Tooth!

We have a tooth!  We were at a friend's house on Friday when I rudely halted the conversation we were having by shrieking, "She's got a tooth!" after doing my daily feel around Zoë's gums for one.  So exciting!  It was so sharp and I didn't end up seeing it until Saturday, but it's definitely there.  I'm both thrilled and sad that her gummy baby smile is changing.  She was oh-so-cranky on Sunday through about Tuesday mid-day and we were really having a hard time with our new fussy girl.  I thought babies were supposed to have a hard time BEFORE the tooth broke through the gums?  Hmmm...an anomaly as always.

Also, Zoë is definitely close to officially crawling.  She gets up on her knees and rocks back and forth often and there are no boundaries for where she goes now.  And she's quick!  We're working on getting a gate for the stairs, and we have to cover the outlets and do other baby proofing tasks within the next few days.  Crazy!

I've had a lot more of the moments lately, vacillating between feeling so excited for the newest milestone and sad that she's growing so fast.  I just can't believe that we're so close to her first birthday and she's hitting so many big milestones.

Her favorite position, hanging out on her side.  Chris calls it her "Jane Fonda".

And, to swing in the opposite direction, Zoë hasn't been sleeping very well for the past two months.  Since about mid-September, she's been waking up once or twice in the middle of the night and needing some middle-of-the-night consoling.  Until very recently (about the last week and a half), we were able to put her pacifier back in her mouth and she'd go back to sleep.  Now, she won't take the pacifier and swats it out of our hands.  She'll cry until we pick her up.  We can sit with her in the glider until she falls asleep again, but the moment we set her back in her crib she's awake and crying.  If we bring her in to sleep with us she falls fast asleep until morning.  So frustrating!  We thought at first it was related to all of the new growing she's doing, but we are pretty sure we're being played now.  We can add even more evidence to the fact she's learned how to play us.  She's now crying and fussing if we leave her for too long playing by herself.  The minute we pick her up she's fine.  :)  It's been quite a frustrating week, but we're sure glad we get lots of smiles still in between the fussing and not sleeping.  She's still a pretty cute little girl!  At least the crying and fussing is accompanied by the arms up gesture she makes when we come to pick her up.  I love that!

Having fun with mashed potatoes

One more week until her 10 month birthday, I can't believe it.

Officially counting down until Christmas

The red cups came out at Starbucks on November 1st and I am officially on a Christmas countdown.  Christmastime is always my favorite time of the year, but I know this year is going to be so much more amazing and special because it's Zoë's first!  We even sent Teta and Uncle Jed a special Kolczynski Family Tradition- the paper chain countdown.  We're excited they're coming for Christmas!  It will be the first time Uncle Jed will meet her and she's so much different since Teta was here in April.

We've been having fun with our new camera, and Zoë's been having fun with blocks.  She's doing a fierce army crawl and has gotten up on her knees a few times while on her tummy, but hasn't traveled anywhere on them yet.

Zoe's first Halloween!

Sure, barista might not be a typical first halloween costume, but it was a Pinterest find and I thought it was oh-so-cute.  Plus, in a few years she's going to want to pick her own costume, so we should be able to have some fun before then, right?

We went to a friend's house on Saturday night for a baby-filled Halloween Party and I am proud to say she was the only barista there.  :)  There were SO many babies (all adorable) and we had a great time.  It was a good reminder of how much our lives have changed in the past 9 months!  Before we went to the party we stopped by Starbucks to show off the cutest costume in the world and we got the exact response I was looking for from the three female baristas: "Oh my goodness, she's so cute!  Can I take her picture?!".  She was a hit.  She also wore her costume to Lindbergh High School and was a hit there, too.

Loves standing, we'll be fine waiting a while
until she can pull herself up on the crib, though...

She's been changing so much, per the usual, and the biggest change the last few weeks is that's she's scooting on her belly!  It's not quite an army crawl, but pretty close.  She started with laying on her side and it looked like she was doing the side-stroke without being in the pool.  We think her favorite position is still rolled up on one side, looking around.  The most enticing things to put in front of her are a phone (loves that screen) and a pile of blocks.  Baba taught her to "kaboom!" the blocks by knocking them over when they're stacked.  She loves it and completely understands what "kaboom!" means.  Chris has fun setting them up around the carpet for her to knock them over one tower after another.

Happy morning baby!

I decided to do "sensory Sunday!" and get her touching some fun stuff, so I set up a glass dish filled with oats and put in a few blocks for her to discover.  Well, I should have known that she would go STRAIGHT for the blocks and completely ignore the oatmeal, but I didn't, so I ended up taking out the blocks so she would focus on the oatmeal.  She was pretty tentative at first and I thought, "well, this is a bust", until I sat her IN the glass dish IN the oats and started cascading the oats all around her.  She eventually got her hands into it and was pretty well entertained for about 20 minutes.  It was fun, and now we have oats that are for play only.  :)

Going straight for the blocks.

What IS this stuff?

The "not for your mouth" experiment didn't work too well...

One more chance with the blocks.

She is rolling like a fiend, HATES to have her nose wiped (as we're really discovering now after she was sick for about three weeks, got better completely for about two days, and now has a cold again), and is blowing raspberries like a champ.

A delightful combo of avocado and pureed carrots.

She has been eating like a champ, too, and eats a full jar of baby food twice a day.  Green beans are definitely her favorite, with peas being a close second.  Weird child.  She canNOT eat anything more solid than a puree.  She'll gag and then throw up everything she's got in her stomach.  It's weird.  She can suck on Mum Mums just fine, but ANY solid anything results in the gagging.  Even a few grains of rice.  She tried some avocado the other day, but even that resulted in a lot of gagging.  She has a nine month check up tomorrow, so it'll be a good conversation to have with the doctor about her progress there.

No, she's not even eating Nutella.

"You know I'm going to gag on this, right?"

Nine months!

Whelp.  The show must go on...despite being robbed today, we got a picture (it's blurry) for Zoe's (and, don't ask me how irritated I am right now because I can't figure out how to type an umlaut on this keyboard that is not MINE because it was stolen) 9 month birthday.

So over it.

Look, I'm standing!  :)

I came home today and walked into our bedroom to find it completely trashed.  Dresser drawers opened, mattress askew, clothes pulled out of the closets.  Ugh.  A policeman came, my parents and Chris' mom came, and we pieced the house back together including boarding up the back door that the burglars had splintered to break in.  We've determined that they took the laptop, ipad, playstation, cameras, video camera, and my Theta badge so far.  Which means all of the pictures and video are gone.  Gone are the pictures from the last few months (I had just dumped them off my phone not two weeks ago) because I hadn't backed up the computer since early (I think) summer.  Gone are the pictures from pumpkin picking, summer time, each monthly picture, and all of the daily pics from my phone.  Gone are the videos of me holding Zoe for the first time, the videos of her coming home, the videos of her Teta holding her for the first time.  And gone is the slideshow that I had begun to piece together of a picture a day for her whole first year.  I was going to show it at her first birthday party, with the date in the lower right hand corner of each picture.  That's what got me.

I keep telling myself that because of my obsessive posting on Facebook I've still got tons of pictures.  Because I backed the computer up in early summer I've still got all of our wedding pictures and pictures from our early dating years.  Hopefully.  I'm too tired to check it now and too worried that I didn't back them up correctly.

BUT, we're safe, there's not any serious damage to the house (except for the door), and we are all home together to eat cookies and drink beer while Zoe slumbers in her crib (until about 1 or 2 am, since that's her MO lately).  Fiona and Joe are fine and all we're out are a whole bunch of electronics (and pictures).

Thanks to all of our friends who have inquired to make sure we're ok and offered help.  We so appreciate it and are once again reminded how very lucky we are to have all of you in our lives.

More on Zoe later this week, but I just HAD to make sure we posted her nine month picture today.  :)

Baby's First Pumpkin Patch

At the Thomasson Family Farm for Pumpkin Picking

Still no teeth, but now we've got a nasty cold.  :/  She'd been doing a better job of sleeping through the night this week until she caught a cold and has been terribly congested.  Like, wake up in the morning with crusted boogers ALL over her face.  Chris was the hero last night and slept upright with her in the chair in her room for several hours so she could sleep.

She has become a rolling machine and showed off last night for Drew by rolling over and over again in a clockwise circle around her blanket and toys.  She's even started to move like she's dancing when there is fun music on doing the baby bob up and down with her hands in the air.  Last night she finally figured out how to splash in the bathtub and made a gigantic happy mess.  Chris and I enjoyed every moment of watching her send *most* of the water in her bathtub onto the counters and floor.  I guess we're going to be moving to the real tub now which both makes me sad and terrifies me.

I want that stem!

This guy!

Happy Baba and Dedo

I attended the Just Between Friends sale in Renton yesterday and came home with several fun toys in addition to the play kitchen and grill passed on to us by the Thompson family and am feeling pretty set for Christmas and her birthday.  I wanted to get the shopping done early so I can focus on the decorating (Christmas) and party planning (birthday!) and also just enjoy the holidays and time off with her.  We'll be working on getting the playroom done before her birthday, too, so we have a place to put all of these toys.  :)

I'm this tall this fall (24", 15 pounds 5.5 ounces on Friday after getting measured by our home visiting nurse).

Adventures in Teething

It's fall!

I believe our little princess is teething.  At least, I hope she's teething because she's absolutely miserable.  Drool everywhere, fierce chomping on everything, red cheeks with eczema (we're thinking that's because of the intense amount of saliva she smears all over her face AND the fact that she's now sleeping on her belly most nights).  She's doing angry screaming one moment and then babbling and giggling the next.  Speaking of babbling, she's talking up a storm!  It's hilarious and seemed like it turned on overnight.  We went and bought her some new toys over the weekend which she is thrilled with, so that helps distract her when she's upset.

Technology Wiz

Hey!  I'm ready to play!  Who care's if it's 1:15am?

Cheerios were fun to pick up but she didn't really know what to do with them.  :)

Beautiful sleeping baby

My little Coug!

And, of course, her sleep hasn't been that great.  I can't exaggerate and say TERRIBLE, because she's really only waking up once or twice a night and USUALLY she goes right back to sleep after we get up and put her pacifier back in her mouth.  Last night, however, she was up at 1:15am and didn't go back to sleep for another hour.  And then she was asleep for fifteen minutes and woke back up again.  I brought her into bed with us and she slept through until the morning (of COURSE).  I'm really hoping the phase of waking up is over soon, although we really don't have too much to complain about since it's a pretty quick fix.

Standing up with her new toy

Eight Months!

Our little girl is eight months old today!  She is the funnest little girl ever.  :)

Things she can do now:

She easily eats a half a jar of baby food each evening and happily does so.  We've gone through all of the jarred vegetables I could find at the grocery store, so now we're on to the yummy stuff: fruit!  She devoured the green beans, which I was shocked at because they smelled AWFUL and looked like, well, poop.  And I haven't eaten a single green bean since, uh, childhood, so she definitely didn't develop a taste for them when I was pregnant.  Tonight she had bananas and loved them.

She rolls over!  I picked her up at daycare one afternoon and Lesley says to me, "I have something to tell you but I don't really want to," because she understands my pain of missing milestones.  I knew immediately what happened and said, "She rolled, didn't she?!".  Lesley said, "Not once, but twice!".  I was really excited and glad to hear it, so I took her home and demanded she roll for me.  Of course, she didn't.  :)  The next day I finally saw her do it AND got it on video, and it's what she does pretty consistently, now, when we put her in her crib or on the floor to play.  She also pushes pretty hard with her legs when she's on her back and can sometimes turn herself around while laying on her tummy if she's enticed by a toy or Fiona or Joe.  I'm definitely mourning the loss of the little freedom I had to leave her on the bed for five to ten minutes and know she'd be in exactly the same position I left her in when I came back.  Now she could roll right off the bed!

It's hard to leave this face in the morning.

She's got TWO teeth we can see under the gums.  Another morning at daycare Lesley asked me if she was teething to which I answered, "I don't think so...I can't see or feel anything there yet".  That afternoon she pulled out the flashlight and said "LOOK at her teeth!" and there they were, two small slits of white barely visible with the boost of light.  It IS pretty exciting to share these new milestones with someone else who thinks they're pretty exciting too!  Plus she often catches things I don't catch or can give me advice since her daughter is about a year older than Zoë.  How lucky!  Lesley says it could be a week or two before the teeth poke through.  I instantly got sad thinking about the loss of her gummy toothless smile.  It was the first time I felt immediate sadness thinking about how fast she's growing.  :(  Somehow the mental picture of her smile and how it is going to change made me especially sad.  So weird.

She is incredibly vocal making all sorts of weird sounds.  She makes them when she's eating, pooping, playing, pretending to sleep in her crib, and in the car.  Sometimes they are quite alarming until I look at her and realize she's happy and not mad.  She's enjoying blowing raspberries into her food and at random moments throughout the day.  Her grasp is inTENSE and she flails her arms so hard that if you happen to be in the way of them it'll sound like you've gotten a good slap to the face.  She grabs my face and skin now and if she holds it for long enough it can hurt.  She's still leaving her earrings alone, which is great, though she HATES getting them cleaned with a cotton ball and alcohol.

She LOVES swim lessons which we're doing twice a week at the Federal Way Community Center.  She has a great big grin on her face the entire time we're in the (freezing cold) water until the end of the half hour when the exertion has clearly caught up with her.  She does underwater glides like a champ, though I'll admit that pushing her underwater was hard on mom.

Yesterday we went to the fair (a yearly tradition for Chris and me) and, per tradition, ate our way around in a clockwise fashion from the blue gate, towards the stables, past the rides, and back again to the main pavilion.  Delicious, and Zoë had a great time looking at the animals and people watching until it started to pour, at which point she melted into unhappiness for our ride home.

I can't believe we're 2/3 of the way through her first year.  The holidays will be here before we know it and then it'll be her first birthday.  CRAZY.  It is going way too fast.  I just want her to stay little forever!

Baby's first Puyallup Fair!!!

How long until Dedo can get you some chicks for the farm?