Achievements: 10 months 4 weeks

shoes: I decided to have Sarah wear shoes, because I see that she is strong enough to stand and crawl in them. Now it’s really a good idea! I can see that her right foot is weaker due to muscle tightness, she was curling the toes a little bit (or a lot, I can’t say now), but she can’t do it in ortho shoes, so she relaxes her foot, which is very good. I really hope that her walking will improve soon.

walking: now Sarah can keep balance by holding on with one hand, she is really good, she walks considerably slower, but still! previously she just fell to her knees. Also she started walking along objects: the sofa, the chair, the kitchen isle.

communication: trys to repeat words/sounds after me (I love you, mama, poo) and after one or two weeks of me teaching her to pronounce mama, she finally did today! She says mama, when she really wants something! Yay!

wonder week: I think, she is in a WW period, but not very fussy. It can as well be attributed to anything.

teething: ok, so now she has 8 teeth, the 9 and 10th are in progress, I think. It really looks like sometimes she gets teething pains and I put some gel on.

allergies: some herbs in tea, corn or raw carrots… she got hiccups after cheese:( not easy at all.

Activities with Sarah: 10 months week 3

Nursery rhymes

1. North wind doth blow (with my changes)

The North wind doth blow and we shall have snow,
And what will robin do then, little bird?
He’ll sit in a barn and keep himself warm
and hide his head under his wing, little bird.

2. Little Bo Peep

Little Bo peep has lost her sheep
And doesn’t know where to find them.
Leave them alone and they’ll come home,
Bringing their tails behind them.
Little Bo peep fell fast asleep
And dreamt she heard them bleating,
But when she awoke, she found it a joke,
For they were all still fleeting.
Then up she took her little crook
Determined for to find them.
She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed,
For they left their tails behind them.
It happened one day, as Bo peep did stray
Into a meadow hard by,
There she espied their tails side by side
All hung on a tree to dry.
She heaved a sigh, and wiped her eye,
And over the hillocks went rambling,
And tried what she could,
As a shepherdess should,
To tack again each to its lambkin.

3. Mary had a little lamb

Mary had a little lamb
It’s fleece was white as snow
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.

Source

Baby games

1. I spy

To play this game with your baby you will need to both spy and find. Say, “I spy with my little eye, something that is…”. Then you would draw your attention to the object, person, etc. and take your baby over to get a good look.

2. Towers Fall Down

To play this game with your baby you will build towers of blocks. When the tower is built let your baby knock it down!

3. Roll the Ball

Sit on the floor across from your baby and roll the ball to each other.

Source

Achievements: 10 months 3 weeks

Sarah amazes me everyday!

• trys to throw things back
• started stacking the leo pyramid
• she always trys to share!

And she got her first funky haircut from me! The hair was getting in her eyes, and I thought it might grow better with some cuttin’.

Developments: 10 months week 1&2

This week Sarah turned 10 months, almost everyone forgot about it.

She is so wonderful! Pure love!

Feeding schedule

Our feeding schedule is still the same, in 30 min bracket of the set time, except breakfast. So she might sleep till almost noon, if it took her some time to fall asleep. Or she might sleep till 5 in the evening, if again she fell asleep at 4. Bed-time now is closer to 8. This pre-time-change schedule move has not been easy. And this week I should move us to 7:45 wake-time:) Ok, moving the eating part has not been difficult, it’s the sleep patterns that are not easy to move – for everyone.

Ok, so it’s almost the end of the week. There has been progress with my understanding of the situation:

1. She wakes up extremely hungry and if I hadn’t stuffed (smile) her at dinner, she may wake up hungry at 7.
2. Since she has been taking the full bottle in the morning and crying for more, I upped her bottle to 210 ml from 180 ml.
3. We have slowly moved the bed-time to 20:00. Initially she would get overtired… And it’s understandable, because she would still wake up at 7 or 7:15. Now we are more at 7:30 if she eats well the day before.
4. So I set the alarm for 7:40.
5. I think, I will not move her schedule anymore before the time change, otherwise the schedule gets too difficult for me.

Allergies

I thought Sarah was allergic to some cereal, veggies and fruits. Now I am not sure… Except for she is allergic to nasal drops Protargol. Did I forget? I used them when she was a month, but there were so many problems, like food, vitD etc. Then I used it when she was 9 months, but attributed the allergies to other products. Well, now I pinpointed it.

Now, do I retest the foods? Ahhh, I so don’t want to. Sarah gets hiccups and her fair skin – pimples. I still think she is allergic to apples, broccoli, goat milk.

Teething

Sarah got her 7th tooth on the 24.10! Hurray, I really didn’t see any red gums and almost started to doubt that she was teething (may be I was rubbing the teething cream in for no reason). Well, her 8th one should pop out any day now too.

Sarah’s achievements

• Sarah plays coo-coo with people.
• She tries to throw the ball back – really cute and funny. But just a couple of weeks ago she couldn’t let go of the ball, now she is letting go trying to give it to me.
• She is really sweet in giving her paci or toys for others to chew and suck, when she likes the person.

Potty

Potty is fine when I put Sarah on it, but after her second nap I tend to slide. Should get a grip on self. Sometimes she goes in the potty, sometimes she doesn’t. I always congradulate her on going in the potty.

On a sidenote to being grandma

• Don’t tell how I did things with Sarah implying that Sarah is doing less of a job.
• Don’t teach things to grandchild which Sarah doesn’t want to be taught to said grandchild.

Sarah’s 9 months 4 weeks

What’s been happening to the little girl who is growing up so fast:

• she has her 6th tooth right upper, and now is expecting the 7th right lower (I think she’ll get it within a month)
• sometimes waves hello, but more often just stretches out her hand
• was vaccinated on the 6th (akds+hepB)

Organizing books

This post has encouraged me to organize our books, especially since their number is growing with Sarah. I did it with line straps, not circles.

Here are the categories with colors:

• encyclopedia – blue
• anthology/reading book – brown
• poetry – pink
• about animals – orange
• about plants – green
• about nature – red
• tales – yellow
• chemistry – navy
• physics – black
• lessons, games – white
• cook book – brown+orange+green (vertical)
• music – white+blue (vertical)
• parenting – brown+black (vertical)
• life – white+black

New schedule: 9 months 3 weeks

We are slowly moving to winter time. However, Sarah’s naps have changed since she turned 9 months.

7:30 wake up, bottle

8:00 solids

9:45, 10 get ready for nap, nap

11:30 wake up, bottle

12:00 solids

walk

14:45, 15:00 get ready for nap, nap

16:30 wake up, bottle, solids

18:20 massage, bath

19:00 bottle, solids, story

19:30 bed-time

Basically she has 2.5h wake-time in the morning and 3.5 in the afternoon. She’s very sleepy by 19:30.

Achievements: 9 months 3 weeks

• Sarah shows how big she is by raising her hands up
• She crawls! Yup, she started a week ago bit by bit turning to army crawling after a few attempts, but now she pushes her legs up – and crawls. No army crawling!!! It’s amazing!
• She also started clapping by herself. When I say clap-clap, she also claps.

Difficulties, issues, developments, achievements: 9 months week 2

Starting with the good

Feeding

A couple of days ago we’ve dropped the dreamfeed. Hooray! Well, we could have done it earlier, and should have. She hasn’t been asking for the bottle for a couple of weeks or more and was happily sleeping. Even when she cried out, it was mostly for paci or could be satisfied by water. But I enjoyed that sleepy-Sarah-feeding, also M made the bed at that time and I kept forgetting to make it when Sarah was going to bed. What happened finally – she was starting to lose appetite during the day. Feedings became a spoon-counting session with Sarah squirming and looking away. Awful! So now the bottle is gone. Now I make the bed when I put Sarah down to sleep.

Also Sarah tries to eat with a spoon. When I am feeding her, she stretches out her left hand, I put the spoon into it. Then I move her fist scooping food and putting in the mouth. Sometimes she just wants me to feed her.

Potty

Yes, we are! Yes, I am trying to have regular potty-times, before-after meals, naps, walks and bed-time. However, our achievements are meager in this area for now. Sarah sits great on the potty, since she has grown, and her tushy doesn’t fall in the hole, and her legs almost touch the floor. She doesn’t attempt to get up. However, it’s not easy on me and really crams our schedule.

To the questionable…

Napping

The first nap is fine. I moved it forward to around 9:20-9:30, but sometimes it takes her awhile to fall asleep. We start getting ready at 9:05-9:10. When she naps for more than an hour, there were a couple of days when she didn’t take the second nap! She played all the time in her crib. The major nap disruption is pooping. May be teething too. I don’t know what happened but she started pooping right in the beginning or middle of her naps. If in the beginning, then she just goes down really late and sleeps in, if in the middle, then she might not go back to sleep. I guess we can only persevere, until a new wave of change comes in.

Just Funny

Several funny things happened during this week.

• On the 21.09 Sarah played a game with me before bed, when she was putting her paci into my mouth, laughing when I pretended to suck on it, removing it and putting it back again. Wonderful!
• On the 22.09 she inspected her bottle (3rd feeding), held it in her hands, tried putting it into the mouth, looked and touched the nipple. It’s so great that she is learning and is more aware! Of course she didn’t want to hold the bottle once done inspecting. I think she relaxes at the bottle and just doesn’t want to do any ‘work'(smile). I understand.
• She also started playing the game during our massage (when I am massaging her back), when she throws toys down and laughs when I pick them up and give to her. I am so happy about this cognitive achievement.