Fun weekend day!

Annelise had a long day today!

I woke her up at a leisurely 8:30 or so for her breakfast. She had a nice big 8 oz bottle, and most of a puree jar of apple/blueberry mixed with oatmeal.

Then Grandma came over and we were off to the Ankeny Farmer's Market! Annelise got to be in the carrier on me facing outwards this time, so she was checking out everything and smiling at everyone. She wore her super cute pink flowery sunhat that her Uncle Don, Aunt Joanna, and Cousin Wesley got her. :) It was super hot out, though, so her head got all sweaty! We only stayed for maybe 30 minutes or so, and then were off to the next place.

We went to Kohl's and Annelise got to sit in the stroller for this adventure. She was a bit apprehensive of things at first, and then we gave her Pooh bear. Then she starting jabbering away to Pooh! It was like she was telling him all the stuff she was seeing, and what she had done this morning. It was hilarious. She ate a bottle in her stroller while Mommy and Grandma continued their shopping. After that trip, we stopped at Quizno's. Annelise had some banana flavored puffs, and did really well at sitting in the high chair! Then we went back home and she took a nice, long nap.


After the nap, it was time to go out again! We were going to hang out with Don, Joanna, and Wesley for Wesley's 11th birthday party! Annelise was totally awesome sitting in her high chair at the pizza restaurant. She was smiley, chatty, and played with her sippy cup most of the time. Didn't actually drink anything, but chewed on the top for awhile. (She had some more puffs while we ate pizza.) Then we went to bowl and Annelise thought that was pretty cool. But after a while, she got noticeably irritable and would only put up with being in my arms. Which is flattering, but mommy gets tired! And other people want to hold her, too! So we fed her another bottle, and then pushed her around the bowling place in her stroller to try and calm her down. But she never really got drowsy and fell asleep. Too much noise and stuff going on! 


We had planned to go get ice cream cake with Wesley after bowling for his birthday, but we ended up coming straight home because of Miss Cranky Face. We put Annelise to bed right after coming home, and she's enjoying hanging out in the peace and quiet of her room. She's not quite sleeping yet, and keeps making little squeally noises, but she'll fall asleep soon, I'm sure.


She definitely had a fun day, though! Hopefully she sleeps nice and soundly through the night! :)

Words, Mobility, Foods, Separation Anxiety, and Teeth!

Annelise has been amazing lately. Details follow...

Today she most distinctly said "buh-buh!" as she waved her hand to me. Mark taught her to wave bye-bye to her room whenever they leave it, and I think that's the first time she put the words with the action. Then a bit later, she did the same thing when leaving my office after a quick visit during the day. We also think she said "up" when she got up from her changing table. That's a word we've been using every time we pick her up from anywhere, so maybe she's getting familiar with it? She also is definitely using the sound "mamamama" to request my presence. She uses that noise a lot when she's cranky. In general, I'm noticing a more deliberate attempt to copy our sounds of the more commonly used words in her day.

She's also a little monkey. She hasn't quite learned how to full-on crawl yet, but she can finally stay up on all fours for longer than the time it takes to just fall. I'd say, 5-6 seconds at a time maybe? She can army crawl really well now, but doesn't really like it. She much prefers standing and walking around. If I'm sitting on the floor with her, she'll get super whiny, army crawl and wiggle over, face plant in my lap, and proceed to pull herself up to standing all on her own. Maybe it seems a little unsympathetic, but I like to let her figure out how to pull herself up rather than just take her hands and pull her up to standing. The fact that she's whining the entire time is probably what makes me feel guilty and I do end up pulling her up 8 times out of 10. But she's gotta learn new things! When we were playing peek-a-boo in her crib using her bumpers, she figured out how to get to a sitting position and then pulled up to her knees using the crib rail all by herself! She's been able to get up to a seated position on her own quite a few times since then.

She loves walking around the room, and is getting really good at it. She holds our fingers while we grasp her wrists, and she'll walk pretty much everywhere with only a slight wobble now. She's also starting to figure out stairs, and with our help, she can go up quite a few on her own (with us still holding her hands), and she sort of understands how to put her feet to go down them. Check out her standing skills here at the couch...

I'm trying to help her explore new foods now, as much as I can. Today we had banana slices with peanut butter and some chopped up pealed grapes. She LOVES peanut butter. She first tried it off her daddy's finger when he was having a bagel a while back. She couldn't get enough! So today, I put a bit of peanut butter on each banana slice and after the first slice, she figured out it was peanut butter... so she would take the peanut butter part off each banana and eat that first! She wasn't as fond of the grape slices - a bit sour - and tended to slide them either onto the floor or into the cup spot. Another food she loves (but I'm not really sure if she should have?) is potato salad! My parents and siblings came over for lunch last week and brought subs and potato salad, and of course she wanted to try some of mine. So I gave her a bit of just the saucy stuff in the salad, and her eyes got big and she seemed to really like it! Then we tried some of the softer potatoes in the salad, and she loved those, too! She's been that way with anything I'm eating around her... she'll look longingly at me, and then crawl over and start whimpering at me and pulling up on me (I usually eat on the floor in the living room area, but that might be changing now when I eat around her...). Oh, I also gave her tiny bites of my hot dogs in the crescent roll with cheese thing. She thought that was fun.

She's become extremely clingy to me. Ever since I left for Houston on a business trip a few weeks ago, after I came back, I was her new favoritest person ever. We went up to Mark's parents' house that weekend and that's really when it started. My back was so sore by the end of the weekend because she wouldn't let me give her to anyone else to hold without getting upset! She'll get super upset if I leave the room, and almost seems to not like Mark anymore because she favors me so heavily. :( It's just separation anxiety, and since I'm the one that leaves the most, she's worried about me leaving for too long again!

ALSO! I can't believe I forgot to write about this until now... SHE HAS TWO TEETH!!! They've just barely come in starting last week with the bottom middle right tooth, and the left one followed in a couple days later. I sort of noticed her pulling at her ears a couple of times, and she's been a little more cranky in general during the week or so prior to the appearance of the teeth, but I had attributed that to separation anxiety or something. Anyway, they're still teeny tiny little things, just barely peeking up above the gums. But you can definitely feel them. They're sharp! No more gummy baby mouth!

That's all I've got for today's update. Next week she'll be going in for her 9 month well visit! New doctor and everything! Hopefully all goes well for both me and her... Update will be coming next week with all her new measurements and how the new pediatrician was!