Tag: Heather

Jess gave Heather some cut-up plums.  She really enjoyed them and made a royal mess.  (Sorry for the shaky camera work, I cut it to 17 seconds to avoid the most nauseating part when I start walking to get closer to her.)

She was so pleased with herself.  Also, she loves the camera.  She's a complete ham.

Let's bring this meeting to order.  First item of business: We're going to need more plums.

This is her mugshot from the incident:

"Your charges will never stick!  I'll be back on the streets by tomorrow!"

Heather:

• LOVES taking baths.
• LOVES to look at new things and people.
• HATES when I leave the room. (Sometimes, she hates when I am out of reach. Many of our afternoons are spent with us trying to figure out how I can hold her tight while she crawls around and plays. Obviously, this is impossible, but it seems to be what she would really like.)

• LOVES the VeggieTales opening song. I use it to distract her while I trim her nails!
• LOVES shiny balloons.
• HATES those few seconds between when she realizes I'm going to nurse her and when the nipple actually enters her mouth.

• LOVES eating Cheerios.
• LOVES chewing on things. Sometimes, she'll grab your finger and shove it in her mouth—right back along the side, not in front— to chew on.
• HATES loud, sudden noises. Also running bathwater or the blender or vacuum. And sirens up close scare the living daylights out of her.

• LOVES playing with hair—mine, Kyle's, whatever.
• LOVES pulling over the recycling bag and playing with whatever she can find inside.
• LOVES little flashing lights, like on computers.
• HATES story time. (I really, really hope this is temporary. She has always loved it! But she currently seems to greatly prefer our books to library books, which make her squirm and thrash and cry. Strange.)

• LOVES pulling books off bookshelves (or out of boxes).
• LOVES getting vitamins—or anything from a dropper, really. She gets iron twice a day, and a tri-vitamin and fluoride once a day. She loves them all. (In good news, I've been able to stop giving her gas drops, though she loved those, too.)
• HATES going to sleep.
• LOVES being held (unless you're trying to get her to sleep, of course). She'll crawl a long ways to get you to pick her up. (And then she'll hoist her armpits at you until you do!)

• LOVES being tossed in the air/held upside-down.
• HATES having her face washed.
• LOVES making noise.
• LOVES squeaking her fingers down the pages of her board books.
• LOVES when Daddy comes home.

It's getting rather difficult to get candid shots of her; as soon as she sees the camera, she bolts for it:

And a sleep update: Heather's getting pretty good at staying asleep/soothing herself back to sleep if she wakes up, but she's also started fighting the initial put-down pretty hard. We're down to one nap a day, which is insane, but seems to be working alright for us. She's getting enough total sleep (she usually sleeps 12-13 hours at night, so a one- or two-hour nap is okay, according to her pediatrician), but the stretch between the nap and bedtime gets kind of long some days, and she grumps.

Heather is growing and learning so quickly these days! We have a lot of fun with her, and we love her very much.

Heather is reaching the needy, clingy stage highlighted by separation anxiety.  She also seems to be starting to teethe.  So she wants to be held a lot.  We pretty much always pick her up the same way, by sliding our hands under her armpits.  She appears to have figured this out and when we go to pick her up she won't reach for us, but she will lift up her arms.

And now she seems to have come up with the idea that if she can get our hands under her armpits then we have to pick her up.  This coupled with her daily-increasing mobility makes for some adorable behavior.  However, her first issue is that she doesn't know how to get her legs out of her way, but once that's sorted out she jumps right into action.

My favorite part is right at the end.  Once she gets herself all situated she just stops and looks up at Jess as if to say, "Alright Momma, I did my part, now you have to pick me up."

Heather has been so busy these last weeks! Our little girl is growing and learning like nobody's business. Here are some notes:

• She is totally mobile now. It's not crawling, but I don't know what to call it, exactly. It's an inchworm sort of thing. See for yourself:

  She doesn't normally fuss while she's doing it, but I'd been trying to get her to scoot for 5 minutes, and she was a li'l bit grumpy. This video (and all the following pictures) was taken 5 days ago, and she's already much more coordinated at it. When she has a goal (see #9), she can really book it! Along the same lines, she can pivot really easily, and it's pretty fun to see her turn in your direction and start coming for you.

• Heather's doing a lot of exploring these days. She spends her time basically figuring out different ways to interact with the world, and it's way fun to watch. She looks around a lot, and once something's within reach, she's turning it and twisting it and eating it and experimenting with it.
  
• Going along with that, her fine motor skills are really developing. She'll often stop and stare at her hands as she bends and twists her fingers, and she's getting really good at manipulating smaller things. She can get her binky into her mouth now with no problems, and it's one of her favorite toys.
• She can sit pretty well now, though I don't ever leave her when she's sitting because she'll reach for something off to the side and topple right over.
  
• Heather loves buttons. On shirts, pants, whatever. She can't get enough of touching them.
• She laughs. Well, chuckles. She can also click her tongue, which she's very proud of. It's pretty funny, but I haven't caught it on video yet. Sorry.
  
• We had to lower the crib for the first time on Saturday because she was grabbing the top of the side and trying to pull herself up. (She can't pull to a stand yet, but she's pulled up onto her knees several times, and it makes her look like such a big girl!)
• I think she's a bit shy. When other people are around, she's much more reserved than when it's just Kyle and me. Not so animated, not so vocal. Who would've guessed, right?
  
• She's developed a fascination with electrical cords and the bookshelf. I'm trying to teach her "no," but it's a slow process. 🙂
• Heather can now bang objects together. Well, not really together, I guess. But she loves to stand in her exersaucer and smack everything with her links. Even when I read to her, she'll sometimes hit the book with her binky, which is apparently hilarious. (Also hilarious: closing books. You can't usually turn more than a page or two before she's closing the book again.)
  
• Speaking of the exersaucer, she now understands that when she drops things over the side, they go down to the floor, and she'll contort herself trying to see them.
• Along with the object permanence she's developing, though, we're getting a bit of separation anxiety, I think. Personally, I don't understand why thinking that I don't exist when she can't see me is better than knowing I'm just elsewhere, but I hear that's how it works. Anyway, I can't hide on the nursery floor to see if she's really going to go to sleep anymore because she pulls the bumper down to look for me. And she was completely traumatized when I took a shower this morning. Good times.
• Heather loves Henrietta. Kyle does the pre-bedtime storytime every night, and when I bring her Henrietta, she reaches out for her and snuggles into her. Sometimes she laughs. Cutest thing ever.
  

We sure love our little bug!