tess the turtle turns 1!

holy moly. today, my tiny baby that was born yesterday (or so it feels) turns ONE YEAR OLD!!! hallelujah, we're all still alive.

and in honor of this momentus change from baby to toddler, i've changed the blog's title from andrew, emily & baby tess, to just plain tess. crazy. it's all so unbelievable.
a- i can't believe i actually procreated (if you knew me back in high school or college, you understand the irony of that statement), and
b- i can't believe that it's been A WHOLE YEAR since she was born!
i literally remember it like it was yesterday - being told that i was going to be induced, sitting in the rocking chair on the porch and trying to compose myself, knowing that our life here, as a family of two, would never be the same. and i was right.

being tess's mother this past year has been the most crazy, wonderful, stressful, enlightening, trying, amazing, wild ride of anything in my life. we have dealt with an early arrival, jaundice, the bili light, and seemingly thousands of heel sticks, acid reflux - and 3 different medicines, diet changes, etc to try and ameliorate that, a child who HATES the car with a fiery passion, co-sleeping, no sleeping, nap strikes, and more. but we've been blessed with the sweetest, smartest, super observant, loving, funny, sensitive, silly, most amazing child in the world. and i would not trade it for anything.

yesterday, we had tess's first birthday party, and i think it was a real hit! several of her baby friends were there, including madeline mhoon, graham cutchin evans, elena mccombs, emily rodrigues,

and our cousins nathan and randi ogan!

(their respective parents were also there) we had a blast playing with crayons, chalk,

bubbles, sand in the sandbox, stickers, eating cake and cupcakes,

and having a cookout picnic in the yard! i wish i had more pictures, but once again, i was too busy living the party to photograph it. andrew got some good ones of tess and her cake, and i know my parents got some of the baby interactions, so once i collect more photos, i'll post them to our flickr group.

we had lots of friends and family help us set up and decorate. then, we handed out gift packages for our attendees, which included fun things to play with at the party. we wore our sunglasses, colored in our books, blew bubbles, pretended to play ring toss and other party games

(but mostly just held on to them and threw them around).

we went out to the new sandbox - a temporary one while we're waiting on our new swingset.

we watched tess destroy her smash cake (and i think she would have eaten the whole thing if we hadn't cut her off!) - she is truly her mother's child.

then we had a cookout picnic in the yard, complete with sausage dogs, hot dogs of all varieties, barbecued chicken (made by chef rick welch!), fruit salad, chips, animal crackers, goldfish, cookies, and much more!

last, tess opened her presents from her generous friends. she got lots of contributions to the swingset fund, a car and furreal kitty from nana and grandpa (the hit of the day!), a turtle bouncer from emily r, some dolls and books, and a walker/roller toy from mom and dad! everyone headed home, and family helped us clean up, though there are still chips, cookies, and sundry other junk food options taking over my kitchen!

we are so appreciative of all of our loving friends and family who blessed us by coming out to celebrate and helped to put a great exclamation point on tess's first year!

thank you! we love you!

time change, teeth, toddling, and two days till a year!

well hello friends! it's been awhile, and yes, i MISSED the 11 month update! ugh, how do you make it almost a whole year and miss month 11?? you have a crazy 11 month old, i guess! [as a sidenote, i started this blog yesterday, obviously, so you'll have to excuse the fact that it's getting posted one day before her actual birthday.]

in a month's time, SO much has happened in the development of tess. she's gone from 0 teeth to 4, with several more right under the gums! she's gone from crawling and "cruising" with an occasional attempt at walking, to preferring walking as her mode of transportation - which leads to lots of falling, and subsequent scrapes and bumps, but luckily she's a tough girl. she loves playing with ALL her toys... at once. but especially the ones that make music so she can dance to it - and yes, she knows what "dance" means! she will dance when the music comes on, dance while in the stroller, dance while eating, and light up when you ask her if she's going to dance - sooo cute!

if you know her, you know that she knows what she wants. for example, this morning she wanted a clementine - NOW! she has this very annoying (you can say that about something your kid does, right?) sound that she makes when she wants something, and it gets louder and more persistent until she gets it, like a fire alarm. it's sort of like, "uh uh uuuh", or "ah ah ahhh" but very short and sharp. and then when she sees someone she wants to go to (or a bottle or food) she makes this very small round mouth and goes "ooooooo" "oooooooo" - but the oooo-ing is not annoying. anyway, once i translated the persistent ah ah into "i want a clementine", it was so adorable to watch her holding her baby orange in her two baby hands and trying to peel it open herself!

she's doing lots of things herself these days, or trying to at least. the other day, i found her trying to put on her own socks. she already finger feeds herself whenever possible, and just this morning, i found her trying to undo the child lock on the cabinets. this is extra-impressive considering that the way it works is to hold the "key" (really a specific magnet) up to the location on the cabinet that you've attached the child lock (not visible from the outside) and holding it there while you pull open the door. i had left the key within her reach, and she was holding it to the cabinet and pulling as hard as she could on the handle! she's just so bright and observant, i have to be careful what i do in front of her already!

i have lots more to tell you about, blogworld, but it will have to wait till our next entry, because i believe the FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY!!! deserves its own blog ;-) stay tuned!

ten months of tess!

i know, i know, i say it every month, but HOLY COW! can you believe that my tiny baby is just two months shy of a year old?! i absolutely can't!

i started writing this blog on saturday night, which would actually have been ON TIME for her 10 months, but the internet died sunday, and we didn't get it back until yesterday, so i'm just now getting around to the post. oh well! c'est la vie when you have a kid!

i'm trying to think of what all has changed between 9 months and 10 months. since i've been working and trying to take a little time for myself here and there, i feel like i'm missing stuff (or just don't know every little minuscule detail of every single day). but there are definitely two developments tess has made, first off...

she can climb the stairs. every single one of them. talk about mommy freaking out. apparently when i went to work on saturday, tess started trying to climb up them with daddy, so he TOOK HER TO THE TOP OF THEM??? (no clue why this was a good idea) to see if she could actually climb them... and she could. then (as depicted in the video), the next day, i decided to see it for myself, and she literally climbed up each and every stair, ALL the way to the top. i nearly had a heart attack. now i'm thinking that in addition to the baby gate between the living room and the rest of the house, we need one at the top AND bottom of the stairs! it's going to be like living in an aqueduct.

oh, and it's not the second major development, but another thing she has begun doing is pulling things down on herself rather than pulling herself up... like the grate in front of the fireplace. yowza.

but the second major accomplishment is...
drumroll please...
on 1/26/2011
tess took her first step!
i doubt she's going to be full-on walking anytime soon, but it was very exciting nonetheless! she has been trying to span the gap between pieces of furniture recently, and i see her reach from one piece to another and ponder how to make the distance, but always, she either does some sort of dive to the floor, or she sits down and crawls. this time though, it was different! tess was standing, holding on to the large ottoman in the living room, like she usually does, pulling things off of it, like she usually does, and trying to hand them to me (a relatively new trick). so she grabbed an envelope, and reached to give it to me. i reached out, but had not yet grabbed it, or her hand, when she took one step towards me and then plopped down on her bottom. it all happened so fast that i had to process a moment before i realized that she had taken the step all on her own. i started squealing and clapping and telling her what a great job she'd done, though i'm sure she had no idea what was going on. it was pretty awesome, and i was so excited that i got to see it! of course, i have no picture or video, since it was a total shock, but i'm sure we'll get something soon enough.

as far as daily life goes, tess eats TONS of organic baby food along with cheese, puffs, yogurt, pasta, and some of pretty much anything i'm eating. we nurse in the morning, sometimes in the evening, and sometimes during the day, but she drinks 6oz formula bottles several times a day as well. and all that leads to TONS of pooping. i mean this kid is a poop champion. in a 24-hr period, she poops no fewer than 3 times, usually 4. people talk about their kids "getting backed up", and the other day when i told mom i was giving her cheese, she asked if that would happen - i started cracking up. we can only hope such a thing would happen! i mean i'm not complaining about having a child with an amazing digestive system, but 1-2 a day would be just fine with me!

sleeping and napping is off and on. most nights she sleeps from about 7:30pm until 7am, waking once or twice, but a week or so ago, we had several sleepless nights when she woke up practically every hour. andrew and i blamed it on teething, but so far we still have yet to see those suckers make their triumphant entry into the world. she's also been napping pretty regularly between about 10 and 11, depending on when she wakes up in the morning. unfortunately, as that nap has gotten longer, the afternoon one has begun disappearing, apparently backwards of what most kids do, but this is tess we're talking about.

she is now wearing 9-12 month clothes, which seems right on track to me, since she is between those months, and yet supposedly she is still a shrimpy. oh well, so are her parents.

as far as stats go, we're majorly estimating this month:
head - who knows. cute though! starting to grow SOME hair :-)
length - maybe half an inch longer than last month? not much taller though. :-/
weight - based on our scale/weigh, add baby and weigh again method, we're going with 18 lbs. we WILL make it to 20 lbs by birthday!

...and now the beast has awakened, so i must go keep her from climbing the stairs or pulling things on top of her head. perhaps pictures to come? we shall see!

9 month tess and merry christmas!

well, it's christmas eve, and several days past tess's 9 month birthday, but i've been busy living life instead of writing about it! i do apologize for my lack of posting, but between baby, family, and work, i just don't have a lot of time for me - since blogging is pretty much something i do for myself, though i appreciate that you all partake in the reading :-) but that's ok, i wouldn't have it any other way right now.

sweet baby girl is getting so old so fast! she had her 9 month pediatrician appointment this week, and her doctor, dr. mann, basically told us she's a genius (which we already knew). she's way above average for all of her developmental milestones and, in his words, "one of the most social 9 month olds i've seen in a long time." yep, that's my kid!

she loves pulling up on anything and everything. she looks like a rock climber, looking for her next hold and pulling herself along every obstacle. she lets go with one hand, then the other, standing for a few seconds on her own before falling on her bottom. [behind her baby gate prison]

she eats tons of solid foods, including most all fruits, veggis, and starches, chicken, turkey, and beans, and now some dairy like cheese and yogurt. she's still breastfeeding in the morning and evening, but she drinks bottles of formula during the daytime. she's sleeping through the night, with few middle-of-the-night awakenings, and goes to bed around 7:30 and wakes up around 5:45 but will snuggle in the bed for an hour or so nursing, cuddling, giggling, and playing with mom and dad. i love it. it makes me so sad when i have to get up early for work and can't take advantage of snuggle time, but i recognize how blessed i am to get that time with her most days.
tess loves playing with toys, reading books (especially books that play sounds or songs), being tickled, singing the "eensy weensy spider", making faces, squealing and shrieking with joy, meeting new people, waving, clapping, and dancing with mommy or daddy. she says the words mama and dada and knows what several other words mean including no, hungry, and eat. she can pick up little pieces of food with her fingertips and get it into her mouth. she CAN use a sippy cup and hold a bottle for herself, but prefers for mom and dad to do it. she LOVES bathtime, and she does ok for naps. naps have been a challenge her whole life, but as i type, she has been sleeping for almost 2 hours, the longest morning nap i think she's ever taken in her crib! she's moved into a convertible carseat - in "cowmooflauge" print, and we hoped it would help her enjoy car rides more... it sort of does, maybe. i think she's more comfortable in it, but as long as she's rear-facing, i think she'll be unhappy in the car. which, according to dr. mann, will probably be until she's about 18 months due to her weight.

and on that note, 9 month turtle stats!
height - 26.25 in (10th percentile)
weight - 16 lbs 5.5 oz (15th percentile)*
head circumference - 43.5 cm (45th percentile... for her huge brain)
*she hasn't gained much weight since her 6 month visit, which both surprised and concerned me, but dr. mann said it's ok because she is still fine for her height/weight ratio, and she must have been using most of her energy to grow tall instead of wide. still though, i'm going to be pumping her full of formula and food to make sure i'm not starving my poor baby! ...and also to get her in the front-facing weight range as early as possible!!!

these days we have a more normal-ish schedule, definitely for bedtime and wake up time, but her first nap is usually somewhere between 9:30 and 10:30, she eats solids 3x/day, and her second nap is usually around 1:30 or 2:30. occasionally there's a quick third snooze around 4ish, but not every day, and usually that one is in the car traveling somewhere. other than that, we spend our time playing, hugging, dancing, and going places (usually like wal-mart for exciting things like dish detergent). i'm working 2-3 days a week - monday, saturday, and every other wednesday or thursday, so i'm up to 20-30 hour a week at work (which i think i already explained before), which i enjoy. unfortunately, during the weeks that i work 30 hours, the house usually ends up a wreck, and that's embarassing, but what 'ya gonna do??

the only two areas tess seems to be behind in are her teeth - still none showing, though the doctor said when they start, she'll probably get lots all at once, because they're all right there; the other being hair. i don't think she's officially "behind" per se... but i would love to clip a little hair thing in there (no huge bows please, but a little one would be sweet!), but alas, her strawberry locks are probably 2 cm at longest!

[tess helped decorate!]
[and helped pick out and bring home her first tree!]

alright, well the turtle has awakened, and i must get back to the christmas eve festivities! have a blessed christmas weekend!

"For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

8 months of tess!

wow, can you believe it's been over 8 months since my sweet girl made her grand debut?? i can't! she turned 8 months on the 20th of this month, but i've picked up more work shifts and haven't had much time for blogging (or much picture taking! oh no!), or anything really - my house is a wreck, laundry undone, dishes in the sink, and sewing projects untouched since before halloween! eep! [above pic is tess at madeline's birthday party]
but baby girl continues to grow and change and develop! she's already crawling, pulling to standing, trying to balance while standing on her own, and walking across the room if you hold her hands. she's so advanced ;-)

[the progression of a stand]

she's now sleeping in her own crib in her own room upstairs (thank goodness for video monitors!). as of this week, she's going down to sleep on her own when we put her in there, and for the most part without many tears. she is able to soothe herself in the middle of the night, and most of the time, we're only having to go comfort her once during the night, and not even having to nurse then. the night before last, she went the WHOLE night, from 8:44 until about 5:15 without a peep! of course i woke up at 4:30 freaking out that she hadn't woken up yet, but i hear that's pretty normal. hehe. most nights, andrew goes to pat her back to sleep the one time she wakes up because when i go up there, she wants to nurse, so it's been working pretty well to have him go up, and then if she won't go back to sleep in a few mins, i'll feed her. however, at 8 months, she should be able to go all night without eating, so i haven't had to do middle of the night feedings for about a week. i'm so proud of tess the turtle!

naps are still a struggle, more so now that the crib is down so low. she hasn't yet figured out how to put herself asleep for a nap, so she usually nurses to sleep, and then trying to put her all the way down in the crib wakes her up. we're working on it, but it leads to many napless or short nap days.

[tess sitting with her new friend, vanessa]

she's also begun her separation anxiety phase, and gets upset when mom leaves and with change of routine, like when i work more than just mondays. now, i'm working mondays, all day saturday every week, and one more day (usually wed or thurs) every other week, so she has a rough time the weeks that i work 3 days, but my good friend elisa offered some helpful advice and empathy about difficult transitions, and i feel confident tess will do just fine. i'm very tentatively thinking of moving her to daycare once she's a year old, hopefully for a m/w/f sort of schedule. i think that would allow me to work 30 hours a week (and maybe back to every other sat? or just sat mornings? for 35 hours) and give her some good socialization with kids her age and other caretakers. we'll have to see how the money works out on that one, but i think it'd be a good compromise for everybody.

tess now eats 2-3 solid meals a day, but i think she still gets most of her nutrition from nursing and the occasional formula bottle (when mom's not around and neither is pumped breastmilk).

[i love big-girl food!]

we've tried the sippy cup for juice a few times with meals, but she doesn't really understand it and prefers to chew on the soft tip like a teething toy (spilling juice), but she DOES understand drinking from a glass, and tries to drink from EVERY glass mommy and daddy have, so she has had water that way before. not sure how this will translate over time, but i'm sure we'll find something that works, probably trying different cups, and once she's weaned i'm sure it won't be an issue. for food, i still make *some* but not much, and she eats a lot of fruits straight from the fruit itself, but we love ella's organic kitchen baby food because it's just the fruit (or veggie) pureed up with nothing added, not even water, and they taste GREAT! they make strange combos like broccoli, parsnip, pear, and prune (or something), which sound terrible, but taste yummy! so she's been exposed to lots of different foods and flavors. we've yet to start meat, but i have to research when/how "they" recommend that anyway. the american academy of pediatrics now recommends that mothers breastfeed until age 2, but we'll have to see about that.

tess also makes funny faces, sweet noises, and shrieks with joy - usually at inappropriate times. so we've decided taking her to a fancy french restaurant at this point is out, but she's so cute when she does it that i have a hard time not smiling and laughing... even last night when we were out at a restaurant - bad mommy!

and right now she's being so cute that i can't keep typing and must go hang out with her!

[at madeline's party, with mommy and my party hat!]

last minute stats:
weight - about 20 lbs, we think
height - per andrew's measuring tape, about 26.5 in

we have no idea how that measures up against the "percentiles" but i know she's just perfect!

7 months!

holy cow, can you believe it's been 7 months (and 1 day) since my sweet, sweet baby tess was born?? for some reason, 7 months seems SOOO OLD! maybe because it's now older than half a year? i have no idea, but wow!

i've been trying to write this post for 5 days now, and life keeps getting in the way, but we got the coolest 7-month-iversary present on saturday (when she was technically 7 months and 3 days) - baby girl started crawling! she looks like an inch-worm, and she still prefers that you just pick her up and put her close to whatever she wanted, but i'm so excited that she's made this milestone! we tried to get a video, but she started fussing during it, so i'll wait till we have a better one. the funniest thing is that the one thing that motivated her to actually crawl wasn't mommy or daddy, or even something really cool like the dog... it was my coffee mug! some days only coffee can motivate me to move too! like mother like daughter, i guess.

other fun facts about the 7 month turtle:
-she loves sweet foods like oatmeal, prunes, peaches, apples, and squash, and has tepid (at best) feelings towards veggis like carrots, green peas, and green beans.
-she loves chewing on things. some of her favorites include any fruit mommy is eating, her pink pleather mary-janes, and her new rubber giraffe that nana bought her.
-she picked out her first baby doll at the store. it has long blonde hair and a pink dress. she cried and was afraid of most of the other ones, especially the freaky ones that move giggle creepily when you walk by.
-she has begun yelling and shrieking in response to excitement - at parties, to mommy, daddy, nana, and grandpa, and it's so loud it'll hurt your ears.
-she is becoming more selective about who she will go to and be content with in groups. she prefers people she knows and those who are interesting to look at but not too in-your-face.
-she hasn't been babbling much in a while, which makes mommy nervous, but all the other experienced mothers out there are telling me it's because she's working on so many physical milestones (like crawling!) and trying to pull up and walk.
-she can sit up well on her own now, and doesn't seem to notice when she tips over and SLAMS herself into the floor. it freaks mommy out!
-she loves music and pianos/keyboards, so we've gotten her one of those to play with.
-she has a book called "whose nose is that?" which she loves, because it has noses of animals which you lift to reveal the whole animal. her favorites are the puppy, pig, horse, duck, and cat.
-she loves textures, so she enjoys books like "tails" with different textured animal tails, and a new one we got her with textures around town (like a brick, a sidewalk, a tree, etc.) she also loves looking at and touching different carpets and the wicker laundry baskets.
-she is wearing clothing anywhere between 3-12 months, depending on the brand, but most of them are in the 6-9 month range.
-i have no idea how much she weighs or how tall she is now, other than to say she seems HUUUUGE to me!


getting into a daily schedule and nightly sleep schedule has been challenging this month. we start getting pretty established, and then mommy goes to work and that messes it all up. she usually likes to nap in the morning sometime between 10 and 11:30am and then again between 2-4:30pm, and occasionally she'll take another one during dinner, but that usually messes up the night time if she does.

she has a nightly bedtime routine that starts with a solid food meal around 7:30, followed by a bath (usually by daddy), a last nursing, and then she goes down into her co-sleeper around 8:30 or 9. recently, we're trying to wean her off night nursings so she'll sleep longer, but it hasn't been going too smoothly. i hear it takes a little, but two nights in a row she woke up at 1:30am and wanted to stay awake until 3am. also, each night before i go to work, she doesn't want to sleep at all. so sunday night, i got less than 3 hours of sleep because tess and i didn't get to bed (and sleep) until after 3am, and i'm supposed to get up at 5:45am. i slept through my alarm and was 30 mins late for work. hopefully soon this sleeping thing will get worked out. we're trying to have andrew comfort her during the night now, because when i'm near her, all she wants to do is nurse herself to sleep, and she refuses to just be patted back to sleep by me, but she'll do it for andrew. i know we just have to stick with it, but i'd really love to sleep for more than 3 hours straight during the night!

we have also started using formula occasionally, when we're out and about, because it's easier than always nursing or keeping breast milk frozen or cool. it also makes me feel a little better because i'm not doing any iron supplements with her (don't really thing she needs them), but the formula has iron added, so she's getting some that way. however, that doesn't seem to agree with her digestive system so well, because recently she's gone from pooping once or twice a day to much MUCH less frequently. eek! we keep loading her up with prunes, but i may have to find out if there's anything else we can do, as she seems quite uncomfortable at times.

well, she's awake now, so i must go play! ... and clean the house, and do laundry, and make lunch, etc, etc, etc.

half a year?!

tess the turtle was officially half a year old on 9/20, and i kept meaning to write a great blog about it, but i just haven't had the time! i think tess (because she was a little early) tends to have her growth spurts right at or after she's supposed to, so this week has been her 6 month dr's appointment, shots, and growth spurt starting, along with teething, has led her to be a tad clingier than normal, but we're doing well and enjoying each other. right now she's sitting in my lap and my arms are just long enough to type this without her kicking the trackpad :-)

here are the stats:
24.75 in. long - around 20th percentile
15lbs 9.5oz - just under the 50th percentile
head - around 50th (who even remembers the measurement?)

AND i took the sweetest picture of her on my cellphone yesterday, but i have no idea how to hook up the bluetooth to get it on the computer, so we'll have to see if i can get it on here!

3 year anniversary and 5 month turtle update

today marks 3 years of marriage for andrew and me. i'm proud we've made it this far. in some ways it seems like we've been together forever, and in some ways like we just got married. we've definitely been through our share of ups and downs, and we've sped through stages like they're going out of style - whirlwind dating/moving in together/engagement/moving somewhere new/buying a car/marriage/moving again/changing jobs at least 3 times each/moving again/getting a dog/buying a house and moving again/getting pregnant/re-homing a dog/having a baby (yes, pregnancy and baby are two totally different life stages!) - we've gone from single and mingling to settled and set, from relatively rich to pretty poor, from euphoric to exasperated and back agin, and we've done it all together. hallelujah, thank goodness we promised we'd be in it for the long haul, cause i definitely wouldn't have wanted to go it alone, or with anyone else.

3 years ago, to celebrate our wedding, we had a marriage ceremony in boone and a big fat party in blowing rock. many of you were probably there - or at least invited. and then we had a honeymoon in asheville, nc.

2 years ago, we had just bought our house and were in the throws of renovations, so i made dinner, we hung out at home, drank wine, and ate the top to our wedding cake. unfortunately, something didn't sit well with andrew, and he got sick that night.

1 year ago, i was 2 months pregnant and had significant food aversions going on, but andrew took me out to eat at 518 and surprised me with a replica of our wedding cake topper. it was ridiculously romantic and sweet :-)

this year, the turtle is 5 months old, i have a horrendous cold, and andrew got stuck at work late. we went to bw3's and had wings, and shared an ice cream from coldstone while trying to keep the baby from crying in the carseat on the way home. now andrew has taken tess to bed (after walking her to sleep), and i will be following shortly.

no, it's not romantic, and yes, we both drank water with dinner tonight because i was worried we wouldn't be able to afford our "night on the town", but really, who could want it any other way? we are evolving, and while it may not seem glamorous, it's life, and we're doing life together, and that's more than a lot of people can say.

...on to the turtle!

she turned 5 months old 5 days ago!
stats: unknown, but she feels HUGE!
fun facts:

• rolls both directions - a lot.
• gets mad once she's on her belly that she can't crawl, but seems to be more interested in bypassing crawling and going straight to walking.
• can sit and stand on her own muscle-wise, all she needs us for is balance.
• smiles and laughs at everything - a kid dancing at marbles, the dog, people, the tv... basically anything that moves or makes noise
• LOVES real food - she's been introduced to rice cereal, peas, butternut squash, prunes, and bananas so far. she loves them all. i believe she will be the next in the line of great "eatists" - don't know what an eatist is? ask me or melissa.
• is a total mama's girl, but loves her daddy, nana, and grandpa, and she recognizes their voices on the phone and looks for them.
• absolutely loves animals - the cat at mom's house, chloe, but especially lillie. they are practically inseparable.
• does not love sleeping. still. she has slept in the co-sleeper some and was really getting into a good habit... and then i spent my first night away from her to go to kim's bachelorette party, and she has been super clingy ever since. we'll keep working on it though.
• she has definitely said words. definitely. i'm pretty sure she doesn't know what they mean, but i've heard "hello" - LOUD AND CLEAR, several times when mimicking others, "yeah", "poop" - during a diaper change situation! and my personal favorite, "mama" :-) and yes, that one has been said straight to me, though not with enough consistency to be sure she knows what it means, but i'll take it.

tess the turtle with her BEST friend, lillie

holding hands

kissing

i'm sure there's much more to share about the little one, but my tired-mommy-sick brain is worthless at this point, so i shall wrap this up. HOWEVER! i can't forget to mention a huge congratulations to the farmer family on its newest addition!

isaiah terry whitfield farmer

born on 8/24/2010

8lbs 9oz

CONGRATULATIONS! and WAY TO GO, JEN!

4 month turtle update!

tess the turtle had her 4-month visit on july 23rd - two days after daddy's 28th birthday! ...though i had full-on mommy brain and thought his birthday WAS the day of her appointment and so actually missed the day - bad wifey :-/

here are the stats:
weight - 13 lbs 11 oz and 50th percentile!
height - 23.25 in (4 inches larger than her birth height!) and in the 15th percentile - shorty like her mama :-)
head - 40ish cm? i think? and 30th percentile - who cares about this one?

tess is also still very strong for her age, and has decided that rolling over and crawling are lame, and she would like to skip to standing and walking. she spends most of her day trying to stand, and does a pretty good job! she has the musculature down, she's just working on the balance, and when you lean her a direction, she takes steps. i know, she's a rockstar.

she has been to the pool several times and loves "swimming" by doing doggy-paddle motions. she hasn't gotten the breath holding part down though and still tries to drink the pool. she doesn't like sleeping alone, and while we can get her to nap in her bassinet or co-sleeper, if we try to do it at night, she wakes up at least every hour, and this makes mommy miserable, so she's still sleeping with me.

[please ignore that this pic of me is horrible.]

i am TRYING to work on it, but when it comes down to it, i'd rather get 6-7 hours of uninterrupted sleep with her than 45 mins of sleep with her in the crib. she does the cutest thing though, and if she's sleeping on my chest and i start laughing, she laughs with me. it's precious and unlike anything else in the world.

tess is still breastfeeding without any formula supplementation and has begun eating every 3.5-4 hours (instead of every 2 - hallelujah!) and is grabbing at our food every meal! we have tried rice cereal several times (ok'd by the pediatrician) mixed with breast milk, and she LOVES eating it, but she does seem to spit it all up each time. not so sure what that means, but last night, she begged for some of my butternut squash, so i let her taste some off my finger. she not only LOVED it, but she did not spit it up. perhaps we shall switch to veggis soon? that was also pediatrician ok'd.


speaking of the spit-up, we have officially stopped the prevacid. i got sick of giving it to her, and she got sick of taking it, so we decided to try to go without it, and while she still spits up a lot more than some babies, she doesn't scream afterwards, and the doctor said as long as she's not in pain, we're a-ok. thank goodness, that was obnoxious! tess still screams the whole time for most car rides, despite everything we've tried, and since we live out in the middle of nowhere, we are toying with the idea of getting her a portable dvd player for the car rides. i HATE the idea of "babysitting" my child with a tv, but it is absolutely torturous for me to hear her so upset and screaming for 45 mins straight (and no, it doesn't matter how many times we stop, once you click those straps and start driving, the screaming resumes).

lastly, tess has now turned into tess the TALKING turtle! she loves to coo and shriek and babble, she loves to interrupt mommy on the phone, she loves to smile and giggle and chortle, and she is especially talkative on the changing table - perhaps she just feels freer? who knows, but we love to listen to her! she's just the best, most precious and adorable thing that's ever happened to us, and we are so blessed to have her!

three month tess!

well we are confused because if you count weeks, tess was 12 weeks last week, but if you count by month dates, she will be 3 months in two days... so we'll call this a three-month update :-)

no official stats from the doctor for this month because she doesn't actually have to go back until next month, but we did a little investigation of our own, and here's what we came up with: when andrew stands on the scale with her vs. without her he is between 13 and 14lbs heavier (this, of course, includes clothes and diaper weight, so she's probably between 12.5 and 13lbs by our estimation. we also measured her using a measuring tape and laying her on the couch. it seems she is about 22.5 to 23 inches. i did not measure her head because... well that's just strange.

tess has already learned and done several new things, which i will try to remember.

• she is pretty good at holding up her head for a while.
• she has rolled over 3 times i think... perhaps more, but one for sure - i have witnesses!
• she smiles a LOT, especially when she sees people she recognizes. these people include mommy, daddy, grandma, and grandpa on the welch side.
• she has met and will look at the dogs. which means she follows things with her eyes.
• she likes the swing sometimes, the jungle (playmat with noise, lights, and toys) most of the time, and the tv all the time - we avoid letting her see the latter if possible!
• she has learned to "kick, kick, kick!" and will make the jungle play music when she kicks it (video here)
• the other day, she finally recognized herself in the mirror and began laughing hysterically. it may have been the best day of my life. it was certainly the best few minutes i've experienced in a while. we tried to get video, but she wouldn't do it again. she's no trick pony.
• while sitting in the car, she began looking at and touching the flowers on her blanket.
• oh, she's growing teeth. she's been teething for about a month now, and you can see the two bottom ones under her gums. yeah, way early. she's an overachiever.
• she still doesn't sleep alone, but we put her down when she's sleeping a lot more. we tried the "cry it out" method and forcing her to sleep other places, but it didn't work for us. we're taking our time and hoping she decides to be more independent soon.
• the prevacid is still working (hallelujah!), which means she spews spit like it's going out of style, BUT she doesn't scream afterwards.
• she may or may not have said the word "hi" - as in... she made a noise that sounded like "hi" and we're going to call it a word.
• she has several friends and play buddies: graham (and his mommy, heather), fiona (and her mommy, jennifer), and madeline (and her mommy, allison)!

AND we went to the pool for the first time today! madeline and allison invited us to go for a swim, and we had a great time! tess fell asleep getting ready for the swim on allison and justin's bed, (we got pictures on allison's camera) then while we were putting on her sunscreen, she rolled over right in front of everyone! we did not get a picture of that - sad. then tess peed in her swim diaper... it got all over the car and me and her, but we laughed and went to the pool, pee and all! for the most part tess did great at the pool, she was not too scared, and the few times she did get fussy, she was either hungry or sleepy. after that, we went to grandpa's house (grandma is at the beach) to wait our the traffic, and tess learned the macarena, which we got a video of! all in all, it was a really fun day! and oh yes, we have pictures!