Eleven Months

Ivy,
You turned eleven months last week. Every day you grow and change, getting farther and farther away from the little baby you were and closer to a toddler. You are so smart. You can figure out how to work your toys.... your first word was "wow" and now you say "daddy" and I'm sure I've heard "mommy" once or twice. You are still a little cautious about standing on your own, but you pull up on anything you possibly can. You love to clap your hands, and take pleasure in clapping for yourself after every accomplishment. Andrea taught you how to give high fives last weekend when she visited and you are an expert of that, too. As far as eating, you are a piggy! You will eat just about everything we give you and it seems like you always want more! You love bananas, hot dogs, bologna, cheese, toast.... just about everything.
You are losing interest in your bottle, though.... just one more sign you are not just a baby anymore.
You know what you want and think you know how to get it. When Daddy tickles you and you aren't ready for the "game" to be over, you grab his hand and put it back on your belly, like you are saying "No Daddy, don't stop yet." Want to know a secret? You really can get whatever you want because your Daddy and I and everyone else love you so much.

I hope you stay as happy as you are now, Ivy. You find joy in everything you do, no matter how mundane. I love every minute I spend with you, and wish there were a million more minutes in every day so I could be with you that much more. I love you, honeybear.

Love,
Mommy

Eleven Month pictures

These are Ivy's 11 month portraits. The last one, where she is holding the shell, is what we bought the package of.

One little tooth

Today was the first day you could actually see Ivy's tooth. Her first little tooth is just peeking out from under her gum. I thought she was going to wait forever to start getting teeth! Just one more sign my little girl isn't going to be a baby forever.....

Growing every day

It's amazing how quick things change in the life of a baby. Today was a huge day for Ivy. She had three major "events" in her little life.

- She's been toying with the idea of standing without holding on to something. When Ivy and I go to wake Nathan up every day at 3, we lay in bed for awhile and she acts like we are her personal jungle gym. For the past few days she's been pushing up on him, standing for about a second and a half, then falling on her butt. She thinks this is by far the coolest game she's learned yet. Well, today she was standing by Kyle and he let go of her and she stood by herself for a good five seconds. Won't be long now.......

- Ladies and gentlemen, we have a hole! No teeth yet, but you can really really see where one is coming. I thoroughly believe that will be any day now, too. Maybe she is waiting to hit 11 months first. She's only got 8 days left until that milestone.

- I -think- she said her first word today. She's been babbling for what seems like forever, and she says mama and dada and things of that nature. It sounds like she says hi, but I've never been as convinced as I was today that she says these things on purpose. Kyle was playing with Ivy in the living room. Right after he got her to stand up like I mentioned above, he looked and her and said "WOW!" She looked up at him and made her little lips into a little circle and said "wow" right back. She worked so hard to form her lips just right to make the right sounds that I really think she knew what she was doing. She still won't say it every time you want her to, and a lot of times she keeps going and it turns into wowowowowowow, but I still think I will put this one in the baby book.

Who needs sleep?

Today, Ivy decided that naps are for sissies. Her morning nap lasted about a half hour, and her afternoon nap.... well, that one didn't happen at all. I put her in bed about a half an hour ago, and I'm crossing my fingers that that is where she will stay for the rest of the night.

On a separate note, took her back to the doctor yesterday..... her ears are still pink, but no longer have puss in them, so they look like they are clearing up. She has an appointment on August 8th with the ENT.

Darn ears

All through vacation, Ivy was still tugging on her ears. She figured out that her cute little finger fits exactly in her ear, too. Anyway, I figured she still had her ear infections, so on the way home from Cleveland Monday afternoon, I called the ped. They said to go ahead and bring her in and low and behold, both ears are still infected. Now she is on Augmentin again and Nathan and I have decided to call a different ENT and make an appointment. I just can't see the sense in letting her keep suffering.

Doctor's visit

Since I am very late in posting this, I am just copying a post I sent to my Mommies group about Ivy's appointment on July 11th.

Ivy had a doctor's appointment. She's been super fussy, running a low grade fever, has a snot nose. Could it be teething? Could it be nothing? Had to check it out before we leave for "vacation" Wednesday. So I took her in and what is it, ladies????? Ear infection in both ears. My poor baby girl!! This is her 5th (or 6th?) one. She's had two that were really persistent, too. Dr. Amy said we'll see how this one goes (if it sticks around or clears up quick) and if it's hard to clear or she gets another one, she would definitely reconsider the ENT.

More Finger Food

Ivy is getting to be a pro at this whole eating thing. Today for lunch she had a biter biscuit and some frozen carrots I cooked in the microwave. Here she is during her "meal". Needless to say, Daddy gave her a shower this afternoon.

Happy 4th of July

Today we went to Darlene's annual 4th of July party. It was a lot of fun seeing a lot of friends I just don't see often enough anymore. Ivy got to wear her new patriotic dress... she also got to meet some itty bitty kitties. She absolutely LOVES animals, and the cats were no exception. Darlene and Dennis put on a fantastic fireworks show, as usual. Ivy lso ate crackers.... she really liked them and wanted everyone else to see this as well. :o)

Ivy eating a cracker... she really wanted to let everyone know she was enjoying it

Erin showing Ivy one of the kittens

Ivy in her patriotic duds

Gone bananas

Well, I finally did it... I gave Ivy table food. I've been putting it off and putting it off, and honestly, I'm still scared she is going to choke, but yesterday she had most of a banana for lunch. It was so fun to watch. She had a hard time picking the pieces up because they were so mushy, so she'd try to pick one up and when she couldn't get it, she'd just move on to the next one until she found one she could grasp. I probably won't be trying much else for a little bit, but I'm proud of myself for this banana (and proud of Ivy, too, of course!)

Swimming

Ivy loves her kiddie pool that we got her.... it's little, but we knew we wouldn't take care of a big pool with chemicals (we tried that last summer and it got scummy a couple of times) so we figured we would just get a little one that we could empty and fill easily. Anyway, she acts like she is really swimming. Oh, and she knows where the pool is, too.... as soon as you walk outside, she looks at it and gets all excited.... adorable.

Camping

Monday night and Tuesday night the family went camping. We were planning on tent camping, since we have all of the gear, but changed our minds at the last minute. Erin wasn't crazy about going at all, and with Ivy being so little, we decided a cabin may be the way to go. So I found a place on the internet and we drove out. It was in a little town called Big Prairie.... and it was beautiful. Not that TOledo is really "big city" life, but being in the country was so refreshing.

The first night there, we all went swimming.... that was when we realized we forgot Miss Ivy's stroller and A LIGHTER TO LIGHT THE FIRE. So we asked the person at the desk where the nearest Wal-mart was. It's amazing, we were in the middle of Amish country and there were still two Walmart's within a half hour of us. Anyway, so we went to Walmart, got our forgotten supplies, and returned to the campsite to cook dinner (on the grill).

Tuesday we went canoeing.... definately an adventure with a wee one, but still very fun. Nathan, Erin and Kyle were in the canoe (Nathan and Kyle paddled) and Ivy and I were in an inner tube dragging behind the boat. The water was cold, but we still had fun.... until Ivy decided it was way past her naptime and started screaming bloody murder. I kept telling her she was disturbing the peace of the wilderness, but she didn't care. She cried until she fell asleep on my chest, about 5 minutes before the canoe trip was over. We'll have to work on the timing next time.

Tuesday night we cooked on the grill again and made s'mores over the fire.... yum. Wedsnesday was basically spent packing up and driving home. It was a really nice trip and I definately think we'll try to do it again this summer.

Oh, and by the way, camping in a cabin is STILL real camping. I had to walk to go th the bathroom, walk even further to take a shower, there was no A/C and plenty of bugs... oh, and a raccoon who was stalking our cabin, causing me to go sit in the car and read my book. Definately real camping. :o)

Ivy's Ears

Yesterday we went for Ivy's recheck.... it was supposed to be Tuesday, but we are going camping so it had to be rescheduled. Once again, I didn't think she was any better.... still tugging at her ears, a little cranky. Well, I was wrong. Her ears are clear once again. Yay! So now hopefully they STAY THAT WAY!

Well Check

Ivy went to the doctor today for her nine month well check. Here's the stats:

Length - 28" (75%)
Weight - 20.0 pounds (75%)
Head - not sure on this one, but it was past the 100 percentile!!!

So her noggin is still huge, but the pedi said not to worry, one of her parents must just have a big head... my vote is for Nathan because it sure can't be me, lol. Everything else is looking good.... Dr. Amy said Ivy has an umbilical hernia(!!) which kind of made me mad because no one has ever mentioned it before. Also, she said she was totally fine with me not starting table food yet, especially with the distinct lack of teeth. She admitted she is conservative when it comes to table food because she had some issues with children having a "rough time" with it during her residency.... all I can figure is choking?? She said her reccommendation would be to wait until a year if that is what I want.

Here's some bad news.... when we got there and they took Ivy's temp, it was 99.2. Girly usually runs pretty low, like in the 97s, so right away I thought "ear infection." And I was right. Her right ear is fine, but her left ear hasn't cleared up from the last infection (two weeks ago). Dr. Amy said she hears from lots of parents that they don't like the ENT's, that they don't listen and just reccommend surgery, and said our decision to wait through the summer is fine, BUT if after this clears up Ivy gets ANOTHER infection, she wouldn't wait if it were her daughter. So now that's on my plate again. Only time will tell.

HOT!

For crying out loud, it is soooo hot here. Yesterday, the high was over 90, right now it is 84 and it is supposed to be in the 90s all week! This is Ohio, not Texas FTLOG! We drove all over town looking for a pool for Ivy and had a really hard time getting one. We finally scored one at Toys R Us. It is filled up, in the sun, warming up so it is ready when Ivy wakes up from her nap. We've been keeping her as naked as possible and she has a rash that I think is heat related. Her nine month well check is tomorrow, so we will see then.

nine months

Nine months? Where has the time gone? Ivy pulls up on anything and everything now.... she is even starting to cruise a little bit. I think she may FINALLY be getting a tooth---she chews on her tongue all the time and the drool has kicked up a notch. She's getting to be a stubborn baby.... when you take something away or make it so she can't get to what she wants (usually someting she shouldn't have!) she throws a miny fit. She's also very into pulling mommy's hair and taking glasses off people's face. She doesn't seem to give other people a hard time with hair pulling and pinching like she does Mommy.... testing the limits already, I guess. She occassionally gets on all fours and crawls, but it's still usually the Army crawl. She adores the bird and loves it when we take her into the kitchen to have a peek. I finally started giving her fruit puffs to munch on, so she sits in her high chair while we eat. She semi-chokes on them still, so I am not sure she is ready for other table food. I still lay wih her to put her to sleep and I love that time.... I look forward to it every day. I love that baby more than anything in the world.....

Eight Months

I can not believe that my baby is eight months old today. She is turning into such a little person. She crawls around using just her arms.... the army crawl. She has just started pulling up onto her knees, but hasn't mastered getting from her knees to her feet without a LOT of assistance from mommy or daddy. She says mamama, dadada, bababa, gagaga and I've also heard goo a couple of times. She sqeals a lot and does funny gurgling noises too. I just can't hold her or hug her enough. For her eight month birthday she gave us two presents..... she went from laying down to sitting up by herself and also held her bottle for the first time by herself.... she usually uses bottle time as pure relaxation, with her hands thrown behind her head. I just can't believe how fast they grow up......

Chicago

Tomorrow morning Ivy, Mom, Bob Pay and I are driving to Chicago to see Jessica. I am just about packed, but now it is 1:25am and I am not tired at all. I think it might be because I am stressed about the trip.... the funny thing is that Ivy does great on trips like this, it's Mommy who gets nervous.

cutie

I student teach every day from 8am - 12pm. Nathan gets home from work and wakes me up at 7:15 and crawls into bed until Ivy wakes up. So this morning, Ivy was in bed with me (she had a bit of a rough night last night). When I left for "work", Nathan and Ivy were snuggling. He told me this afternoon that she woke him up by scooting closer to him and pulling his moustache hairs!!! she didn't make any noise at all, just pulled at his whiskers!! how cute is she? :o)

cough

Ivy has a pretty bad cough today. I am planning on waiting a week and seeing if it gets better.... of course I will take her in if I think she is having a hard time breathing. I'm proud of myself that I am waiting... when she was a newborn, we were at that doctor's office about once a week!

six months

Ivy had her well check today. I can't believe she is six months old already. She is turning into such a little person. Here are her stats from today:

Length: 27" (90%)
Weight: 16 lbs. 12 oz. (70%)
Head: 45 1/4 cm (99%)

Big head!! Oh well, I guess someone has to be 99th, right?

couple things

first of all, jessica and pierre are coming friday! i am so excited for them and ivy to finally meet. of course, i am excited to see them too. ivy is asleep in her crib and i -should- be packing so we can leave tomorrow for cleveland. i'm sure i will have tons of pictures after this weekend.

i think i am calling the doctor tomorrow. ivy had been spitting up a lot, so i stopped with the solids for a couple of days. she didn't spit up at all yesterday or tuesday, so we gave her rice cereal this morning and all was fine. i was at deanna's tonight and ivy ate at 4pm. around 6pm, she spit up all over the place. that just seems weird to me.... too far away from the feeding, you know. plus she's been pulling on her ears, but that may just be because she -found- them, you know? but it could also be that there is something wrong.... she's always been a happy baby, even when sick. i figure better to be safe than sorry when we are leaving for cleveland tomorrow and while there the only option is the ER, you know?

a little off

ivy has been plain old weird lately. the whole week gale was here, ivy's nap schedule was waaaaay off. this week her napping has gotten a lot better, but she is still really off at night. she has been sleeping through the night for awhile now, but lately she's been waking up either ready to play or really restless. she's never been overly dependant on the binky, but on those restless nights i pull her into bed with me so i can help hold the binky in because if it falls out their is some serious whining. i think the ready to play nights may be an issue of her seeing me next to her when she wakes up.... makes me think she is ready for her own room. unfortunatly, i am NOT ready for that change. i just don't feel safe having her downstairs and me upstairs with nathan gone all night.

four months

Ivy had her four month check up today. overall, it was a good appointment.... the doctor was really awesome(in the past, i've felt really rushed, but i've always thought she was nice). here's ivys' stats:

length: 26 inches
weight: 15 pounds
head circ.: 43 1/2 cm

she's way bigger than i thought.... i think she still looks tall and skinny. the doctor said to start her with cereal.... she's getting more than 36 oz. of formula (some days, not always, i feed on demand) and the doc said you don't want to give them more than that because of the high fat content in formula.... makes sense to me, so i'll go for it. i've been trying to do research on when to start solids, but nothing i find agrees with anything else i find, so i'll just listen to the doctor! she also said she doesn't feel any teeth at all in ivy's mouth, so that's one less thing to worry about for now.

she suggested trying to start putting ivy to bed still awake... i totally understand that she needs to be able to soothe herself yadda yadda yadda, but i LIKE rocking her to sleep. i think we might try the self soothing thing for naps but rock for bedtime? who knows.....last time ivy got her shots she slept the whole day, it was great....this time she hasn't slept AT ALL since her appointment (1:00)....she's been fussy, but nothing horrible... jsut wants momma's lovin'. she just now laid down for a nap, fell asleep eating.... we'll see how long it lasts.

portraits

we got ivy's portraits done (again!) at walmart today. they were so great that i made nathan buy the photo disk so we would always have them. supposedly you can't print the pictures out because they are really low quality, but at least i can look at them on the computer!



i think she looks likes she's up to something here

isn't she the cutest?

excersaucer

ivy is really starting to enjoy her excersaucer... she spins the drum you see up front and also turns the steering wheel

tummy time

tummy time is getting to be far more fun

christmas day

we had breakfast with grandpa andy and grandma linda and then headed to fremont for time with grandma and grandpa ritchie. we had lunch there and then turned right around and headed back to cleveland to see grandma. (ivy has too many grandparents to keep track of!!!) we basically ate dinner and had to leave..... nathan had to be at work at 10:30pm... what a busy way to spend your first christmas.... and sick on top of it!!!

christmas eve

we spent christmas eve at my dad's house.... he had dinner for us and then watched ivy so nathan and i could go to church. it was a really beautiful service, but ivy was running a fever the whole night. poor little thing!!

santa

Ivy with her loot.... from santa and grandpa andy and grandma linda

Photo shoot

she's finally starting to hold onto (and eat) toys

silly

i learned how to blow bubbles

whoa

whoa, i have toes!

big eyes

why, hello mommy!!!

christmas part 2

we wnt to heather's last night for a christmas get together.... deanna, jason, jamie, jay, drew, bailey, heather, al and shelby were all there. we had pizza for dinner. ivy got some binkies, a set of winnie the pooh keys and a gloworm.... i think that is really neat because i had one when i was little, too. thank you, heather!

the girl is loaded

ivy officially has a lot more money than her mommy. we took all her baptism money to the bank today and bought savings bonds. in about twelve years she will have $600.... not too shabby.

six shopping days 'til christmas....

and we've barely started shopping! of course, i am done with ivy's presents..... we had some gift cards from other gifts i've returned, so i used those and got her a ton of stuff. nathan keeps saying it doesn't matter because she's so little. i know it's just for me, but i want it to be awesome. anyway, we survived our week without nathan. he leaves again january 23rd. ivy had her first ER visit thursday night.... they said she had a virus (the easy way of saying they can't figure out what is wrong) but at the follow up on friday the doctor said ear infection. so she's back on amoxicillin, poor little thing. she's still sleeping a lot, but seems in better spirits.

santa

ivy saw santa today at the american legion in brecksville. he brought her her first present.... a set of fisher price keys.

baptized

ivy was baptized today in the same church where i was baptized and confirmed. she had a spectacular party at the american legion afterwards. she has one godfather (Jon) and two godmothers (Brandi and Andrea) now, who all love her very much.


ivy's baptism cake

playtime

who is that baby in the mirror?

Thanksgiving

Ivy's first Turkey Day went pretty well. We woke up to her first snow! We went to Grandma Ritchie's house first, where Ivy got to meet a lot of family she had never seen before. Then we went on to Cleveland to my grandma's for another dinner.... at this point, ivy's diaper basically exploded on her nice white outfit!!! i got most of it out, but it goes to show you, be prepared for anything! friday we went and bought ivy her christmas dress and then had dinner at my dad's. saturday was basically spent in the car.... 2 hours to my grandparents, brunch there (ivy met her great aunt cathy), 2 hours back to cleveland, dinner with dina, jason and peyton and 2 hours back home. we had to stop TWICE to feed her on the way back to toledo. i'm thinking maybe she's hitting another growth spurt

friends

ivy and peyton... i don't know what is wrong with ivy's eye

grandma

ivy and her grandma

Naked baby!!

The most recent "naked baby" picture

Ivy staring at her daddy

Miss Ivy looking at her daddy.... she just loves staring at him.

ANOTHER website for Ivy

My little girl is going to be all over the internet! Another mommy on a yahoo group I belong to has a blog here, so I thought I'd try it out too.... maybe when I find something that's easy to manage I'll remember to keep updating it!!