Self Feeding Peanut

My downfall must have been that night I let her eat the noodles on her own, because since then, she won't let me get a spoon near her mouth. I thought, "Wow, this is great. She wants to eat by herself." So I bought her a suction plate and cut up some chicken for her. It took her a total of three bites and 30 seconds to remove the plate and dump the contents of it onto the tray. So much for that.

Finally, a tooth!!

I saw it! In my toothless daughter's mouth there is a tip of white. Is it snow, you might ask? Maybe a spec of food? NO!! Its a tooth!! Its just breaking through the gums, and I'm not surpised. She was a monster-child last night, kept me up until 4 am. Plus, she won't let anything into her mouth that is not the first two fingers on her right hand. So, you will have to wait for a picture. Maybe in a couple days...Yeah!!! A tooth!!

Feeding the Princess

We let Jacie feed herself some noodles tonight. She is really good at feeding herself things like chunks of cheese, banana, crackers and chunks of fruit, but I usually feed her everything else. I thought, for some reason, that tonight would be a good night to begin to let her practice with other food. I mean, come on...a kid has to learn to feed themselves at some point. She is very much a perezosa type of gal. Thats lazy for the non spanish person. Don't get me wrong, she plays and walks along furniture, and does all kinds of active stuff. However, she will gladly let you hold her sippy cup, feed her food, or anything else she thinks a princess shouldn't have to do--like wipe her bum. Ok, she's got me on the bum thing, but food, she needs to start doing on her own. Below is the result: Looks like she is doing Ok, right? Keep going...
Future Food inspector, maybe. See the food hanging out of her mouth? Keep going...
She's missed a few noodles, but not bad. Keep going...
Happy Happy Happy. Keep going...

OK, I think she was done a long time ago. Keep going...I think I missed seeing the chocolate on the side, and it looks like there is a Goldfish mixed in with the noodles, but I think she missed the pie hole a few too many times. There is always tomorrow!Nice, huh? the picture does not do the floor justice. When she is done with something, she sweeps it right off the tray, onto the floor. She does that with everything!

First Walk of the Year

We finally got out for our first walk of the year. It was only 35 degrees, but the sun was out and there was no wind! Jacie loved it, despite the picture of her screaming. It was also the first time we have used the backpack thing. Ryan is really excited for all the camping and hiking we will be doing this summer. Thanks Dr and Kathy Marchetta!

This picture is a bit dark in the face, but she is smiling! She was sick up through this morning, but by this afternoon, her fever was gone (after 104 last night) and she started sleeping again--thank goodness.

And....a tooth is popping through! Its on the top, and the send one is right behind it. I think the two bottom ones are coming up, too. We are excited to see her teeth!

Snackers

Since Jacie seems to be over the worst of the fever, I gave her a snack. Her most favorite snack is Gold Fish. I figure they are ok to give her since they are made with whole grains and have a good amount of protein. Plus, it helps her with learning to self-feed and pick up foods. She is learning how to feed me as well. Sometimes she will do the fake-out and put it right up to my lips then pull it away and put it into her own mouth. Cracks me up.

I've tried to teach her to eat out of a bowl and it doesn't work. I will give her just a few, then set it in front of her. First, she has to stir her hand around until they all fall out, then she dumps the bowl for good measure. She proceeds to pick them up off the floor and eat them that way. Huh?

Sicky Poo

We have had the angel of sickness around our house lately. For three days now, Jacie has been running a fever over 102. She has been miserable! We've been rotating the Tylenol and Motrin and spending lots and lots of hours holding her. I think the fever part is finally leaving us because she will actually get down and play today. Plus, she ate her cereal, and is finally drinking again. Whew... It would be really nice if she would sleep, though. Nope, wants nothing to do with it!
She loves to snuggle the daddy. I dare say she likes to snuggle the daddy more than the mommy. I think she fits better in the crook of his arm or something. Total cuteness seeing Ryan working away, and Jacie just sitting there. Normally, she would have been figuring out how to shut down the computer or lock it up completely.

Lamaze and Mmmmm

Does Mmmmmm count as a word? If so, add that to her vocabulary knowledge. That's how we know if she likes what she is eating-we get an 'mmmmm'. If she doesn't like what she is eating, which is happening a lot more often these days, she will hold the food in her mouth for a couple seconds, look at you with a straight face and go "pwwwa" and it will plop right out; no gagging noise, no ewwww noise, just pwwwa.

Next....she is practicing her lamaze breathing. Why, I don't know. Maybe it is her baby doll she plays with, she feels like she needs to prepare for when the real thing happens. She will crawl around the house, or walk along the furniture doing the rapid breathing just the way they teach you in lamaze. I hate to tell her that child birth prep sutff was a waste of 6 Monday nights. NOTHING can prepare you for it, NOTHING!! I was reminded of her funny breathing by the Skeehans post about their son who is 3 weeks younger than Jacie doing a hissing sound or something. Kids are so fun.

First Girl Scout Cookie

Add us to the bad parent list. We gave Jacie a cookie. And she liked it! but to maybe give us some redemption, I will add that I only let her eat about 1/4 of it before I threw it away.

The anticipation is strong. She saw Mama eating one and wanted it really bad.
Finally, her own to eat!
Wish I looked this cute when I shovel a cookie into my mouth.
She dropped the cookie onto her shoulder and screeched until I handed it back to her.
Taking the cookie away...I didn't think she noticed because she dropped it, but she picked up on it real quick.
Happiness!!

Jabber Jaws

This is a rather long video, and will likely be boring to anyone that is not an aunt, cousin or grandmother, so feel free to skip it.

Jacie has mastered the step that leads into the hallway! She can turn herself around now to get down. She loves this new freedom and goes up and down all day long. In this video, I must admit, I helped her just a tad bit, but that was for videoing purposes. Right after I shut off the camera, she did it herself. She jabbers quite a lot in the minute she is filmed, but nothing understandable.

Trump Comb over--baby style

So Jacie had this crazy comb over thing going on today. I couldn't resist the shot. Notice she already has the hand out, ready to push the paparazzi back for when they come calling next month. Other than that adorable little face, she is a Trump double!

Copying Daddy

To begin with, Jacie has three words in her vocabulary, and only one of them does she consistently say: Daddy. The other two words we hear so rarely, that I wonder if she really knows what she is saying, being so young, but they are: uh-oh and Mama. Note the Mama word is last. Yes, much to my dismay, Mama is not her favorite word. Daddy is. She will see him, point and say Daddy. She will be crying at night and if Ryan goes in, she will say Daddy. I can say something about Daddy coming home and she will say Daddy, and look for him. The stinker. I thought she was always going to be a Mama's girl, but no. I also thought I would be Mommy, but that doesn't seem to fit. I guess it will be Mama for awhile. I'll take anything I can get! As for uh-oh, we don't hear t very often, but when she is playing with her toys, every now and then uh-oh pops out. I love this stage!! She is just awesome.

As for the video, she loves to copy anything we do. I've been watchingher take my slippers off my feet and try to put them on her own feet, or back onto my feet. She's gone to a new level. Ryan has always entertained young kids by sticking things on his head. One day last week, she started to do it, too. Ryan laughed and laughed. It was a pround moment for him. Actually, he has been the proud papa for awhile now, with her saying Daddy to him all the time. He is 100% wrapped around her little finger. Gotta love it!

Playful Purple Piano Girl

Jacie LOVES to play the piano. She sat still long enough today for me to actually record it without fear of her toppling off the bench. One of the people that watches her while I am at school has a piano, and her kids play. They will often hold her on their lap while they practice. It's so cute considering they are so young!

Learning to walk

Boogers is figuring out the walking thing! She will actually crawl over to her Walk 'N Ride and pull herself up and take off. This is the beginning stage of her actually walking behind it. If you will, notice the floor and surrounding areas and the fact that she is still in her jammies. Every night I pick up the front room and put things away. Every day she has it torn apart in a matter of minutes. All this stuff scattered around is her doing before we even got to the Walk 'N Ride. I have my hands full keeping up with her, let alone trying to pass my last semester of classes! She is also doing the transfer thing--like from the couch to the TV to the chair. She also loves to play the paino. I will try to get video of it. Its kinda funny to see her doing it.

My favorite part of this video is of her pushing it even once it is against the step and won't go anywhere. Full of spunk, that kid!

Ski Weekend

This past weekend was the annual house staff ski trip to Boyne. Residents get in for a super cheap price (remember, that Danette for next year!!), and guests (such as myself) get in for a cheap price. Basically, for $150, Ryan and I are able to get two lift tickets, lodging in an awesome hillside condo for two nights, dinner, breakfast, and food and drink in the condo. This year, our good friends David and Griselda Skeehan joined us. We had an awesome condo group--except for the naked young single couple that got stuck with us. Thats another story entirely. Anyway, we had Dave and Griselda, their three kids, Shane Olsen and his two boys (Molly had to work, darn it), and Jaymie and Mark Noel (one of Ryan's ENT pals). All of us except for Shane were able to snowboard. Shane opted for the water park with his 4 year old while I watched the little tykes. It was so much fun! Jacie loved all the boys (she was the only girl), and they loved her, too. Wherever the Skeehan boys went, Jacie was sure to follow, and I caught her more than once trying to kiss Ogden Olsen.

Ryan was talking to someone up there and they told him that he paid $700 for two days of skiing and lodging--just for himself! I hope I got that information right...Anyway, its a steal for the residents and guests, and a really good time. We hope to repeat it next year. We took some of Jacie's toys so she would feel comfortable being up there. Turns out the toys were fun for all the kids!
Here are the boys playing with Jacie's Sesame Street toy. They moved a couple times to get away from her so they could play with it without her, but she always found her way to them, and dug right in to the middle of them.
This is Ogden and Jacie on Saturday morning after both of them had a screaming fest the entire night before. The young naked couple didn't get any sleep. I felt bad at first, but anyone that is that rude deserves to go without sleep!

Here they all are the last morning of the trip. Did I mention the weather driving home was horrendous? Yep, it was.
This was supposed to be a super cute shot of Jacie snuggling up her Daddy, but at the last minute she stuck her tongue out and tried to bolt.
See her little finger pointing? Kaelan is upstairs, and she wants so badly to be up there with him! With Ryan watching the whole way, she got almost to the top.

This is Griselda and Jeydan. He is 3 weeks younger than Jacie, but is so much bigger. He is such a sweet baby, so snuggly. I just have to say that Griselda is the best snowboarder I have ever had the chance to ride with. She used to be on the US team, so she really knows how to work it. I was very impressed. She was kind enough to ride along with Ryan and I, although I am a total amateur, even after all these years. There was one really embarassing moment where I fell off the lift, and was dragged a short distance before I finally let go and let the chair go over me as I laid flat. Can you believe that a bunch of people laughed at me? Griselda told me I was real smooth. Ha Ha. Smooth is right.

Climbing her way up

Seems that Jacie thinks that she is all grown up. I was at the computer working away the other day when I turned around to see what she was up to. She was on the third step up the stairs. I said, "Jacie, what are you doing?" in the tone of voice I use when she is not supposed to be doing something. She started to climb faster, didn't even turn around to look! I decided to get the camera out. She didn't perform nearly as well for the camera, but you get the general idea. She hasn't figured out how to go down without falling, so we work on it every day. We don't want a broken baby!

Crazy Sleeper Girl

I thought I had more pictures of her crazy sleep patterns. She is not liking the blankets these days, so she will kick them all off and lay there. Plus, she has been scooting herself all the way up to he head of the crib. We were going in to pull her back down because she would cry when her head hit the top. Then...I got smart. I decided to let her deal with her choice. She started falling asleep with her head against the top of the crib. After she got over that little experiment with how to get the Mama and Daddy back in her room and it failed, she decided she needed to start standing up and throwing her lamb out of the bed. Hmmm...that worked for a couple of times, too. The other night, I went in there to check on her and she was sleeping at the very top of the crib--sideways! I just left her there, figured she must like it. Cu-razy!

Silly Girl

Jacie is a silly girl. We still call her Boogers because she has the never ending cold going on. It leaves for a week or two, then comes back. Ryan said the other day that he vividly remembers being very frightened of the bulb syringe (booger house per my niece Faith) as a child, so I am sure Jacie will have the same fear. Anyway, she has been super independent for the most part the last several weeks. She has a corner in the living room where we stash some of her toys. I set her in the corner and she goes to town playing with stuff. She's started to figure out her Busy Ball Popper, and thinks that everything can go in it. We frequently find Hot Wheels, Stacker Cups, small frogs and other small toys in the blue track. One morning, she lost interest pretty fast, and I wandered over to see why. She had taken one of her other balls and tried to put it down the shoot that pops the balls up. Of course nothing else would pop up, so she just crawled away. She is such a nut!