She's a Climber

I totally should have seen this coming. Somehow, I was still surprised. This evening I was folding laundry on the couch while Jenna played with her toys in the family room. I walked back to our bedroom to put everything into the drawers, which took maybe 45 seconds. I come back out and Jenna was no longer in the family room. I walk into the kitchen to find her like this...
Of course, being the wonderfully responsible parent that I am, I grab my camera rather than take her off the chair. She then proceeds to stand up.

There's always time for a squinchy face...Now climbing into her friend Jordan's hook-on chair, which she loves

She made it into the chair, and then climbed back into a standing position in the hook-on chair, at which time I set the camera down and grabbed her.

What a little monkey. How long do you think we have before we visit the ER?

Operation Failed

Ok, call me whatever names you want. We are back to bottles. Jenna wants nothing to do with milk in any kind of cup, and I am not comfortable with cutting milk out of her diet. Yes she does eat yogurt and some cheese but not on a daily basis. In fact, Jenna isn't terribly consistent about anything. Some days she eats regular table food pretty well, and other days she hardly eats anything. The one thing I could always count on was her naptime and bedtime bottles. So, as April put it, I am sucking it up and giving in.

Here's what I have learned...

• Jenna is VERY stubborn, and Pat is definitely not, so I'm thinking this may be my fault.
• Don't post things like this on facebook or the blog until the mission is complete. Otherwise, you get to look like a big dummy when it fails.
• There are no clear cut timelines or rules for babies or parenting. Sometimes you just have to do what works for your family. I'm not sure why it has taken me 14 months and 1 day to figure this out.
• She's only going to be little for a short time and as long as I don't send her to kindergarten with a baby bottle or binky, I'm going to slow my roll and let her be.

Thank you all for your advice and opinions...it won't be the last time I solicit them. Now, I can't just do a post with no pictures so I'm posting a few pictures of my Project Life album. These are really bad pictures but I have a dark house and I'm just tired. Anyways, here it is

HELP!!!

Ok...quick update. We decided to start operation bye bye bottles this weekend. Jenna doesn't seem to miss her bottles at all. The problem is she hasn't had any milk since friday. We tried the soft spout sippy cups, the hard spout ones, ones with handles, ones without handles, the straw kind, and tonight I went out and bought the Take and toss ones that April suggested. She absolutely refuses to drink anything except water from any of them. So mommies, I need advice. What should I do?? I looked online and in some of pediatric medical books, and she needs to be drinking 12-16 ounces a day. HELP!

These pictures have nothing to do with this post, just thought they'd liven it up a bit


Jenna smiling enough so that you can see she actually does have top teeth. She's actually cutting her 10th tooth right now!


Jenna sleeping the other night. We've never seen her sleep on her back before. She's bent in an L-shape in the corner, and it just made me smile.

Bye Bye Bottles

So it seems the time has come to ditch the baby bottles. Our pediatrican prefers that bottles disappear at a year, and while I kept that in mind, I figured we'd just see how things play out. Well, I think it's now time, for a few reasons.

• First of all, our bottles need to be replaced. We used to be really good and wash them all by hand, but inevitably the laziness set in and we started to put them in the dishwasher. Well the darn bottles have sort of melted. Not to the point where they look that bad, just to the point that the collar and nipple no longer fits securely. So, they leak. All the freaking time.


• Second, Jenna is a rascal. She has never been very easy to feed. At daycare, she hardly drinks her bottles at all, and only will if they let her do it herself in the baby swing (hello...how does that big girl even fit in a baby swing. Ours has been put away for months).


• Third, she pushes away her nighttime bottle. She wants her binky and to be rocked, and that's it. Since everyone says that's the hardest bottle to get rid of, and she already started the process, we might as well go with it.

So, here's the dilemma. Jenna has been using a sippy cup since about 6 months for water. She has never had anything else out of the sippy cup. When I have tried to put milk in one she took one sip, and handed it back to me. When I tried to put juice in (for constipation), she took one sip and handed it back to me. So, on the recommendation from some other mommy friends, I went out and bought the soft spout sippy cups to use as a transition between bottle and normal sippy. Keeping my fingers crossed that this is going to work. Wish us luck!

The Closet

The little goofball is at it again. Jenna has decided that it is really fun to sit in the back corner of her closet. Anytime we are in her room, she gets back in that corner and stares at us. Pat chases her back there and she shrieks and laughs. Then when we want to leave the room, she refuses to come out of the closet and sits back there and shakes her head at us. Little rascal.

sick again

Well if you can possibly believe it, Jenna is sick again. She has a terrible stomach flu, and is just not herself. As of Friday afternoon, 7 of the 9 babies in her daycare room are sick with this bug. How is that possible?? It most be a strong flu bug. So anyways, she has been vomiting and has horrible diarrhea. She won't drink anything...and I have tried it all, sippy cups, real cups with straws, bottles, filled with water, milk, juice, pedialyte, gatorade, and combinations of the above. She won't have any of it. And the only thing she has had to eat is a few pieces of cereal and a few vanilla wafers. I'm concerned but trying to have the faith that she will get better and we won't have to go to the hospital. She's usually so active and busy and she has been laying around all day just watching barney and cuddling in our laps. Say a prayer for us if you can, that Jenna's sweet little body will heal soon.Yeah...she fell asleep like this, feet dangling and all. So pitiful

Preview: Jenna...the teen years

I couldn't resist posting this picture despite the really awful quality/lighting. Jenna loves to play with my phone and she loves being up on the couch. Put those together, and you get the lounging/texting teenager image. She cracks me up.

crazy baby

This isn't exactly how this toy was intended to be played with

So proud of herself

Seriously??!! I can't hardly get this kid to sit in the real grocery cart and she wants to sit in this one. And no this isn't staged, she climbed in there all by herself.

what a goofball

white flag

Ok....I surrender. My white flag is up. Seriously, we have been having some bad luck with sicky germs around here. It all started back in mid November when Jenna had that horrendous case of viral croup. Pat then got bronchitis, and just about missed Thanksgiving. Then I got a cold which turned into bronchitis. Then Jenna seems to have another cold but also cuts four teeth in a week so who knows if it's actually a cold or not. Then I get a sinus infection right before Christmas. Starting Christmas day, Jenna starts having some stomach issues, which get so bad she clears the room at my mom's Christmas celebration. We take her in and it turns out she has bacterial croup (and oh by the way, asthma), as well as a yeast infection in her intestines. Ummmm...hello?? what??

So we try to take all this in stride. Antibiotics and anti-yeast medications will take care of her infections, and asthma is really manageable and she may even outgrow it. So New Years Eve rolls around and I am super excited to organize our spare bedroom, which has affectionately been named the hoarder room. We get a great start and all is going well until I decide to take a break and unload the dishwasher. As I'm loading my plates into the cupboard, and I bend down to reach for more dishes, the shelf decides to break and all my dishes come crashing down. 4 broken plates, 6 broken bowls, 4 stitches (in my arm), and 1 tetanus shot later....you get the idea. Sometime the next day I start to feel kind of icky. Like whole body aches, chills, headache, and bad stomach pain. I looked on google and found out that it could be a side effect of the tetanus shot. It's now 1045 pm on the 2nd and I have spent all day on the couch or in the bathroom. I have overcome the body aches, but I can't keep any food down. So the upside of this is that it's a great way to jumpstart my new diet. The downside is Jenna walked around for the greater part of today with her onesie hanging out of her pants like shirt-tails because her daddy kept "forgetting to snap it" during diaper changes. Oh well...she didn't really seem to mind. So I must say that I'm hoping that the rest of 2010 will be a little easier.