going all the time.
She LOVES the boppy ball game that she got for Christmas last year. You push the button and it forces the balls, then they fly up, go down a twirly slide and back into the tube. She's learned how to push the button to make it start and when the balls start comoing out she yells "Oh, Oh, Oh!!!" and get's super excited and tries to grab them. Matt and I crack up every time she does it because she get's SOOOOOOOO excited. Then when the game ends, she puts all of the balls that fell on the floor back in the hole an pushes the button again. She even crawls across the room to get the balls that have rolled away and brings them back to the game.

I'm going to go shopping this weekend and get one of those toys where you put the different shapes into the holes. I think she'll like that. I can't believe she's big enough to do that already!

Oh, and changing clothes has become a nightmare. She hates it and cries and tries to get away.

She stood up!

After many failed attempts and much frustration, Lauren learned to fully pull herself to standing without any assistance in her crib around 1:00 AM this morning. She was crying and when I checked the monitor, she was just standing there. I vowed I would let her figure out how to sit herself back down when all of this started but I was to tired to stay up and listen to her cry so I went in and layed her back down and she was asleep again in seconds. This morning she was standing in her crib smiling at me when I went in to get her.

This morning she refused her bottle. She never does that in the morning. She's been taking 9-10 oz in the morning lately. This morning she took 3 then pushed the bottle away. Then she would look at the bottle and reach for it, give it a suck, then push it away, she was oviously hungry. She took a bit more when I gave it to her from a cup but not much. I hope she's not getting another ear infection. I'm going to call daycare and check on her during nap time. No other signs of ear infection but she doesn't always get the classic symptoms. She complains so little when she's sick, I feel like I really need to keep a close eye on her to know when she is in fact feeling under the weather.

Lemons, 9 month check up ( a little late) & pulling up

Lauren had her first lemon wedge on Saturday when we went to dinner with cousin Holli & Jay. She didn't even make a sour face, she just seemed to like it. She sucked on it for a long time.

Her 9 month check up was Saturday. She was actualy 9 months, 3 weeks and 4 days. Here are the stats:

Weight: 19 lbs 12 oz - 56% (she was 69% at her 6 month check up)
Height: 28 3/4 inches - 74% (I think she was 87% at her 6 month check up)
Head: 44.8 64%

Our pedictrician is a bit on the conservative side to say the least. She felt that her weight was something to keep an eye on. She said Lauren should have a minimum of 32 oz of milk which I try to do but sometimes she just refuses. For instance Sunday she only had 20 oz but yesterday she had 35 oz. Normally she's in the 25-30 range lately. Doc said to cut back on her solids to make her hungry enough to drink the formula since that's her main source of nutrition. I tried that Saturday but she was just crying b/c she was hungry and still wouldn't take the formula. I'm not going to worry about it. I think she's doing just fine. Oh, doc said no more than 15 cheerios OR one unsalted saltine cracker a day, and no baby crackers like veggie puffs...yeah right.

Lauren's getting more skilled at crawling every day. She's getting around but she's still pretty slow at it. She get's frustrated if I go in the other room and she cries the whole time she crawls to me sometimes. She crawls over to the dogs to play with them too. She's fallen on Sunny a few times so sometimes Sunny runs away from her now. :( Lauren got her first booboo on her head. It must have happened at daycare or in her crib. She has a bruise on her forehead above her left eye. Saturday (after she already had the bruise) she smacked her little head on the coffee table. It didn't seem like she hit it that hard but it was read and swollen within minutes. It never bruised though. I suspect we have a lot more bumps and bruises ahead of us now. Yesterday she pulled up to standing completely on her own. I was laying on the floor and she was playing next to me and she leaned over and used my torso to pull up to standing but bent over then she climbed her hands up my body until she was standing. Yay Lauren!!!

We've helping her walk all over the place while holding on to our fingers. She's doesn't put any weight on us, basically just holds on for balance. She's walking fast too. Yesterday she was holding on to the ottoman and quickly grabbed my hands and took off without even thinking about it. I think she'll be walking on her own in a few weeks. Maybe she'll hold off until Labor Day weekend so Grammy & Grandpa can see her walk for the first time.

What else....we're trying to read every day but Lauren would rather sit on the book on all fours. Sometimes she leans down and gives kisses to the animals.

Pickels

Lauren had her first pickel yesterday and she LOVED it!

Trying to pull up...trying real hard!!

Lauren is 9 months, 3 weeks and 3 days old today.

She hasn't woken in the night in quite a few weeks. Last night she had her normal amount of food but woke at midnight crying. I let her go for about 15 minutes. She was trying and trying to pull herself to standing in her crib, then she would crawl around bit, lay down an suck her thumb then start crying and try to pull up again. Eventually I went in there b/c I had a feeling she was hungry. I made her a bottle and she sucked the entire 8 oz down in no time flat and fell back asleep. She woke again around 3 and tried to stand up again for awhile then went back to sleep.

We're in for it when she learns how to stand in her crib. We'll have that stage where she doesn't know how to get back down. Lynda (daycare) says we still shouldn't go in there at that point or she will start waking again so we will go in. We'll see how it goes.

Last night she was sleeping with her legs tucked under her and her butt in the air. Too cute!

Creeping and sleeping!

Lauren is 9 months and 3 weeks now.

Lauren is now creeping just a little bit. If we put one of her stand up toys next to the couch and put toys on the couch, she will make her way over. Here we go! :)

She's crawling pretty good now and chasing me around the house.

She's been sleeping really, really well lately. At about 7:30 or so, we give her an 8 oz bottle, she sucks it down, grabs her snoopy (this has become her sleeping/snuggling buddie over the past few weeks), sticks her thumb in her mouth and chills out. We've been putting her to bed while she's still awake and she just rolls over and goes to sleep. She's out cold until 7:30 am. Occasionally she will whine for about 10-30 seconds and go back to sleep.

She's so cute with her snoopy, no matter what time of day, the second I hand her snoopy, her thumb goes in her mouth.

We've been working towards eating more grown up food instead of baby food. She's still mainly on baby food but she's eating a lot of diced veggie/meat/fruit baby food, zwieback toast, puffs, cheerios, cut up fruit, pieces of cheese, small pieces of pasta, and crackers.

We go to the doc for her 9 month well check up on Saturday.

2 new tricks

Lauren learned 2 new tricks while staying with Grammy & Grandma:

1.) Giving kisses. If you say "Give Mommy (or Grammy or whoever) kisses", she opens her mouth wide and puts her nose on yours. Too cute!!!

2.) If you say "Where is Mommy's nose?" she will put her hand on your nose.

She's a little sponge these days! I just want to spend all of my time working with her so she will learn and learn. Fun stuff!!

She crawls!!

Grammy just called and apparently, out of nowhere, Lauren just up and crawled across the room as if she was an old pro.

I'm so sad we missed it, but at least Grammy, Mimi & Papa got to see it.

Missing Lauren

We were in Michigan for 10 days and Lauren stayed up there with her Grammy & Grandpa. While we were there, we stayed at the lake in Canada with Granny & Poppy for a few day and spend the rest of the time with Grammy & Grandpa. Matt got a job offer so we are moving home. :) Yay!!! Lauren, Grammy and I went out house hunting and found a few houses we really loved.
Unfortunately, Lauren got sick while we were on vacation. She slept a lot the morning of Saturday July 23rd. By mid afternoon she was running a temperature. Grammy and Grandpa took her home. She was extra tired and somewhat lathargic but was still laughing, smiling and playing. Sunday morning she still had a temperature but seemed to be feeling a bit better. By 5:00 her temp had jumped to 102.5 so we took her to the doctor. Doc said it couldn't be bacterial b/c she was still on her antibiotics from the ear infection so it must have been something viral. They did a culture for strep throat and she didn't have it. They checked her ears and the ear infection is gone. By the end of day Monday, she was completely fine.

The drooling has subsided and we are in a teething free zone at the moment!

Lauren is still incredibly close to crawling but has not yet gone for it. She get's on all 4's and rocks and she will move one leg forward then she doesn't know what to do.
Grammy is working with her a lot this week to eat regular food and drink from a cup. Some days she doesn't seem to want her bottle but she will take her formula from a cup. It seems that she is weaning herself from the bottle. She just LOVES to feed herself and will eat cheerios and fruit puffs all day long if you let her. She had a few tastes of ice cream while on vacation and loved it. She would open her mouth up for more.

I can't wait to see her!! I keep going in her room because it smells like her. Grammy has been awesome and is sending us two video messages a day so we can see her.