Phases

Okay so Matti has now entered the fussy phase. She is teething really bad, gets frustrated if things do not go her way, and has been moved up to the next class in school so she plays a lot harder. By the time she gets home from school she is so fussy. She will not take a nap longer than 30 minutes at a time. When I have her all day on the weekends I put her down at least four times a day just so she can have some rest, but at school there is too much going on and she cannot get any rest because she wants to play. Yesterday she had one ten minute nap. In her new class everyone crawls around. There are no entertainers, excersaucers, etc. There is a hugh toy box that the children crawl up to and pull out what they want to play with. This class is a little more structured as far as eating times, snacks, naps, etc. I am still trying to get used to the different teachers. They are great, but change will take some getting used to. I loved Matti's teachers before. Matti seems to be transitioned well. She has not cried, but has significantly deceased her bottles at school. She usually has 18 ounces of formula between 9:00am and 3:00pm and the past week she has ended up only have between 7 ounces and 10 ounces between those times. She is getting at least 24 ounces a day. She is taking an 8 ounce bottle at night and a 6 ounce bottle before school in the mornings. Of course, she has two meals a day that consist of fruit and oatmeal and then veggie and cereal at night. I am just concerned about her getting enough formula. We thought it may have been the class change, but they sent her over to her old teacher to try to feed her and she still was not interested so either it is the teething or she is just not hungry. As long as she gets the recommended amount of formula a day I will not worry.
I have been very nervous about giving Matti finger foods to try because of the fear of her choking. I have tried to give her finger foods a few times with various puffs and cut up pastas, but she was not interested. I went to pick her up at school yesterday and apparently she was stealing Cherrios from the other kids so they gave her a few and she ate them. She also took away a little boys graham cracker and tried to eat it herself. I guess I have been trying the wrong finger foods. I guess Cherrios will be a good start. I have to see this for myself this weekend.
Matti has improved drastically using the sippy cup. She has finally figured out to tilt the cup to get a drink from it. I usually give her a cup of water after school because she does not get another bottle until 7:30pm or so-right before bed. She mainly likes to teeth on the spout, but likes the cool water in her mouth.
She has starting sleeping through the night again, but is up at 5:00am sometimes. I guess I just have an early riser. She will usually go back to bed with me until 6:30am on the weekends if she is up that early or during the week I put her in the bed with Matthew and I and she will rest with Matthew while I get up at 6am to get ready for work.
Matti is becoming more and more social with other babies these days. It is so fun to watch her. Today when I dropped her off I put her down with two other little girls and she crawled over to them and starting swating hands with one of the little girls. They just giggled and cooed. It was so sweet. She is not shy and as for worrying about mama leaving-well she does not even watch me walk out the door when I say bye. She is too busy and having too much fun.

So Big.....

The other day I read Jenn's blog and she had a statement about how songs have a different meaning when you have a child. I completely agree. I was traveling to Winston to work last week and the song "Arms Wide Open" by Creed was playing. I have never really listened to the words, I just know I liked the song. As I was listening and singing along tears started streaming down my face. I thought of Matti and how much love I have for her. Sometimes I just sit at night and rock her knowing that if I put her down she would be off to sleep in her crib, but now that she is so mobile she does not want to cuddle as much so I just sit back enjoy watching her sleep, stoke her hair, kiss her face, and tell her how much mommy loves her. It is amazing how much love you can have for a child. She melts my heart!
Now on to less mushy things-
Matti has continued to keep Matthew and I busy by crawling. She wants to explore to whole house. We cannot keep her still now that she is mobile. We just follow her around and let her take it all in. Last night she was in the kitchen, sitting in the floor watching me make her bottles so I reached in the cabinet pulled out a old metal bowl and a wooden spoon. She really liked playing with those. She would bang the spoon on the bowl to make noise and then of course chew on the spoon for a while.
Here is a few clips of Matti crawling and exploring. A few were cut short due to keeping her safe from popping her head.


Matti decided to crawl through her Entertainer!






Matti has been pulling up on everything. You can even sometimes hear her straining to grunting to pull herself up. She is starting to also learn how to get back down without falling. We have had a few times where she has tumbled over and bumped her head or popped her mouth, but for the most part she has great balance.

Here is a clip of Matti playing in her toy box.



Matti still does not have any teeth, but she seems to be teething. She is drooling more, refusing more bottles, and tends to pull her ears a lot. I wondered about a earache, but she acts if everything is okay and does not seem sick. I read ear pulling is most of the time contributed to teething. Hopefully we will have some pearly whites soon. I cannot imagine what she will look like with teeth.
I really have never seen Matti interact with other children until yesterday when I dropped her off at school. Normally, when I take her in her class I put her in the entertainer, but since there were too many babies in her normal class I had to take her next door to the 9month - 1 year old class. Some of the children in there Matti knows from her class. Shana one of her friends was sitting quietly in the floor across the room. Matti noticed her right off and I put Matti on the floor she crawled straight over to Shana and started babbling, giggling, and patting Shana on the leg. Shana is not much of a morning person and looked and Matti and started crying. I picked Matti up and took her over to the toy box and let her choose a toy to play with so she would leave Shana alone. It was so cute to see her interact though. It made me tear up a little. My baby is growing up.

Here are a few pictures.
Nana and papa built Matti a swing-it really puts her to sleep!!! I guess mommy and daddy will have to put one up for her

Here is another pic of Matti and her fuzzy friends!

Matti peaking out the window at Dada mowing the yard!