Friday, October 9, 2009
Kenna LOVES this signing thing...
As a brief update to yesterday's post, Kenna absolutely loves signing milk now! This is the cutest thing ever. While eating her cereal this morning she kept stopping, looking at me intensely to see if I was watching, and forcefully signing milk. LOL I want to reward her for her efforts right now to solidify the connection so when she did it I would give her a few sips of her milk (I normally wait until after solids to give the bottle so they eat everything). I would take it away then she would eat a few more spoons then sign milk again! She has the cutest look on her face when she does it, like, "I can't believe this is actually working over and over!" Now I have to figure out how to tell her, "I understand what you are signing, and am glad you are communicating with me, but you can't always have what you ask for." Does anyone have a sign for that? :)
Thursday, October 8, 2009
10 Months Old Today!
OK, 10 months old sounds WAY to close to a year old and I am NOT happy about that!!! I can't believe they are almost not babies anymore! I LOVE the stage where they are right now. They are so much fun and just want to freeze time a bit. I'm sure there will be some other points like that, too. :)
So the latest. In my usual update fashion, I must make a list so I don't forget anything! Ultimately I will go back through all my blogs to record all their milestones, etc., for their baby books so I have to make sure to get everything on here. :)
1. At their last doctor's appointment a couple of weeks ago, Kenna was just under 20 pounds and Nathan just under 22 pounds (I thought that was weird because at home he weighs over 22 pounds!). Nathan is in the 95th percentile for height and Kenna in the 97th. They are both in the 75th percentile for weight. Nathan's head is in the 95th percentile and Kenna's is apparently off the chart above 100%! LOL Everything went well, but they were found to have low iron despite my best attempts to feed them nutritious stuff all the time so now they have to have iron drops twice a day until their next appointment at a year.
2. This one is really blowing my mind. Kenna signed "milk" for the first time today! I started with only one baby sign about a month ago - I did the milk sign before giving them the bottle every time. They get mad when I try to make them do it with their own hands so I gave up on that part and just kept doing it myself. I thought they weren't getting it AT ALL and was probably going to give up. Today first thing when I went in the nursery, Kenna was standing in her crib signing "milk". I laughed and thought it couldn't possibly be. Nathan had done it a couple of times this week and I thought that was just chance too. I put them in their high chairs and Kenna immediately told me 'milk' again with her hand. I gave her a sip and took it away to see what she would do. She signed it again right away, looking at me intently. I gave it back to her for a sip then took it away. We did this back and forth over and over and she proved she REALLY knows the word! It is just crazy that she is able to ask for something now. The whole time I'm feeding her solid food though she is now signing milk. LOL I'm going to add three new signs now. I want to do "hungry", "sleepy" and "all done".
3. Both babies, but especially Nathan, has made a teething biscuit out of the crib. I'm surprised he hasn't completely filed down his teeth! :(
4. A couple of weeks ago I stopped pureeing food. Now everything is chopped into pieces. They are doing a pretty good job of chewing, but for foods that they easily swallowed and "got out of the way" before (the ones they didn't like) they now really resist chewing. Nathan thinks it's too much effort. He gets frustrated while chewing if it's not something he likes and starts complaining. I'm hoping this will resolve as they get more used to it and it's not as laborious.
5. I'm still making almost all their food! I have been making all kinds of stuff. Rather than making huge batches to freeze as I did with pureeing, I now make enough for one week and just refrigerate for the most part. This week's menu includes: yams, carrots, green beans, corn, potatoes, avocados, peaches, apples, bananas, blueberries, ground beef and chicken!
6. Nathan has started cruising a little. Both babies pull to standing constantly, but I'm surprised they haven't actually tried cruising more. When I put things just out of Nathan's reach, he will "cruise" over to it, and keep going as I pull the things further. So he "can" do it, he just "prefers" to get on the floor and crawl over because that's much faster! Kenna hasn't tried too much. I got a pusher thing for them to try walking but with just a tiny bit of pressure it goes fast and that's not good when you are just learning! I guess we need to wait on that.
7. Self feeding and sippy cups. Ugh. I felt a bit bombarded at the pediatrician appointment when she was asking about meal time and stuff and she started talking about chunky food, sippy cups and self feeding. I was thinking, "but we just have mastered solid foods in the last couple of months!" lol I felt like I had this whole routine down of making food and they were eating everything well, and already we have to start the next stage?! First step was that I made them pick up their bottles and drink them themselves. This was about a month ago, that they could do it consistently. I then started to give them sippy cups with water after each meal so they could learn to drink from them. NO DICE! After weeks of absolutely no progress, I took a friend's advice to get a different kind of cup with a soft spout to start with rather than hard plastic. I did that, and I put formula in it (because that's a substance they love rather than water)...success this week! They don't like it at all, but they will put up with it to drink about half a sippy cup of milk. Then they both complain. But it's a start. (Incidentally, Kenna stopped drinking after a few sips today and signed "milk"! LOL I think "milk" clearly means "milk in a bottle" to her!) As for self feeding, things aren't going great but I haven't been trying to much. I tried puffs but they are too small and they just can't pick them up well enough. I finally made toast for them for the first time today and Kenna fed herself several pieces! I was literally jumping up and down. I didn't think it would ever happen. So I need to find more dry foods that can be in larger pieces like that. Nathan plays with it but just doesn't want to put it in his mouth. I hope this progresses soon.
8. We went to the pumpkin patch yesterday! It was a really special day and I'm going to do a separate post about that with pictures.
So that's the latest! More pics soon...
So the latest. In my usual update fashion, I must make a list so I don't forget anything! Ultimately I will go back through all my blogs to record all their milestones, etc., for their baby books so I have to make sure to get everything on here. :)
1. At their last doctor's appointment a couple of weeks ago, Kenna was just under 20 pounds and Nathan just under 22 pounds (I thought that was weird because at home he weighs over 22 pounds!). Nathan is in the 95th percentile for height and Kenna in the 97th. They are both in the 75th percentile for weight. Nathan's head is in the 95th percentile and Kenna's is apparently off the chart above 100%! LOL Everything went well, but they were found to have low iron despite my best attempts to feed them nutritious stuff all the time so now they have to have iron drops twice a day until their next appointment at a year.
2. This one is really blowing my mind. Kenna signed "milk" for the first time today! I started with only one baby sign about a month ago - I did the milk sign before giving them the bottle every time. They get mad when I try to make them do it with their own hands so I gave up on that part and just kept doing it myself. I thought they weren't getting it AT ALL and was probably going to give up. Today first thing when I went in the nursery, Kenna was standing in her crib signing "milk". I laughed and thought it couldn't possibly be. Nathan had done it a couple of times this week and I thought that was just chance too. I put them in their high chairs and Kenna immediately told me 'milk' again with her hand. I gave her a sip and took it away to see what she would do. She signed it again right away, looking at me intently. I gave it back to her for a sip then took it away. We did this back and forth over and over and she proved she REALLY knows the word! It is just crazy that she is able to ask for something now. The whole time I'm feeding her solid food though she is now signing milk. LOL I'm going to add three new signs now. I want to do "hungry", "sleepy" and "all done".
3. Both babies, but especially Nathan, has made a teething biscuit out of the crib. I'm surprised he hasn't completely filed down his teeth! :(
4. A couple of weeks ago I stopped pureeing food. Now everything is chopped into pieces. They are doing a pretty good job of chewing, but for foods that they easily swallowed and "got out of the way" before (the ones they didn't like) they now really resist chewing. Nathan thinks it's too much effort. He gets frustrated while chewing if it's not something he likes and starts complaining. I'm hoping this will resolve as they get more used to it and it's not as laborious.
5. I'm still making almost all their food! I have been making all kinds of stuff. Rather than making huge batches to freeze as I did with pureeing, I now make enough for one week and just refrigerate for the most part. This week's menu includes: yams, carrots, green beans, corn, potatoes, avocados, peaches, apples, bananas, blueberries, ground beef and chicken!
6. Nathan has started cruising a little. Both babies pull to standing constantly, but I'm surprised they haven't actually tried cruising more. When I put things just out of Nathan's reach, he will "cruise" over to it, and keep going as I pull the things further. So he "can" do it, he just "prefers" to get on the floor and crawl over because that's much faster! Kenna hasn't tried too much. I got a pusher thing for them to try walking but with just a tiny bit of pressure it goes fast and that's not good when you are just learning! I guess we need to wait on that.
7. Self feeding and sippy cups. Ugh. I felt a bit bombarded at the pediatrician appointment when she was asking about meal time and stuff and she started talking about chunky food, sippy cups and self feeding. I was thinking, "but we just have mastered solid foods in the last couple of months!" lol I felt like I had this whole routine down of making food and they were eating everything well, and already we have to start the next stage?! First step was that I made them pick up their bottles and drink them themselves. This was about a month ago, that they could do it consistently. I then started to give them sippy cups with water after each meal so they could learn to drink from them. NO DICE! After weeks of absolutely no progress, I took a friend's advice to get a different kind of cup with a soft spout to start with rather than hard plastic. I did that, and I put formula in it (because that's a substance they love rather than water)...success this week! They don't like it at all, but they will put up with it to drink about half a sippy cup of milk. Then they both complain. But it's a start. (Incidentally, Kenna stopped drinking after a few sips today and signed "milk"! LOL I think "milk" clearly means "milk in a bottle" to her!) As for self feeding, things aren't going great but I haven't been trying to much. I tried puffs but they are too small and they just can't pick them up well enough. I finally made toast for them for the first time today and Kenna fed herself several pieces! I was literally jumping up and down. I didn't think it would ever happen. So I need to find more dry foods that can be in larger pieces like that. Nathan plays with it but just doesn't want to put it in his mouth. I hope this progresses soon.
8. We went to the pumpkin patch yesterday! It was a really special day and I'm going to do a separate post about that with pictures.
So that's the latest! More pics soon...
Thursday, October 1, 2009
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