Happy First Birthday!

Isabella is one year old today and I just cannot believe it. This time last year I was getting ready for my 37 week check-up and had no idea I was in labor. Isabella has made this past year one of the most rewarding and happy of my life. I can't even remember what life was like without her. She is absolutely everything to me and I can't imagine ever not putting her first. She's so tall and looks so much older than she is. She's cruising all over the place now and can stand for almost 2 minutes without holding anything. She's FINALLY, very SLOWLY cutting her first tooth; on her bottom right side. She's still all about daddy and gets so excited when she sees him that she can barely sit still. Her hair is so long that we can put it in pigtails. I'm very excited and anxious for her party tomorrow. I did so much to make it special and I hope she's in a good mood and can enjoy it. When I sing the "Patty Cake" song she claps her hands and tries to follow along with all the motions and can even "throw it in the air." We love her so much and are so happy she was brought into our lives. So, Happy First Birthday beautiful baby girl. I love you as far as you'll ever be able to reach.

It's almost Isabella's Birthday!

Isabella is 11 months old and crawling EVERYWHERE. She's pulling herself up onto her knees and her feet and cruising a teeny bit. She can even walk short distances with her push-toy. She was finally evaluated by a lady from Babies Can't Wait to address our concerns with her delayed gross motor skills and according to the lady she's "absolutely perfect" and just lazy. Which took the BIGGEST weight off my shoulders. There is nothing in the world that takes more of a toll on you than worrying about your child's health. She can say a long drawn out "Hiiii!" when she really wants to. When you give her a brush or comb she pretends to brush her hair. She puts the phone up to her ear when I say "Hello!" She's always taking her bow out of her hair. Every article of clothing she thinks needs to be put on over her head. She tries to give me her pacifier or she'll try to give it to her daddy's picture when he's at school and we're looking at her photo album. She's not wanting to hold her own bottle OR drink from a cup, but I'm really going to start pushing it since she's almost 1. The pacifier also MUST go. She weighs 20 pounds and is 31.5 inches long (tall baby!). She loves to hear the alphabet song (she dances to it when it comes on) and really likes playing with her learning home. She still doesn't have a single tooth! Which is making the move to table foods pretty difficult. Every couple of nights we let her watch the "Goodnight Show" on the Sprout channel and she absolutely LOVES star. She smiles so big as soon as he comes on the screen. It's the cutest thing ever. I'm busy, busy, busy planning her first birthday party which will be the day after her birthday on March 26th and of course, the theme is butterflies! I'm so excited to celebrate her turning one and me surviving my first year of motherhood.

10 Whole Months

I cannot believe that Isabella will be 1 in two months! It blows my mind. She started CRAWLING! Two days before she turned 10 months and I was just over the moon. She also pulls up onto her knees, so it shouldn't be long until she pulls up to her feet and starts cruising. I'm so excited to see her becoming more and more mobile. Lately I've been thinking about her 1 year pictures a lot and getting very nervous because this will be the first photo session that is full-length and completely about her, and I don't know how she will cooperate. She hates getting her picture taken. She still has no teeth and isn't teething yet. She's been cranky for the past couple of days but her constipation is back with a vengeance. This has been an ongoing battle since she was born, no one can seem to figure out why she's ALWAYS constipated and cannot survive without laxatives in her bottle once a day. Hopefully they will refer us to a stomach doctor soon. I've ordered her a birthday dress and a birthday tutu and I'm so excited for her to wear them and get pictures in them. I've also started planning her a little birthday party that I'm afraid will turn into a big birthday party just due to my sheer excitement. Isabella has learned a couple new things (that she only does when she chooses to and never when I want to show someone!) she can wave bye-bye, she can say "puff" (go figure her first word is food related) When I ask her "how tall is Isabella?" she lifts her arms up as high as they can go. She will also hold her blankie in front of her face until I say "where is Isabella?" and they she'll move it and have a big grin on her face. I also think she understands the word "no" because she sure throws a tantrum when I say it. We've fallen behind with the sippy cup drinking, so we need to pick that back up. That's really all I can think of for now, hopefully next month she'll be cruising/attempting to walk!

A whole new year with my 9 month old :)

We had a very Merry Christmas and a great new year :) Isabella got a lot of presents and she loves playing with something new everyday. As far as crawling, she is not having it. She just doesn't want to. She'll go from sitting into an almost crawl position but one of her legs always gets stuck. It's almost as if she can't quite control her legs. Her doctors have said it might be because she's so extremely long and her legs got so long so fast that she doesn't understand how to control them. I'm just hoping she catches up soon because she's pretty behind, she doesn't even pull up or anything. She still saying ma-ma, da-da, and ba-ba but sometimes she'll add in "ommmma" (we think she's saying "oma" because she only says it when she's around my mom and my mom says it first) and she's said na-na twice. We're still practicing with the cups (we've been through at least 12 different kinds and have settled with the Tommee Tippee) She can put her pacifier in on her own and she gives me kisses :) We're getting her to try to work on waving bye-bye and saying "ahhh" when we feed her. She can also feed herself small fingerfoods and LOOOOOVESS the Gerber Puffs. Mainly she's been eating bread and noodles because she STILL has no teeth and shows no signs of getting any soon. I'm very happy with what a good baby she is and how happy she is. I do worry about her delayed physical development, but hopefully she'll catch up soon and ease my mind.

My 8 Month Old Baby Girl

My little girl is 8 months old!! She turned 8 months on Thanksgiving day. We had wonderful holidays and are so excited for her first Christmas. She claps her hands all the time now, especially when I say "clap your hands!" She loves to play the 'Pacifier Game' where I take her pacifier and she takes it back and I say "OOH!" She just bursts out laughing. We're working on getting her to use the sippy cup, and she hold it really well she just needs to get used to the spout. I feel like she's grown so much. She'll rock back and forth when she's on her hands and knees (hopefully that means crawling is next!) She can now say "ma-ma" which is extremely cute, now her vocabulary is "da-da, ba-ba, and ma-ma." She's not showing any signs of getting any teeth, but I didn't get my teeth until I was like 16 months old. Ryan will not let me put shoes on her, which I absolutely know will hurt her when she HAS to wear them but isn't used to them. He thinks its torture to make her wear shoes if she doesn't HAVE to. She sits up and can even get onto her belly sometimes from the sitting position. She rolls all over the place and loves to take off her socks. She is over her "waking up at night" phase and eats all her jarfood although we still have some difficulty with the bottles. She still cries when it's time to wash her hair at bathtime, but that's something that she'll get over. That's all for this month! Have a Merry Christmas!

Lucky (or maybe unlucky) Seven

Isabella is now 7 months old. She weighs about 19 pounds (what a big girl!) and is slowly but surely getting more active. She's pretty lazy and expects everything to be done for her. Her first day of physical therapy is in two days and she'll continue to go every Monday from then on. As far as her physical therapy evaluation, the doctors seem to think she's fine, just that she has weak upper body strength and that she arches her back constantly, which is not good. I'm hoping that with time and work she will get to where she needs to be. She has been starting to try to clap her hands, which is really cute. She can also sit up now for a pretty long period of time. She was a little bumble bee for Halloween and just oh-so-cute. But, Ryan of course says she was a yellow jacket (gotta have school pride). Unfortunately, we've been having horrible nights because for some reason she wakes up in the middle of the night screaming crying and stays up for hours. It's really starting to wear me out. We really have no idea what it is, since it's so out of character for her. The doctors first thought it was constipation and are now saying reflux. We started her reflux medicine today but she's already woken up twice. It's really hard for me to see my baby struggling with something that I can't figure out. I hope the reflux medicine starts working or she's going to have to continue going to the doctor and being crabby from lack of sleep. She also has been refusing her bottles, which is REALLY frustrating because that's nutrition that is so crucial for her to have. Although this is a trying time, we're working through it day by day and doing the best we can.

A Half a Year Old!

Isabella is 6 months old, and in only 9 days she'll be 7 months! She weighs 17.5 pounds and is 28.5 inches long, according to the doctor, that's extremely tall. She's not sitting up, or even attempting to, so the doctor is having us take her to a physical therapist to see what's going on. Whether it's low muscle tone (since she HATES tummy time) or something more serious (I'm praying it's not). She says "da-da" allllll day long, it's the cutest thing I've ever heard. She smiles a lot and is so well behaved. She sleeps through the night and takes two naps a day. She's also teething, but most of the time she's a real champ about it. Of course, she has her days when her gums are swollen and she just wants to fuss it out. She loves any toy that makes noise when she shakes it, and she goes crazy shaking it as hard as she can. She'll even play in her jumper now, but she won't jump (another thing that worries me. Babies LOVE to jump!) We're really excited for all the upcoming holidays; Halloween, Thanksgiving & Christmas. I can't wait to share them with her, although she doesn't understand, I do and that's all that matters ;) Some mornings when I go to get her out of bed, she's managed to get her head where her feet go and vice versa. I have no idea how she does it. She's growing so fast, she barely wears her clothes for very long. She still ADORES her daddy and lights up when she see's him, but she also breaks into a smile whenever I smile at her, which makes me feel really good! I'm hoping things go well as far as her physical milestones and that she's just, as her doctor put it, "strong willed."