Saturday, January 16, 2010

9 Month Photos


Last weekend, I did the monthly photo shoot. I had a cute outfit all picked out but was in the process of changing her when I thought I'd snap some nudey-dudey shots. These are actually my favorites, but I did include some clothed photos. There aren't many pics of Livie looking at the camera smiling this time around. Interestingly, she was so much more active! I struggled to keep her attention or to keep her still! Frank and I are really seeing a difference in how much she is doing (thank you, Miss Janet!).

She and Monty have aso developed quite the friendship. He's been so great with her; Vito also, of course, is calmer around Liv, but we are noticing that Monty really tries to play! Just yesterday, hand to God, she was throwing balls at him so he could chase them around. At first I thought she was just throwing balls, but then I realized that she was intentionally looking for him and throwing them in his direction. When he would run after them, she laughed and threw another. I was so amazed by her! Later in the evening, she even threw the balls at me and laughed when I rolled them back to her. She's becoming such a little person!

I know the angle of this picture makes her look small but I had to get the beanbag out so that we could compare growth. Once upon a time she laid in the beanbag and was smaller than the chair... now all she wants is to get out of the darn thing!

You can really see how much she wants to crawl after Monty here. In the past two weeks or so she has become very skilled at going from a seated to a belly position. This past Wednesday (coincidentally also the day she went home sick from daycare) she showed us how well she can now roll from her back to her belly! We laid her down in her crib at bedtime and had to check on her multiple times in the first 10 minutes because she kept flipping onto her belly and getting stuck -- legs or arms sticking out the crib slats. It was such a sorry sight, but she's gotten the hang of it a little more. And now she's sleeping on her belly which is pretty darn cute!

Just another Olivia face. She is clearly trying to tell me how bored she is. Be sure to check out those legs!!

Here she is reaching for one of her favorite "toys." If it's a cell phone or a remote, watch out! And don't bother giving her a remote without batteries; she knows the difference. Today she threw the Olivia Remote on the floor and reached for the real one on the coffee table. Such a scooch.


These two photos are my favorite sequence. I was yelling at Monty who was trying to get into her bathtub (which I had placed on the stair landing and out of the shot). This, as you can see, caused Olivia to become a tad upset.



And here she is playing with an actual toy; I noticed in December that Olivia is really trying to figure out how toys work. Her big toy from Santa was a ball ramp toy; she is already putting the balls down the ramp, in the elephant's ears so they fall out its mouth, and in and out of the hippo's mouth where we store them [so Monty doesn't play or paw them out of sight].

At nine months, Olivia...
is taking swim lessons and loves splashing and kicking
babbles or chats using pitches, tones, and inflection (like speaking in gibberish)
says mama, dada, and cat
uses her own sign for sleep
shakes her head no when she doesn't want to eat more
waves bye bye when she doesn't like something
will make sounds in a back and forth game with someone
works to get a toy that's out of reach
looks for dropped objects
gets upset when a preferred object is taken away
picks up tiny objects with her fingers not her palm
plays ball (with Mommy or Monty)
puts toys in and out of containers
goes from seated to belly position
rolls from back to belly fairy well
claps
waves hi and bye
reacts when I say no (this doesn't mean she listens but she stops & looks with a pitiful look)
imitates easy arm/hand motor movements

Friday, January 15, 2010

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Do Over?

Why the last 48 hours have sucked and I am formally requesting a do over from God:

Yesterday I got to work early enough to buy hot cocoa -- my ubermost fave thing to have in the morning. Go me. Good day projected.

Then, while working in a middle school, my most feared event [circa high school] occurred. I go home in order to partake in the bambino's school's Winter Gala (starring the infant rooms as snowflakes or snowmen or snowsomethings) and whilest changing my clothes, receive a phone call 35 mins before I'm to be at the school stating that my daughter has thrown up twice and needs to be picked up immediately. No Gala for me.

I arrive at Infant Room A, 20 minutes before showtime, and find all babies in their snowthing outfits (all white home-sent couture with black knit hats). For the first time EVER, Olivia does not get upset that I haven't picked her up as soon as I walked into the room. In fact, she is looking around at all the other Flakemen & smiling and babbling. She then makes eye contact with me and smiles more, as if to say, "Look, Mommy, we are going to put on a show!" She looked adorablely cute as a snowwhatever, and my heart broke. Although, I'm not sure it broke because she was missing out or because I was missing out and didn't have my blackberry [to take photo proof of her stunningness]. I vaguely remember Ms. Teacher saying something about messy, vomit-covered items but am so enamoured by my daughter's hugably cute Snowgirl outfit, I hear only the guilt-ridden, sadness of my inner-voice. And due to the 24 hour no-vomit policy of daycare, Liv can't go back until Friday.

We go home to meet Daddy and head to the doc's so that they can inevitably take our $15 and tell us that our child does not have a life-threatening illness. Fast forward one hour, and we are home having heard just that. On the plus side, I was able to schedule h1n1 shot #2. I start to sift through the two loads (hers and mine) of stained laundry that needs to be done. I discover what was once a white shirt that is currently coated in pea-green (guess what we had for lunch) vomit. My hand cramps from using the spray bottle of Dreft. After putting in the first load of laundry, I decide to head to the gym.

I stop feeling my arms & lose the ability to speak about 20 minutes into the hour-long endeavor called "Core Conditioning & Dance Aerobics." We do moves that remind me of The Chorus Line, and the fact that the instructor is wearing a midriff bearing top does nothing to dispute this. I dance my heart out... literally... but am pretty sure I didn't make the final cut because when I am finished I am too tired to speak to anyone. Silently, I congratulated myself on making it to class, and secretly, I sang "One" and imagined myself in sequins.

I get home and am greeted by the second pile of laundry and prepping for Liv's day with Mom Mom so Frank and I can both go to work and not lose anymore moula. I decide that God made Chinese food leftovers & half a Cherry Coke Zero for moments just like these. I block out the dance instructor's booming voice about squeezing muscles with the whirring of the microwave heating up my sesame chicken & rice.

Only one of our horribly stained loads of laundry came clean... Mommy will now be spending her treasured Christmas gift card on a new pair of khakis. Lovely.

I then spend most of the evening getting ready for today and not going to sleep until midnight, causing me to oversleep by 20 minutes. A precious 20 minutes when I need to leave exactly 30 minutes earlier than usual AND explain to Mom Mom how the schedule goes.

I leave my house at 6:50am, drive to Rebekah's house, and we proceed to travel the one and three-quarters hour to Harrisburg. I sit in a small room for 7 hours to hear people "instruct" me on how to do my job. I get home at 6pm, just in time to nurse Liv and put her to bed.
Do over, please?

Listen, are you going to have those TPS reports for us this afternoon? No.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Weigh-In

So I weighed in yesterday and lost 0.4 pounds. Another baby step in the right direction. I also successfully went to the gym on all my planned days (MWFS)! My eating has been awful over the week, but I feel good about the upcoming week and subsequent weigh-ins.

Yesterday also marked Olivia's first swim class! She and I had a ton of fun splashing around, and I felt pretty good in my new swimsuit (hopefully, she felt just as great in hers!).

In other big news, Olivia turned 9 months old today. Keep an eye on the blog for pictures from the monthly photo shoot & an update on her many talents.

Monday, January 4, 2010

PS

Oh yes, and we've had some fun things happen in the past few days (namely New Year's) of which I have no pictures so here is a list:
1. Grandma Jo visited.
2. Aunt Ra visited and brought Hanukkah Harry.
3. Liv went to bed right on time and slept all the way through until New Year's Day (yay!)!
4. Frank and I did not go to bed on time.
5. We all went to New Year's Day mass at OMGC, the start of their Jubilee Year!
6. We all went to a Timmy and Danielle's for a little New Year's Day party. Yay for brownies!
7. We saw Mom Mom, Pop Pop and Aunt Gina on Saturday.
8. We laid low on Sunday so we could all mentally prepare for going to work on Monday!

And that is a summary of our very exciting & busy life. This post occupied a good minute of your life that you will never get back. Good luck with that.

Post-Resolution Thoughts

I weighed in this past Saturday and am down 0.2 pounds. A baby step in the right direction and thus a victory! My plan [with Frank in agreement] is to work out Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, Saturday mornings and sometimes on Sundays. Building off of last week's holiday momentum, I stuck to my plan.

I ended up making the core conditioning class at the Y which rolled right into "dance aerobics."

PROs
1. Dance aerobics turned out to be zumba which is awesome.
2. I'm a Latin dancing queen.
3. I cannot feel my arms or legs because both workouts were so good.

CON
1. Someone asked when I was due on the way out.

I now need to go to every class in order to not look pregnant anymore. (Mwah Mwah)

And the PROs have it! I'll be going back.
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