14 months

Yesterday, Anya turned 14 months old. She was sick and a handful to deal with, so I didn't get a chance to update until now.

Locomotion

Anya has graduated from walking to running sometime in the last few weeks. 'Nuff said there.

Speech

Well, anyone that spends a good amount of time with Anya knows that she is talking. If people ask me about her language development and I tell them, I don't think they believe me. Until she's in her "comfort zone" (at home or a place she goes often) and they spend a little time with her, then they believe me. She is going through her language explosion early. Three weeks ago, Chris and I made an attempt at inventorying her vocabulary. We counted 109 words. These are all words that she has said on her own multiple times (so, just repeating us doesn't count). We haven't counted since then, but guess she's at around 130 now. The freaky thing now is that she's just picking up words through osmosis. She'll hear someone say a word (not even talking to her) and it sticks. Aunt Linda was talking to Anya's cousin about a "choo choo", while Anya was playing in the room, seemingly not paying attention. A few minutes later, she found the toy and said "choo choo".

She is also putting 2 words together more often. Most commonly, it's in greeting form (hi kitty, hello Noah, bye Laika).

Admittedly, this talking thing is nice. It's easy to understand what she wants when she can just tell me.

Other Development

Bug is getting in 2 top molars now and I'm pretty sure another 2 on bottom. It's been painful for her, to the point where pain killers aren't necessarily helping very much. Poor thing was so miserable the other night. I wish they'd hurry up and come in all the way, because she's been pretty unhappy with life this last week. It doesn't help that she's also sick too. With all the snow over the last 2 weeks (meaning, not driving anywhere like the gym) and now her being sick, she's got a fair bit of cabin fever. I think we'd both like this week to be over.

Food

In typical toddler fashion, Anya is unpredictable with food. One week she loves food x, the next week we are obviously trying to poison her with it. Some weeks she eats a lot (so I worry she's going to be obese), some pretty much nothing (so I of course worry she's going to wither away and die). Recently, her favorites are roasted broccoli ("brockEEEEE!") and homemade soup ("SOO-puh"). Cheese (a longtime favorite) is apparently gross now. Who knows.

Christmas

Santa came to the Lodwig house and left a good amount of loot for Anya this year. As usual, we spent Christmas Eve with the Scheuer clan (which was almost postponed due to the massive snow amounts Seattle got this year), and then Christmas Day with Chris's parents.

Amy and Anya Christmas Eve. Chris says I look fat in this picture. But it's a cute one of Anya.

Anya, Grandpa Lodwig, and cousin Kelsey

the tissue paper was more interesting than the presents

Christmas morning at our house. Santa left a shiny new trike for Anya.

Anya looks out at all the snow Santa left us Christmas morning (and pauses to smile for the camera)

present opening time at Grandma and Grandpa Lodwig's

the carnage

more snow babies

I don't recall what day these were taken. Maybe a week ago. Before the "big" snowstorm anyway. Anya and Noah playing in the snow at the park...

badness

badness...

*since certain grandmas can't tell what's going on here... Anya took all the contents of the shelves, climbed in, and then proceeded to remove the shelf itself.

baby in a bowl

Anya about a week old...

Anya yesterday, in her new comfy chair (same size as green bowl)

dad, baby, and dog

Chris and Anya sledding down the big hill by our house, followed closely by Laika. Today is a beautiful snow day, with about 6-7 inches so far on the ground.

Moo Baa La La La

written by Sandra Boynton. Recited by Anya Lodwig.




I didn't realize she had the book more or less memorized.

Likes and Dislikes revisited

original post:
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 (almost 9 months)

likes:

Chasing after the cats
Going to the wading pool and (loudly) greeting other children
Tasting whatever mom is eating
Rifling through the DVDs and yelling (loudly) at the covers
Bathtime
Using objects for support in standing and then smacking them
Looking at pictures of grandparents and cousin Mia and yelling (loudly) at them
Opening and shutting the cat door
Being the baby in mom & dad's game of "baby toss"*
Being loud

dislikes:
Getting face and hands wiped clean after eating
Getting in the car seat
Not being allowed to play with the toilet or electrical cords
Quietly playing with DVDs, kids at the wading pool/park, looking at pictures
________________________________________________________________________

Tuesday, December 16 (13-1/2 months)

likes:

baths
reading books (having them read to her and "reading" them herself)
climbing
jumping
cell phones and remote controls
bothering the cats
throwing things out the cat door
shape sorters and stacking rings
rocking on her rocking horse
talking (like father, like daughter)
messing with the clock in our bedroom
making loud noises (herself and with other things)

dislikes:

being in the car for more than 20 minutes (occasionally is OK with it. Getting better)
getting her runny nose wiped
lentils
not being allowed to stand on the dining room table

snow baby #1

1 down

1 successful "poo" on the "potty". Well done, baby. Off to Third Place Books to get some potty books for her before the weather gets worse.

"Poo"

Since about 2 weeks ago, Anya has surprised us by announcing her bowel movements. Over half the time, she has yelled out "poo!" right before a bowel movement or passing gas. So we're going to take advantage and start some preliminary potty training this weekend. I'll put her kid potty in the bathroom and get some books to read to her on the subject and we'll see how it goes. I can't believe she's 13 months old and we're already talking about this. But it sure would be nice to clean up less poopy diapers. Crazy.

new trick

Grandma Lodwig said Anya picked up this trick while she and grandpa watched her over the weekend...



the things these people teach my daughter.

no love

I asked Anya for a hug. She looked at me, smiled, yelled "No!" and threw a dirty sock at me instead.

:(

close call

Earlier this evening, Laika rolled in excrement, so I had to give her an emergency bath. Since Anya needed to be supervised, she was in the bathroom with us, overseeing my dog-bathing technique. All was well, and I kept a close eye on her as she wandered around the room, occasionally dropping toys in the tub and attempting to assist with cleaning.

The very second I reached over to get a rinsing bucket, however, Anya hopped onto the side of the tub and instantly dropped head first into the water. Seriously, it was like a split-second. I miraculously managed to catch her before her head smacked the bottom of the tub. She of course cried from being startled, but that was the only damage, aside from some wet hair. Scared. the. crap. out of me. I don't know if the injury would have been life-threatening, but she certainly would have been hurt.

She's just so darn fast and into everything all the time. I just hope we can manage to keep her from getting seriously injured over the course of her childhood.

But I guess the moral of this little story would be, the next time the dog rolls in poop, lock her outside until Chris can give her a bath. right?

dinnertime

happily starting off with a medley of edamame, peppers, carrots, and corn

 oooh, I can move the plate!

 done with the edamame, carrots, and peppers. I don't like this yellow stuff that's left, though (at least for today)

I lost my plate and there's still only corn left to eat. Life sucks.

Makin' Daddy Proud

Here's what's currently new and cool about my daughter. I can TEACH her stuff. Actual stuff!

I've taught her to:

• Kick a soccer ball.
• Use her shape sorter
• stack her rings (not in order yet)
• Strum the guitar instead of chew it.
• Blow bubbles
• Use a spoon with about a 40% success rate.

It's really fun to teach her the names of various things. I'll point at various pictures and say "Zebra", then "Flamingo", then "fish" and then later ask her were the Zebra is, and she'll often find it! Very fun.
We've started playing "baby hat/daddy hat (mom hat, dog hat, etc.)", which involves picking up various things and seeing if they stay on her head or mine. Not only is this extremely cute, she seems to get that it's a game. She understands the idea and thinks it's funny.

She's learned to climb on to the dining room table (I didn't teach her that), and climb and descend the stairs with varying degrees of success.
Just a few minutes ago we caught her sitting at the dining room table with a pen in her hand "drawing" in a magazine. Crazy.

13 months

Anya is now 13 months old. I've been a bit lax on posting this last week. I've been busy. In retrospect, I don't know exactly what I've been busy with, but it was very important stuff I'm sure. Here's the monthly roundup.

Locomotion

Anya is pretty good at walking, and walking quickly. It hasn't occurred to her to try running yet, which I am thankful for. It's coming, though. Probably as a Christmas present to us :/. Speaking of Christmas, we will not be putting up a tree this year. The bug is a climbing fiend. I just know the second I put it out, she will attempt (and probably succeed) to climb it, knocking down and breaking all the ornaments in the process. No stockings over the fireplace either. And no presents out. Any decorations will be way up high, theoretically out of her reach. She's bad, that baby. Apparently she takes after her uncle Brian (Chris' brother), who was a notorious climber. I've been told stories of his climbing feats, like how when he was 4(?) he managed to climb on top of a full-sized basketball hoop. I'm not even sure how that's possible, but please let that not be in our future.

Speech

Like I mentioned in the last post, Anya started a mini-language explosion over the last few weeks. That's still happening. She's picked up some words that we didn't specifically try to teach her. Like keys and flower. And phone. One she is finally saying (that' we' had previously been unsuccessful at teaching her) is "Grandma," but that comes out as "gaga". Close enough.

Other development

I can't really think of anything here. Probably lots of stuff. Oh. Chris was thrilled yesterday when Anya figured out how to stack all the stars on her stacker toy. That takes a little dexterity. Chris, what else am I foretting?

Food

I took away the bottles a little over a week ago. So now Anya is totally on straw cups and sippy cups. She has also decided that actual baby food is disgusting (except for the fruit that we stir into her yogurt every morning and her Baby Mum-Mum crackers). She only wants grown up food now. Current favorites (subject to change weekly or more often) are smoked salmon, edamame (she calls them mama, which is confusing...I dont know if she wants me or edamame), chicken, peas, and the Mum-Mum crackers. She just went through a big growth spurt, where her stomach was a bottomless pit. Now it's back to normal and she picks at her food and/or tosses it overboard.

Bye Bye, Babyhood

Anya is no longer a baby. I'm a little sad to say it, because in some ways I miss things from her babyhood, like being able to rock her to sleep, feed her a bottle (or breastfeed) first thing in the morning and last thing before bed as she snuggles with me and looks into my eyes. I'll miss her sitting in one spot and still being there if I walk out of the room for a minute. Her needs were simple - food, sleep, diaper change.

But Anya is now definitely a toddler. And a handful. I thought we were well babyproofed. I was wrong. She now climbs (or attempts to) almost everything in sight. Yesterday as we were getting ready to have some friends over for dinner, we walked into the dining room and found her standing on the dining room chair holding a corkscrew in one hand and reaching for a fork with the other. Gah!

She has also been getting frustrated lately and making sure we know it. There are some words she knows, but there is still a disconnect between her wants and her ability to communicate them. For example, she knows to use the word "up" if she wants to get on the couch. Occasionally she forgets to use it, though. So when we don't pick up on that fact instantly that she wants on the couch, she screams and carries on and enters this inconsolable state and appears incapable of communication or rational thought. I don't know if this is a temper tantrum or not, but this behavior is a pain in the butt to deal with. We're working on it, though. Ugh, I think we're headed for the "terrible two's" already.

But on a good note, yesterday Anya hit a little milestone. She strung together two words for the first time (technically, she may have done it the other week when I asked if she wanted more cheese. She said "no..............cracker" indicating she wanted a cracker instead). Chris went out the front door and she said "bye, dada. bye, dada" (a few times). Over the last few weeks, she seems to have started a mini "language explosion," as they call it. I would like to think this means our daughter is brilliant and will probably be the next president or Nobel Prize winner. But apparently I was like this as an infant too. And while I'm obviously a total genius, as all who have ever met me can attest to...I'm also unemployed and take care of a baby (I mean, toddler) all day. So this is no indication of her future greatness. But it still is cool to watch unfold.

A Plague of Boils!

As promised I'm posting the horrific photos of Anya's immune response to her measles vaccine so that when our friends get around to getting their little loved ones immunized if they happen to be far away from home when something like this covers their child head to toe they don't freak out. Miraculously, this didn't bother Anya at all. No itching, no scratching. I however did get a psychosomatic (I prefer to call it empathetic) rash.

There is a funny story though. Anya DID have a crazy allergic reaction while we were out at BBQ one night. Her entire arm turned bright red and all the measles pox turned stark white. It happened very suddenly was very ugly and scared the crap out of me. When your kid starts to have a reaction like this you should check out her belly and neck and make sure it's not happening there (which would be very bad) Everyone around us had clued into the fact that I'm freaking out, and we stand Anya up on her high chair so everyone around us can see, we lift up her shirt to reveal this:

"Eh, she's fine," we say and go back to eating. Everyone around us must have thought we were nuts. I washed off her arm and the reaction went away very quickly. Must have been something she rubbed up against under the table or somewhere.

* this was posted by Chris, not Amy

Traveling with Baby

Our little family is on the East Coast for a week of visiting friends and relatives.
So far we've been to DC to see Brian, Tara, and Mia (Chris' brother's family) ; and Chad and Megan (old good friends).
Now we're in Charlotte, NC where we're staying with Don, Koby, and Alivia (Amy's oldest brother's family), and we've seen Grandma and Grandpa B. So far the visiting has been wonderful and the travel pretty terrible.
Anya has been awesome, so we can't really blame her for it. She very diplomatically walks around the airport waiting rooms charming people and making friends before the flight so as to lessen their annoyance should she have a rough go of it. But she's slept pretty much every time we've gone more than 20 minutes to anywhere.
The 5 1/2 hour layover in Detroit starting at 5 am was the worst so far. Anya wanted to walk all over and say hi to everyone she saw so we had to take turns sleeping on the floor.
Amy had the double whammy of a very painful decent in Detroit due to a cold, and a very squirrelly decent into Baltimore that activated her motion sickness.
Every time we drive anywhere over the last couple days it has dumped rain, which makes driving a little precarious.
Now to top it all, Anya is having an immune response to her measles vaccine and is breaking out in the most startling rash you've ever seen (provided you haven't had the measles yourself). It keeps getting worse and we have to remind ourselves it is totally expected. But there is something built into parents that makes them anxious when their child is covered with pox of any sort. She doesn't seem to mind at all. But I'm here to tell you it's FREAKY looking (photos will be posted upon our return).
Still, we're very glad to be here and are having a wonderful time of it.

PEPS Birthday party

Yesterday, our PEPS group got together for a group birthday party at The Little Gym. Anya, being the oldest (along with Ardashir) got to relive her birthday glory, while the younger ones got to see a taste of what's to come in the next few weeks. It was fun. Unfortunately it took place when Anya normally has her second nap, but she rallied and we only had to leave a little bit early.

babies and balls

Anya completes her first flip on the bar and is quite pleased with herself

Benjamin and one of his countless expressions

Anya is not cooperating on the balance beam.

babies and bubbles

12 month checkup

Anya had her 12 month checkup today.

Weight: 21-1/2 pounds (50-75%) chunker!
Height: 29-1/2 inches (50%)

It was a good thing I had to reschedule her checkup for this week. Apparently she has an ear infection. She was a little crankier than usual the other day, but I figured it was teething-related. The doctor wasn't going to initially treat it, since it was mild. But since we're flying in a few days, he decided to give her antibiotics to make sure it's gone. Otherwise, there was the possibility of a ruptured eardrum in flight. That would have been fun!

Besides the ear infection, all is well. She's very healthy and a little ahead of the curve developmentally. She also got her shots today. After much deliberation, I opted for the standard vaccine schedule, but made sure she got a few "safe" specific brands. And there ya go.

A Great Day

Dear Anya,

Last night you got to witness a very important moment. Our first African-American president was elected. You were oblivious as to why all the adults in the room were excited and cheering. You were too busy having fun playing with Eva, Eloise, and Flynn and climbing on your piano to care. But yesterday was a big day. Hopefully our country's reputation will now begin to be restored in the world's eyes. And hopefully our nation's health care system will begin to be fixed, among other things. The state of the country you were born into was not what we want to raise you in. We hope this marks the beginning of change for the better, and that you will grow up to take pride in where you come from.

love,
mom and dad

I love catching the kid doing cute stuff. She's mastered climbing onto her rocking horse. So now this is what she does when she sneaks off to her room. Could be worse.

Halloween costume

Last Halloween was the day we got to take Anya home from the hospital. It was a relatively quiet evening, with a few trick or treaters, Chris' parents making us dinner, me on lots of pain meds and trying to remember (and failing) to sit down gently (ouch). And a beautiful little girl that we were all mesmerized with.

This Halloween was also fairly quiet, since Anya was cutting some teeth and wasn't quite her usual chipper self. We had some bigger plans to hang with friends and go to a little Halloween carnival, but ended up just trick or treating a little bit in the neighborhood.

Even though Anya wasn't in her costume much on Halloween, we still got a fair amount of mileage out of it this week. I sewed her a skunk costume, because she's our little stinker (har dee har har) and it's also freakin' adorable.

At Sadye's Halloween-themed birthday party last Saturday

At infant co-op Halloween party. 

Infant co-op babies. Anya is in the ball pit. In the 2 seconds I ran up to take the picture, she took off her headpiece and looked in the other direction. Badness.

At the PEPS Halloween party Wednesday night. Again with trying to take off the head piece

Anya and Flynn (and Chris & Josh) trick-or-treating on Halloween

Trick or treat!

12 months

I'm a little late in posting the monthly development stats, since I was sick. Feeling back to normal now, so here we go...

Locomotion

Over the past month, walking has become Anya's preferred mode of getting around. I'd say really in the past 3 weeks she took more of an interest in walking and has been quickly improving since. At the beginning of the month, she stuck out her arms, zombie style, for balance (very cute). At this point, she's pretty steady on her feet and can step over many obstacles (toys) without falling, no special arm maneuvers for balance. I'll miss the zombie walk phase :(. I should enjoy the current "steady walking" phase, because as active as this kid is, she'll be running soon - and subsequently falling more again...just harder, faster, and with more injuries.

In other locomotion: Grandma Lodwig broke the news to us that we've got a climber on our hands. If there is something that looks like it's in the realm of possibility to climb, Anya attempts it. She often ends up in her toy boxes, and miraculously is able to climb back out unscathed most of the time. The one that makes us all a little nervous is her desire to climb over the baby gates. And this smart little girl is starting to get the idea of how to unlatch the gates. I caught her yesterday trying to unlatch one to get upstairs. Fortunately her little hands aren't strong enough and won't be for awhile.

Speech

At this point, I've lost count of the words Anya has said. I'm not really sure when to count a word anyway. Is it when she repeats a word she hears us say or when she uses it on her own? Lately some new words are: bubbles, eyes (this is a current favorite of hers), and car. On Sunday, she clearly said "grandpa" to Grandpa Lodwig, which was rather endearing. She must have something against women, since she didn't say "grandma" and still doesn't like to say "mama" much. It's all about "dada". I don't know why. Chris is kind of lame.

Other development

I am happy to report than Anya finally likes books. One of our new favorite things to do is tell Anya to go pick out a book and bring it to us. She obliges and then plops into one of our laps and then we read to her.

I'm sure she's also developing in all sorts of interesting ways, but that's the only thing that's coming to mind at the moment.

Food

Now that we're at the one year mark, we're pretty much done using formula. I started giving her whole milk mixed with formula about a week ago. Now she's getting pretty much all milk. And now she's down to 16 oz of milk a day and getting more of her calories from food. She carries a sippy cup with water around during the day. Bottles are just for the first and last feedings of the day.

At this point, we're only avoiding nuts, shellfish, strawberries, citrus and mango (the last two because I'm allergic and want to delay introduction a little while longer).

Even though she's getting more calories from food than milk, she's still not eating all that much. Well, I guess she has big breakfasts and then tapers down from there. But I'm reading that this is expected, since they slow down growth at around a year and don't want to eat as much. I've also read that when feeding them it's a good idea to give them 3 things to eat. One of them should be a sure thing you know they'll eat. The other two should be items we are eating. So far, this has been a good tactic for us. She still doesn't necessarily eat that much, but seems a little more willing to try a taste of other items before throwing them overboard. Or maybe I'm delusional. Either way, it makes me feel like I'm doing something to get her to eat more.

Baby in the balloon

Happy first birthday, little one. The world is a better place for having you in it.

Horoscopes for Wednesday, October 29

If today is your birthday: All the dramas and challenges you are about to encounter will somehow empower you and leave you far more confident about your ability to attain worldly success. You will be more of a force for good in the lives of those you love.

The Party

Sunday, we threw a birthday party for Anya, attempting to keep it as small as possible while still inviting our good friends and family (thanks, Bobby & Amy for coming up!). Afterall, the party was just as much a celebration for us - that we survived the first year of parenthood and managed to keep our daughter alive in the process. Our little house sure gets packed quickly. Fortunately, the weather was unseasonably warm (and beautiful), so we opened the back door and let the kids loose in the back yard.

We must say having 12 kids literally running around the house/yard and screaming, falling, crying, yelling was a lot more fun than we would have thought. We really had a great time (and more importantly, so did Anya). It also nice when your parents point out that you have a lot of good friends. We couldn't agree more.

Everyone was extremely generous despite our request that no one bring gifts. Really that's the surest way to get the best loot. Sort of like when you mark an email as low importance, you KNOW everyone will read that first.

Chris's favorite part was when the dog was running amok in the back yard with all the kids. Poor Laika really gets short shrift these days, it's nice to see so many kids making use of the dog's best qualities: playfulness, gentleness and extreme caution around children. He was very proud.

Despite (or maybe due to) all the chaos, Anya was in her element and had a great time. She played with a few of her friends and toddled around the house, balloon in hand. The older kids helped her open presents, and she seemed to get a kick out of all the paper flying around and the attention paid to her. Our little social butterly, so not like her mom in that regard. As mentioned in the previous post, she was rather indifferent to the cake, which is fine with me. All in all, a good day. Her next birthday will be much, much smaller if we can get away with it, though.

Birthday girl in her throne, with birthday hat and birthday balloon

Riley, Kalea, Molly, and Eloise help Anya open presents

Anya climbs her present for the best leverage in order to open it

with Great-grandma Scheuer

First Birthday Cake

Anya's first cake (minus wearing a birthday hat, since she snapped herself in the face with the elastic and cried a few minutes before this was taken).

She was rather indifferent to the cake and frosting. I think mostly she didn't care for the texture of it all over her hands.

More on the party later...

Makin' Daddy Proud

She uses both feet!


She also has a well-honned political sensibility

She helps mom around the house.

Other stuff that makes a daddy proud:
Being the little scientist that she is, she's begun experimenting with her world. She's currently working on the unifying theory of gravity and "ut-oh". She feels she's nearing a break-through but is having trouble understanding why things will fall regardless of whether she says "ut-oh" before or after gravitational acceleration has been observed.
She's also begun intensive experimentation into the eternal mysteries of what a dog will and will not eat. So far she's narrowed it down to: Pretty much anything except wadded up shopping receipts.

Uh-oh

This past week Anya has been on an "uh-oh" kick. This is both cute and annoying. It's cute when she or someone accidentally drops something and she says "uh-oh!". It's not so cute when she's strapped in her high chair, picks up food or drink, eyes it for a minute, smiles at me impishly, and then says "uh-oh!" right before she tosses food and drink overboard. OK, that's kind of cute too, but still mostly annoying. It makes the dog happy, though.

Exersaucer

Over the weekend, Chris and I did a donation run. Anya outgrew the Exersaucer we got from a consignment shop, so I brought it downstairs to add to the pile. It was interesting to see how differently she plays with the thing from when we first got it 7 months ago.

March 1. At 4 months old, Anya sits in the seat (which is almost too big for her) and plays a little with the attached toys.

October 17. Anya refuses to sit in the Exersaucer. Instead, she uses it as a ball repository...

...as a tunnel...

...and as a jumping off point for attacking her dad and the camera

I'd also like to take this opportunity to mention how happy I am to have that huge, plastic monstrosity out of my house (only to likely be filled with equally hideous toys in the coming years, no doubt)