Matti has been trying so hard to communicate with Matthew and I lately. Sometimes the expressions on her face when she wants to talk, but nothing will come out are priceless. I cannot help but crack up. She loves to voice her opinion! I have a video clip of her protesting. I fed her spaghetti for lunch and had to strip her down in the kitchen before I could bring her to her room for new clothes. She had spaghetti everywhere. I put her in her crib while I got some clothes together and this is what happened:
She has been really babbling up a storm. Mama, Dada, Nene, baable, gaagaaa, etc. She even looks at us as if she is trying to tell us something and if we do not understand she starts to cry. I feel like she might even be trying to tell us what she wants now, but of course we cannot understand her. She still has not started to point yet. We can tell her to go find a popular object and she will hunt for it and if she finds it she will hold it up with a big grin on her face.
She still only has two bottom teeth. We are still waiting on the top to come in. Although I feel it will not be long. She seems to be getting a rash on her chin and started drooling a lot again. I will be so excited to see some top ones. We have only been wiping her teeth with a wash cloth at night, but I guess it is time for a toothbrush. I want her to have good dental hygiene habits so we will start early!
Matti still eats pretty much everything except Green Beans. For some reason she absolutely refuses to eat them. If I put them in her mouth she will just spit them out. I tried mixing them up with chunks of potato and she will eat right around them. I sat and watched her pick up the green bean and throw it in the floor and them pick up a potato and eat it. She is too funny! Oh, by the way, she still falls asleep when she eats. It does not matter what time of evening it is. Here is a picture from the other night.
Matti has also been pulling up and cruising for some time now. She is starting to let go of furniture to find herself standing all alone for a brief period of time. She will also take a big step from place to place without holding on. I am sure she will be walking by her 1st birthday.
Speaking of 1st birthday I have already started thinking how in six weeks I will have a one year old. WOW- a whole year! I have caught myself looking at birthday party invitations and a special party outfit for her. OMG!
We visited nana and papa in Mount Airy this weekend. Matti was an angel (of course). She actually slept until 7:30am on Saturday and then 7:45am on Sunday. It was amazing. I have not been able to sleep in for a long time. I felt so rested. She had a wonderful time. We had her pictures made on Saturday afternoon in her Carolina Cheerleader uniform and also had a fall picture made. Here is a picture of her in the uniform right before we left to go to Ann Katherine's photography!
On Sunday we dressed her up in a Halloween costume and made a few photos. She did not like the hood on her head at all. It was very difficult to keep that on. She kept wanting to pull it off. She was a good sport through all of this.
Matti has had several things happen over the past couple of weeks. We FINALLY have two bottom teeth which I have not been able to get a photo of because she will not be still long enough or she will cover them with her tongue. They popped up out of nowhere. I have a feeling she is getting ready to cut the two top teeth pretty soon. She is drooling more than usual and every now and then she acts like it hurts to put pressure on her gums. Matti also has been crusing around the house holding onto funiture. Just this weekend she has been getting very brave and letting go of the funiture and standing by herself, only for seconds until she finds out she is not holding on to anything then she plops down on her bottom. She also will test her limits and cruise from one piece of furniture to the next taking one giant step without holding on to anything. It will not be long before I have a walker in the house. She crawls so fast I am almost afriad for her to walk because I know it will be full speed ahead. Matti has also started saying Dada finally. I think Matthew melted this weekend when she said dadadadada. It is so funny because you can see her face and she is trying so hard to get that d sound out. That I will have to get on video soon. Sleep habits are still great. Matti sleeps through the night, but is up before dawn. Bedtime for her is around 7:30pm and 8:00pm. She is completely exhausted by then. I have tried to keep her up a few mintues long trying to see if she will sleep a little longer in the am, but it does not work. She simply is just ready to go at 5:45am. I have come to deal with that. Now, she wants to play as soon as her feet hit the floor. No more exersaucer for her. It has gotten boring to her because she is so mobile. Although I have been putting her in the pack n play more with a bunch of toys just to get a break and catch my breath. She seems to be okay with that for short periods of time. I usually can get about thirty minutes of freedom without her pulling on my legs. Matti also had her first school pictures made a few weeks ago. She did such a great job. She smiled really big almost like she knew she was posing for a picture. I will hopefully have those soon to pass around. Another short note, Matti's teacher at school tells me every day how Matti is the class clown. They call her a comedian. She keeps the class and her teacher in stitches. I would love to be a fly on the wall for a whole day at school to she what she gets herself into. I think she is like her Aunt Kiki (Erika) who always has a punch line!
I have a short video of her pulling all the tupperware out of a kitchen cabinet. I left one cabinet just for her to play in. This seems to keep her occupied for a while.
Matti has really started expressing her feelings over the past few weeks. She expresses when she is mad, happy, or feeling like she wants to cuddle. She has started crawling up in my lap to read a book or just cuddle. Feeding time is a whole new experience now. She has been taking eight ounces of formula every feeding and eats four to five bottles a day. Last week she started trying to feed me. I always feed her in a quiet room with dim lights. I just hold her and she will just feed herself. Sometimes she will pull the bottle out of her mouth and try to put it in my mouth. When she does this she gives me a big milky smile. It is so sweet. She also has started giving everyone kisses (Open mouth and a bunch of slobber). She will grab your face with both hands and just plant her mouth on your cheek and hold it there for a few seconds. When she pulls back she is so proud of herself. She just giggles and smiles and does it over and over. She also Eskimo kisses with her father. She has really started crawling all over the place and pulling up on everything. She is also starting to cruise around the furniture a lot more. She is so hard to keep up with. I usually put her down in the kitchen floor while I do bottles or dishes and open a cabinet full of Tupperware. She loves to play in the cabinet for a little while and then she hangs on my legs the rest of the time. Bed time is wonderful these days. Last night we Matti got hungry earlier than bedtime for a bottle so I gave her a bottle at 6:30pm and she finished every drop. I was worried this would cause her to get up earlier than 6:30am, but she slept straight through. I also worried that I would have trouble putting her to bed without a bottle, but that also was not a problem. After her bath I got her dressed for bed and rocked her for a few minutes with her sleep CD playing in the background. I also hummed a few tunes for her. We stared at each other and cuddled. When she seemed relaxed I put her down to bed. She stayed down and practiced saying Dada and baba to herself. Before I knew it she was fast asleep. Wow-bed time has definitely taken a turn for the best (Knock on wood). Bath time is really fun now. She likes to play with her toys and splash around in the water. I usually suds her up and then turn the water on as I drain the bath water so I can rinse her. She tries to grab the running water and puts her toys under the running water. I just sit there while she plays for several minutes. She usually looks up at me laughs, squeals and splashes around. Matti also has been playing a lot of peep eye with us after her bath. She likes to take her towel and cover her face. She will wait until we say "where's Matti" and she will uncover her face and just belly laugh and do it over and over again. I will have to get this on video. It is so cute. On the downside, Matti's leg was a little boys lunch yesterday. I went to pick her up and received one of the dreaded incident reports to sign. She was bitten on the lower leg and there were teeth marks still present, but the skin was not broken. This little boy is a known bitter and it is impossible for the teachers to stop every bite from occurring. Luckily he will be out of her class at the end of the week. Other kids have been bitten a lot more than once so we have been very lucky. Once more thing I wanted to add-I took Matti grocery shopping last Friday and I finally just put her down in the cart instead of using the carrier. She had the best time. I tied a balloon to the cart and she played with that the whole time. People were walking up to me talking about how cute she was. She would smile and them and laugh. One man passed us and smiled at her and she ended up blowing a huge raspberry at him. He just grinned at her and kept going. She was hamming it up! She did look cute. We had put her hair in two ponytails for crazy hair day at school. She was a doll. I will have to post the pic later on today.
Matti went her her 9 month wellness check up on Friday. These appointments really do come around fast. It is hard to believe I have a nine month old now. Matti's appointment went well. She is 19 1/2 pounds (I over estimated her weight by a long shot) and is 28 inches long. She is in great health. She received one shot, which was her Hep Shot. She took that well. She cried for a brief second and that was it. It was a lot easier than the past visits. The doctor checked her bottom gum and she definitely has two teeth on the verge of erupting. Matti is babbling up a storm. She laughs and pays attention to everything we say. You can see her try hard to say something other than ma, da, ba, etc. She squeals and dances when any kind of music comes on. This weekend a couple of times she has been in the middle of playing and a TV commercial will come on with music. She stops what she is doing so bounce up and down and clap to the beat. It is so funny to see her do this. She also loves to crawl around the house and explore. It is VERY hard to keep her still these days. Toys just do not interest her. She likes plastic soda bottles, bowls, plastic containers, etc. I took everything out of her diaper bag and filled the diaper bag full of things she could play with and she loves to pull everything out of it. I will put it all back in and she will pull it all out all over. She spent at least twenty minutes yesterday playing with a saline bottle. She inspected every inch of the bottle. She is also comparing items. Matti would have a toy, hold it up in the air, put it on the floor, crawl around with it, pull up with it, put it on the table, pick it up again, put it back down on the floor, etc. She would do this over and over with the same toy. It is almost like she had OCD. Also, tantrums have started all ready. Lord, I thought this was only when they got older. A few times this weekend she screeched at me and cried a terrible cry. At first I thought something was wrong, but I soon realized it was what I have been dreading. TANTRUMS! Probably the worst one was when I took her upstairs yesterday to give her a bottle and put her down for a nap. I let her carry her bottle as we went upstairs. I took the bottle away to change her diaper and she grunted and cried LOUDLY-so loud Matthew came upstairs to see what was going on. She bowed her back, kicked her legs, and thrashed her arms. All I could think was, Dear Lord it is me all over again.
Many things have been happening over the past couple of weeks. We have been very busy and sleep deprived lately. Matti has had us up six to seven times a night for the past month or so give or take a few nights. Matthew and I have been getting an average of four to five hours of sleep a night for almost a month now. It all came to a head last weekend when I was visiting with mom. Matti would not sleep at all. I was so tired I could hardly enjoy the weekend. Last Sunday night Matti was up about every hour on the hour crying and wanting to be held and rocked. I would pick her up, rock her until she was asleep, and put her down. She would wake up immediately and start crying again until I would pick her up. Sometimes as soon as I would pick her up she would be right back asleep again. I knew this was separation anxiety or she was dependant on me rocking and holding her while she slept. I made sure I covered all the bases-dry diaper, bottle, illness-everything was normal. Finally about 3:00am I gave up. I was completely zonked and Matti even giggled one time when I walked in her room. I finally realized I had to let her cry it out or I was not ever going to sleep again. I picked her up once last time, kiss her face, and told her it was time to go nite, nite. I put her back down and walked out of the room. Matthew was sitting up in our bed (you can see her bed from ours in her room) and I walked downstairs, turned on the TV monitor, went outside on the deck to drowned out the crying and watched her as she cried. The more she cried the more I cried. It was terrible. My heart was breaking. 45 minutes passed and finally Matti put her head down and fell asleep. I could not believe my eyes. Quiet. It is something I have not heard it a while. By then I was wide awake, but went back to bed. By 6:00am I knew there was no way I could work on Monday. My eyes were swollen and my head was pounding. Matti went to school and I slept pretty much all day on Monday. Matthew even came home from work early. The next two nights were wonderful. No night wakening at all. A couple of nights she did wake up and we did the cry it out method and she was asleep in twenty minutes with less crying and then this past Sunday night it took 10 minutes with a small amount of crying. Then tonight it took five minutes with about 2 minutes of crying. Wow, it really does work. She even sleeps later in the morning and takes longer naps during the day. She has been so pleasant. She is usually ill all day and rubbing her eyes. She has not been getting the sleep that she needs which was worrisome to me. Now I think our problem is solved for now. Cry it out really does work, but it is not for the faint of heart. It does suck!!!!! Now onto milestones.. Matti has been really doing well eating her finger foods. She eats very ripe bananas pieces, carrots, peaches (cooked), apples (cooked), Cheerios, Puffs, etc. I am still having a hard time with the meats, but I am not worried. Feeding time has been fun. I can put food on her tray and she pretty much feeds herself. I usually clean the kitchen and have conversations with her. I still want feeding time to be special. I will usually sit down with her and show her how to do things. It is so fun to watch her as she learns more and more everyday. Her bottles have decreased to four, 8 ounce bottles a day, but she is still getting the 20-30 ounces that is recommended for her. She is a little over the average -32 ounces. She is a hungry girl. She has started eating three meals a day with a morning snack and afternoon snack. I also give her 2 ounces of apple juice mixed with water at lunch. Matti is pulling up on everything. She has even started to "Cruise" a little this weekend. She really loves to explore the house now. She is such a ball of energy. She gets so excited sometimes she just squeals and almost jumps right out of my arms. She is also clapping and will dance if there is music on. It is so cute. I am a little worried because I have witnessed her climbing into her toy box tonight and all I can think about is her climbing out of her crib. Boy, I am really paying the price now!!!! HA Matti also loves to babble and carry on baby talk conversation. She says mama, dada, bye bye, and bah bah. Sometimes she even makes up her own baby sounds that really crack me up. She will run all these sounds together and you would think she was speaking a foriegn language. The funny thing is she will make eye contact when she is taking to you and expect you to anwser. She is so serious sometimes. Bath time is now a hassle. I finally had to give up using the sling because Matti kept rolling over so now I put a little water in the tub and let her play. It is harder to wash her but at least her face is not in the water. She is going to be a little fish. It does not matter if I dump water on her head to rinse her hair it simply does not phase her. We are finally getting teeth. I feel lumps on her bottle gum. She is gnawing on everything. I am wondering if she will get both bottom teeth at the same time. I guess we will see within the next few weeks. Well all that said, I have one funny little Daycare story to tell. The other day I dropped Matti off and school and as I was putting her things away I saw her and another little boy named Abraham standing at another little girls crib (which that little girl was in her crib sleeping). Abraham kind of stood back, but Matti had pulled up on the crib, stuck her hand through the rail, and pulled the poor girls paci out of her mouth. Matti started chewing on it (Yuck) and Abraham looking all innocent just walked away with his head down like he knew they were going to be in trouble. I am sure I will get many calls from school about this child. She is already into mischief. I have a few clips and pic's.
Relaxing at Nana's
Rough Day. Matti completely passed out while playing
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.
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