43 weeks!

Another cold week brings baby to 43 weeks old! And...

• Is being hilarious, giggling and making goofy sounds, and mimicking things we do.
• Has stopped with her tricks; clapping, drum playing, and showing us how big she is. Maybe she's on to bigger and better abilities.
• Is standing on her own but has yet to take a step, though she looks like she's thinking about it and then decides to just sit and crawl to wherever she'd like to go...clever baby!
• Has had her first...

         pony tail!!!

• Likes her food, though she realized how to spit it out which is messy and not fun.
• Tried ground beef for the first time tonight; I had to teach her how to eat it instead of just playing with it and hiding it under her legs {?} in her high chair but then it was a hit. This is good for her iron need.
• Enjoys the kids' playroom in our building but maybe not as much as her parents do since it's a place where there aren't any bookshelves for her to climb, dog food to eat, or any of the other hazards that our home present to her.
• Loves trying to poke and scratch our eyes so it's good she has her doll on which to practice these skills.
• Doesn't like her multi-vitamin/iron drops...I don't blame her because that stuff is GROSS.
• Loves throwing things down on the floor. We don't so we don't pick it up more than once for her.
• Likes to "drive" her stroller...

         though her aim isn't that great and she points us towards the wall. {I'm   
         holding her, obviously}.

• Likes her bath and tries each night to stand up in the water. We gently tell her that "we don't stand in our bath".
• Really likes her stacking cups and will crawl around with one in/on each hand, making a clomping sound as she moves through our apartment.
• Loves Guinness the dog still.
• Makes the sound "ddddeh" for many things, including the dog.
• Possible has her first word? I show her a picture of my grandmother's dog Ze Ze and Hanna Lu makes a "zeeeee" type of sound; she knows what she's doing!? She laughs at the dog first of course because she adores animals.
• Will not lay on her back as you can see from Michael holding her down in this week's picture; she wants to roll over onto her hands and knees instantly.
• Is amazing and we love this baby!

42 weeks!

I skipped last week's update {thank you inertia} so this is quite a list for our little girl considering just how much she has been up to {a lot!}...

***And my poor old computer is having trouble communicating with our camera so today's fun pictures are locked somewhere in limbo; hopefully I'll get them up soon!***




***Edited to add pictures!***

• Can do tricks! Will: "clap your hands"

         , "play the drums", "give a kiss" {open-mouthed}, and show you "how big is       
         Hanna Lu?"

         {"So big!}.

         This is amazing to us; in the span of a week or so she started to follow these    
         commands and we're trying to teach her a few new ones.

• Weighed in at a bit over 19 pounds and 27 inches long today, placing her in the 60-something percentile for height/weight. I'm guessing both her father and I are a bit lower than that.
• Baby happily celebrated her first Christmas with both families; we had the holiday a bit early in Arizona and flew to California Christmas morning to finish off the day with family there. 

Upside-down squirrel and drool on her father's leg; our first Christmas as a family of three.

The whole two weeks of travel were very exciting for her but perhaps a bit overwhelming. Her sleep wasn't great while "abroad" and the nights were hard for us considering what a great sleeper we had worked to teach her to be. The past few nights at home have also been kind of rough but we let her figure it out on her own tonight so we'll see how things go through morning.

• Our baby now points and points at everything; up until a few days ago it was just her hand but we now have finger action.
• She visited the San Francisco Zoo with her grandpa Jeff {my dad} {a favorite place of ours when I was a kiddo} and LOVED it. There was a lot of pointing and making sounds in reaction to the animals. She didn't care for the merry-go-round, though, so that's something we can work on.
• Hanna Lu also went back to the beach with Grandpa Jeff and was really apprehensive, especially about the sand...I put some in my hand to let her feel it and she warmed up to the texture.
• Spent lots of quality time with her Abuelita in California as well as her grandparents in Arizona; thank you to all of her grandparents and family who happily spent time with baby Lu...she loved it all!
• Was interested in opening her presents but really only until she ripped off a tiny bit of paper - which was good enough for her.
• Met Santa for the first time and was OK with the whole experience...photographic evidence forthcoming {see above complaint}...she even made the "nice list" in the long North-Pole-let's-see-how-many-chances-there-are-to-get-your-money experience that the mall offers.
• Did OK in all of the flying we did; four flights total including a red-eye just this past Saturday night.
• Began some teething which was confirmed at her nine-month well-baby check today; this explains some, ahem, behavior, that we'd been experiencing and I had chalked up to being out of her routine. 
• Wants to walk; is cruising up a storm and loves standing up.Loves her new baby doll but mostly because she can poke at the eyes as much as she'd like to, something we discourage because it hurts and is destructive but this is just a doll so it's OK and not creepy that our daughter loves poking eyes...right? I won't let her be alone with dolly until she's older for fear she rips out the eyelids or eyelashes and attempts to ingest them but it's adorable how cute she is with the doll, eye poking aside, because she'll give her kisses.
• Got her very own chair and is really appreciating sitting in it as well as climbing on it. 

Notice the finger in the eye.

         Thank you so much Grandma and Zaide for my fun chair!!!

• Is a wee low on iron, as told to us today during her check-up. This isn't something I like to hear, I don't want to worry about anything being amiss or as it shouldn't but her doctor wasn't alarmed and prescribed us some iron and told us to cut out the yogurt since dairy can inhibit iron absorption.
• Is not into drinking her milk, as she has always been, but it was tough because we were in charge of her every day over break {as opposed to our saint of a daycare provider} so I figured out the best way for her to continue getting the milk she needs is to spoon-feed our child her milk, usually mixed with some oatmeal. Talk about tedium but it truly was the only way to get in the milk that she needs. Who in the world ever would've thought we would have this problem and that this would be the most frustrating part of parenthood. It's seriously discouraging and that the baby's a bit anemic just adds to that discouragement.
• Is making a ton of funny new sounds, lots of goofy babbling, which is adorable.
• Will also mimic us if we make her "latte-machine" sounds.
• Does this funny thing with her hands; she opens and closes her fists and it looks almost like some type of sign-language; I wonder what it means?
• Is growing and changing every day and we just love this kid; we're so grateful for the time together over break!

xoxo, natty ♥

40 weeks.

What a wonderful few days we’ve been having here in Arizona…so what else is happening??

Face FILTHY from her dinner earlier.

• Hanna Lu had her first Christmas; we celebrated early here since we’re flying to California on the holiday. This baby thoroughly enjoyed the unwrapping at the beginning but after she ripped off a piece of two of paper, she got too excited and distracted to go any further. Nonetheless, she has loved her new toys and has played with them each day since.
• Has met some new Arizona friends and has been a very good sport about the few late nights we’ve subjected her to.
• Will celebrate her first actual Christmas Eve tomorrow night with her father’s side of the family; this includes cheeseburgers and potato chips, though her menu might be a bit different.
• Flew for the whatever-th time and did quite well considering it all but was very squirmy and had a hard time falling asleep {& staying asleep} but she was truly a good baby, as she always is.
• Has let us know that she prefers to drink anything out of a cup; apparently our baby has always just wanted to be treated as an adult?!?!
• Wore a part dress for the first time, last night and today with Santa; trés cute!
• Wore shoes for the first time last night and then again today {with her fancy clothes}; she was so confused!
• Started clapping this past Saturday; “yea!!!!”…and just tonight we got her to clap when we sing “If you’re happy and you know it…”; she waits until the end to clap.
• Met Santa this afternoon and though she didn’t cry, she didn’t smile.
• LOVES this jumpy thing our Arizona friends let us borrow while we’re here and it’s very funny to watch her go up and down.

39 weeks!

This week is a busy one so let's see what's going on...

• Had cheese for the first time; loves it! Hanna Lu had a bit of quesadilla one day and then just some plain old cheese several times after that and she's a happy camper with it.

• Also is loving on plain yogurt...we tried some a couple of months ago that didn't go over well but in the past few weeks she is all about it.

• Wants nothing more than to crawl around or pull herself up to standing...this child is not interested in sitting still.

• Loves her bath and is getting better at not standing up in the tub.

• Thinks that Guinness the dog is hilarious, still. He will come sprinting up to her and lick her face, run away, and repeat and even this doesn't bother her.

• Had her first adult dinner party this past weekend and rather enjoyed herself {& the snacks}...she slept a bit late the next morning too which was lovely, though not late enough in her parents' opinion.

• Will be traveling on a plane again this week...and then next...and then the week after that; to Arizona, to California, back to Arizona, back to Maryland.

• Still really likes her cereal; she has either an oatmeal or rice or a grain mix and it's usually made with milk  though sometimes we make it with water. She gets a bit impatient with baby food but will continue to eat cereal way after that.

• Has a bedtime routine that I realized I haven't recorded for posterity's sake...has "dinner" between five and six, a bath, jammies, one story, a bit of nursing, another story, and is in bed with the "rain" sound machine {an app on an old iphone we have} between 5:45 and six. She's waking once a night usually though me thinks that's just a bad habit and we'll try to break it once we return from all of our travels in January, what with all the time-zone changing that will be going on. Baby's usually up by 5:30 or 6:30 though on weekends if we give her a quick snack and put her back down she'll sleep until 7:30-ish sometimes. She's ready for a nap within two hours of waking up and on weekend days, when she's with us, she'll nap for one to two hours in the morning and then again in the early-mid afternoon. At daycare I'm not sure how things go but I do know that HL is well rested, full, and happy when I pick her up so I'm not asking any questions.

• Hanna loves her daycare provider...and this woman is such a loving presence that we love her too. She makes me laugh because in reaction to Hanna Lu's somewhat finicky eating, she is so determined to get milk and food into this baby and fatten her up. I don't have the heart to tell her that Hanna is just who she is but I don't discourage her nonetheless {she's just perfect in our eyes, obviously}.

• Is climbing...or at least trying to. If she had the traction and things were easier to climb, the baby would be going vertical...this does not bode well for us in terms of relaxing at home with our child ever.

• Will hilariously kick her legs if you hold her up in the air under her arms. We have started to do this any time we pick her up because it makes us laugh so much.

• Is pretty OK being with other and new people. She does show separation anxiety occasionally, usually if she has just woken up, but she is pretty affable otherwise...this may change soon since I think "stranger danger" might start kicking in around the nine month mark {later this week!} so we'll see.

• Loves "Cuties" {though I think right now the ones we're getting are called "Halos"?}...she kind of sucks them dry and leaves the pithy...seeds come in these things so we just need to check for that before letting her have them.

• Went to the pediatrician, unexpectedly, today for a bit of an icky eye {related to her cold from last week no doubt}...and she weighed in at almost 19 pounds and about 28 inches long/tall - she started out at almost ten pounds and 22 inches. While in the waiting room Hanna Lu was very intrigued by two young boys who were playing and tried to get down on the floor to play with them. They were both about five years old and as sweet as they were with the baby, saying "hi" to her and everything, I figured her style of play {thrashing her arms} wasn't what they would appreciate {they were quietly "driving" cars}. This wasn't the first, Hanna Lu is always very interested in kids and loves to mix it up with them. I think we can thank daycare for this, truly - it's great to see our baby be social.

• Is really goofy and so much fun...we're very excited to spend time with family so they can see what she's been like recently; wish us luck traveling!

Because I can't get enough of those legs.

A new toy!

I had a doctor's appointment this afternoon {the doctor on a Friday afternoon...boo} so Michael and baby boo hung out in the waiting room.

She was very happy, needless to say.

Have a great weekend folks!!!
xoxo, natty ♥

38 weeks!

Someone seems to have another cold; boo. In positive news this week Miss Lu Lu...

She will NOT lay flat on her back for longer than two seconds.

• Is a SQUIRMER. Baby hardly sits/stays still and is very curious about everything.
• Has been giving us lots of "mama"s and "dada"s, but I'm not sure she realizes what she's saying.
• Is trying so hard to stand on her own; she stands up any chance she can get but can't do much without holding on though that changes a bit more each day. She cruises all over the place so as soon as she's strong enough and figures it out she'll be trying to put the two together; taking steps and not holding on to anything - yikes!
• Enjoyed watching soccer on TV with her dad this past weekend...we're trying hard to avoid screens for her but sometimes TV happens.
• She is very intrigued by our phones. Since we do facetime with our families she knows and loves the phone which is not something that makes me happy so we try to keep them out of her sight when not doing facetime.
• Will give slobbery open mouthed kisses if she's not too distracted by everything else around her. Ditto to "high-fives".
• Has had some crummy sleep due to this cold so hopefully things get better soon.
• One week and a half until our big trip...little bit has no idea what's in store for her!!!

xoxo, natty ♥

37 weeks!

Hello December!!! After her first Thanksgiving let's see what's up for this baby.

Right before she whipped on to her hands and knees to crawl away.

• Is being a total GOOFBALL...especially if she's tired like she was tonight. She will not stay on her back or sitting if she wants to get to something. Today's pictures were a challenge.
• Is pulling herself up on everything and is even trying to stand up by herself without even holding on to anything.
• Is giving slobbery open mouthed kisses; so adorable!
• Will maybe do a high five if she's prompted.
• Still thinks that Guinness the dog is hilarious.
• Is determined when she wants something, like to climb up on our bookshelf. 
• Is a big fan of her baby food still, especially if it's mixed with oatmeal. I sure hope she gets into real food eventually but she's just so slow with it.
• Is sleeping pretty OK at night, waking once for a snack though I think it's time to phase that out.
• Needs to have a nine-month appointment...her mother needs to get onto scheduling this!
• Will "cruise" (walk while holding onto anything) after pulling herself up on things...this is adorable but this child is so mobile and into everything and we need to get some baby containment going on in our home to give Hanna's parents a bit of piece.
• Is babbling a ton and this week has been loving on shouting out "dadadadada...ah DAH ah DAH".

She was flipping over immediately after being placed on her back and Guinness was curious about all the movement.

xoxo, natty ♥