Double Digits!- 10 months

Lots going on this past month! Ela's first Halloween, Thanksgiving and we are looking forward to Christmas, and all three of our birthdays!

On November 12th Ela reach an important milestone....she is now in double digit months. You know what that means; very close to 1 years old!  This is very exciting but sad at the same time. She is growing too quick! Two days before her 10 month birthday SHE LEARNED TO WALK!!! Check out her first steps:

Ela has also learned to clap her hands. She claps each time she walks without falling. I am sure this in a monkey-see-monkey do. As you can imagine I get very excited when she walks! And the other new thing recently is kisses. When I pick her up from Helen's the other day she looked at me and kissed me! It was more like eating my face and very wet...but so heart touching!

Here are some pictures of our first Thanksgiving together. It was a very quite day spent at home (and the park of course) cooking and just relaxing. I cooked my first turkey ever as well as some of the fixings. Ela loved the turkey although more of it ended up on the floor!

It was such a nice relaxing day!

Here are a few more pictures....Next post it will be Christmas!!

"Bye Bye"

Ela is such a big girl! I looked at a picture of her the other day and thought when did my baby turn into a little girl(or a bigger baby). I feel like she learns something new every day.(or at least finds something new to get into each day) She finally is getting hair!!Between 8 and 9 months I feel like she has grown the most physically but she has also learned a lot of new things:

• She says "bye bye" now when she waves. - It does not matter if she is coming or going...she says it either way and to EVERYONE! In the elevator, walking down the street,at the stores,in the mirror and more frequently to me every morning when I bring her to Helen's.
• She shakes her head no. - We are working on the approriate use of this talent.
• She dances- Dont judge me as a mom, but LMAFO is her favorite song. The other day I was in the car and saw her little hat bounce in the mirror. I can't stop her since.
• Untie Shoelaces- Self Explanatory....I get judged so bad on the streets"Where are your babies shoes" - Look in her hands dummy!
• Stand without holding on- She has done it twice and is so proud of herself.
• Eating off of Mommy/Daddy's plate - We started real solids. Very nerve wracking at first but now she is a pro! We just ordered a high chair and made sure we got one with a food catching mechanism on the bottom.

She is understanding more and more each day and I actually feel like I can have a conversation with her. (and we do) Here are some pictures and videos of the past few weeks.

Milestone picure. She was giggling!

Crawling down the hallway & Doing wash with Mommy

It apears to be funner to dump out carrots than eat them.

Mac and Cheese for the first time

Dancing Away! She even goes to the beat

Standing By herself..

This will have to change..She is not my child if she does not like Ice Cream.

Ela and I at Pinkberry. Pumpkin Ice Cream.

Here are her 9 month stats:

 18.2 pds 39%

27.8 inches tall 58%

43.5cm head 37%

Next post she will probably be walking...and the fun continues!

Check out what I was doing last year. My belly was getting big and I had no clue how much I could ever love Ela! OurlittlePeanut10.18.2010

Parenting Fail #1

I am sitting here today writing a blog because I used a sick day to take Ela to the doctor... Poor girl caught my cold on top of teething and another isolated incident(my fault) which I will get to in a minute.  All of this got me thinking. Growing up as a kid when you are old enough to understand what is going on, you think "how could my parents do that to me" or many things along those lines including embarrassing you, making mistakes etc. What you don't even think about before you have kids of your own is the times your parents had hard times or did crazy things and you don't remember because you were so young. Especially as a new parent I am sure glad that babies don't remember much! With the day I had yesterday I am so glad Ela wont know how bad I messed her up! ;) I am sure I will tell her or she will read my blog and we will both laugh, but I am glad she wont remember.

Here  is the timeline of my events yesterday.

5:12am- Ela wakes up "Mama Mama" - Put that paci in her mouth back to bed for both of us
6:00am - Just kidding we are both up and Ela gets her bottle while I get ready for the day.
9:00am - Drop Ela off at Helen's(the nanny) realize I forgot diapers
10:15am - Run to Target to buy diapers; They are out of Huggies size 3 so I try Target brand. <I could have bought Pampers but I thought it I am going to try something new why dont I try the ones that are $4 less...I could be on to something.>
5:30pm- Helen calls and Ela has been screaming since 4:00pm
5:31pm - Go pick Ela up and boy is she screaming bloody murder.As we are passing Ela between myself and Helen's arms I realize she cries harder when we touch her bottom.
6:18pm-Open her diaper and she is covered in a blistery rash. She is allergic to Target brand diapers. <I am definitely a contender for the mom of the year award> Sink bathe her, decide to bring her home with no diaper.(Disaster averted...for now)
7:25pm Get home. Put bottle in sink turn on hot water to heat up. Leave water running as I always do. Take off Ela's clothes getting her ready for bath.Put her in bath she screams hysterical(Normally she loves baths) Her poor bottom hurts.Screams for the rest of the bath.Yanks at least 2 chuncks out of my hair as she is fighting the tub.
7:30pm Struggling to get her dressed(this is daily) as she is a wiggler. Trying to put lotion on for her eczema and Destin for her bottom. Destin tube ends up all over bed. Put her clothes on and put her on floor to play while I go get bottle. She is screaming.
7:31pm Notice Ela is soaking wet?!?! And so is the floor!! The sink was backed up and there is an inch of water all over the living room,kitchen, hall and outside hallway.
7:40pm Grabbing every towel and blanket I can find while Ela is crawling through the water. Have  to prevent the water from going downstairs to the neighbors.Ela is still screaming. At this point the neighborshave to be wondering what is going on.
8:15pm We are not soaked anymore...Just a happy medium between soaked and wet. 15 towels will need to be washed tomorrow. Finally give Ela her bottle after crying for a few minutes and struggling to change her once again.
8:20pm She falls asleep while holding her unfinished bottle.Very Very Unusual but 20 minutes past her normal bed time. Take out bottle, put paci in and start to walk away. I hear "Mama, Mama". Walk over to pack and play and she just smiled as to say what a crappy day we had. I picked her up kissed her and she went right back to sleep.I cried like a baby. Not sure if it was becuase of the series of events or becuase her sweet smile made my day.

That's the other thing I have learned as a parent. Little moments like that make it all ok. I know she will never remember this but even if she did I am sure she would understand and maybe even laugh with me. All things aside it is pretty funny seeing your 8 month old crawling through water in your living room.

This morning I woke up after being up with Ela a couple times last night because she was coughing and decided to take her to the doctor. No longer than 5 minutes later she pooped all over me and we both had to take another bath. It never ends! In the end I still love being her Mom and that's all that matters :)

Until next time...

Pigeons and Swings

Chasing Ela around the house and traveling has really not left me much blog time. I will try to catch up the past 2 months in the abbreviated version. Yesterday Ela turned 8 months. It is so hard to believe that she is closer to 1 year than she is to a new born.She honestly amazes me every day with how much she learns and how curious is about EVERYTHING! The little things that she learns or even how does her little body know one day how to do something she couldn't the day before. The pure innocence in her excitement about things as simple as a bird or even when I come home from work. On Labor Day Tomasz was leaving for work;every time he leaves he always waves at her. He was in a hurry and was running out the door. She turned and waved goodbye for the first time. The one wave started a trend; we have overused the wave at this point pretty much waving at everyone that she comes in contact with. When I dropped her off at Helen's she even waved goodbye to me before I was ready to leave(at least thats a good sign). She truly amazes me daily and I feel so lucky to be able to experience her grow.

So in catching up with the past two milestone pictures here are 7 and 8 months!

So the past two months we have been very busy mostly traveling. Ela will probably have enough frequent flyer miles for a free plane ticket pretty soon.

In August, Ela and I went down to Charlotte to see Susan and Caden. I personally was so excited to meet Caden and hang out with Susan.(It was the first time we had seen each other when we both were not pregnant) It was alot harder than we thought having two babies together all weekend with different feeding and sleeping schedules but was SO much fun. Caden just kept looking at Ela and for a few minutes I was afraid Ela was going to play a little rough with him.The highlight for the munchkins was the pool.

The weekend after we got back from Charlotte, NYC had one heck of a week. Tuesday we had an earthquake. The city felt a little rumbling; it felt like I was just dizzy. Thank goodness Ela was in the building and Helen was able to bring her to me. Then on Friday/Saturday night we got hit with Hurricane Irene. It was not as bad as everyone predicted but it was still weird to get hit with a hurricane in a high rise building. Check out our bunker! (AKA our hallway- we all slept there)

 After weathering out the hurricane, Ela and Tomasz headed to Atlanta and I met up with them two days later.Tomasz and I had a belated anniversary trip to Puerto Rico while Ela spent the weekend with all of her grandparents. I did great and she did even better; I was so nervous to leave her for the first time in almost 17 months(including womb). She had so much fun and was exhausted when we got home...Tomasz and I had a great time too! Here are a few from our trip.

Other than traveling we try to have relaxing weekends when possible. Ela's new thing is the swing when she is outdoors.She giggles the whole time. One of her other favorite things to do is to watch the birds/pigeons in the morning on the promenade while Mommy has coffee. She goes crazy!(hence the title of the blog) Check out a few pics:

Strike a pose...My little Diva

GOOOOO Bulldogs!

Getting ready to walk!

So what do you want to talk about today?! Milk....

Swinging with Tatus(Daddy)

This is where I am the happiest!

6 months = Destroy the house!

We got a mover on our hands! I am writing this blog post after Ela has gone to bed otherwise my keyboard would have drool all over it or worse, the computer would be in her mouth. She is a handfull!

At the beginning of July she was sitting up by herself (5 1/2 months), four days before her 6 month birthday she was crawling and now a week before she is 7 months she is standing up when holding on to furniture,crib etc. It is very cute to watch but tiresome, and nerve-wracking all at the same time. She cries in her crib and when you go over to her she is not crying because she is hungry, bored, or for anything. She is crying because she stood up and does not know how to get back down. I can't believe how fast she is growing and learning. It is so much fun.

Her new Nike's...still a little too big

She gets up....but then does not know how to get down!

 One word..Chubbers!

She gets into everything...literally!

*Please note how she took over the living room with toys

Standing on the window sill which is just her height to check whats going on outside.

As tiring as she is, she is so much fun! She giggles and says "mama" crawls all over, and pretty much has to touch or break everything she sees. She's just perfect! The only problem we are having is that she just wont sleep. We are tying the Ferber method, giving more naps during the day, changing her bed time....but bottom line she just does not like to sleep. She is afraid she will miss something.

Until next time...

Sweet Summer!

Summer has been so much fun with Ela! She is at such a fun age where she plays all day and she has SO much personality! We are just soaking up each day! We took Ela to get her 6 month pictures last Saturday....Attempt #1 not so successful. Latley she has been having separation anxiety from Mom and Dad but this was allot more.She screamed the moment we put her in the photography studio. I think that she was scared of the cameras etc. Today we took her back and she was very hesitant but warmed up at the end. Tomasz made her laugh at the end. Check out the pictures!

Sear's Portraits - July 16th

Here are some home shots. I was trying to take my monthly picture and it was SO hard! We finally got a few but boy was it tough!

As you can see Ela is getting so big! We had our 6 month doctor's appointment on Thursday.We don't go back to the doctor until 9 months old. Secretly Tomasz and I like going more frequently to pick her brain with a million questions!

Here's the stats:

 15.1 pds (33% percentile)

25 3/4 inches (67% percentile)

 40 inch head (50% percentile)





Happy Birthday to Ela! -6 months old

I can not believe that I am typing a 6 month blog post. Today I was looking back through the previous posts pertaining to our pregnancy and I was so excited for her to come that I never thought about her already being 6 months. At times I never thought I would make it to 6 months, and then at times I don't want her to be 6 months and I want her to stay a little newborn forever! It has been very rewarding up until now and it feels like every day she is learning something new! She has been sitting up for almost 3 weeks and last week went from a military crawl to up on all 4's inching away!
We go to the pediatrician on Thursday for the 6th month check up. Tomasz and I are trying to guess how much she weighs. Since she is constantly a hungry girl we got the go ahead to start her on solids at 4 months. We started with rice cereal in a bottle with breast milk and now she eats about 2 small jars of fruit a day. Her favorite is definitely BANANAS!

Check out some pics from the last month. And as promised and keeping with tradition the 5 month picture!

 Copying Mommy!

The first time Ela sat by herself-- June 25th

That's all for now...I will try to update before another month passes.