One Year Photos

We took Drea to get her picture made on Monday in the birthday outfit I had someone make for her. It was a little difficult to get her to cooperate (she alternated between being clingy and wanting me to hold her to crawling off and getting into everything), but we manged to get some cute pics anyway.

She met another little girl her age there, and her reaction was adorable. She started laughing and squealing like she does when she's really excited, and kept touching the other girl's hair and hands. She also handed her the little bear she had with her. It was super cute!

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It's amazing to me how much she's changing and how fast she learns new things. I can't believe she'll be one on Wednesday!

Something New Every Day

Drea continues to astonish me with how fast she is growing and changing. Her sense of humor is starting to become more advanced now; she tries to tickle and tease people and laughs when she sees something unexpected (like me in my Halloween costume)

She's also been walking more often. She turned around on her feet last week.

Brian takes her out for walks every day. He usually wears her in our Ergo carrier. I go outside with her sometimes too, and I wear her in one of my wraps. She started picking up the Ergo and wraps on Thursday and handing them up to us when she wants to go out for a walk.

Drea has become especially attached to a stuffed animal that looks like a white cat. She calls it "Kitty" and loves to hug it.

Last night we took her to a Halloween party thrown by two of my old high school friends. She loved all the attention she got from people. We forgot to load the stroller in the car, but luckily one of my wraps was in the car or we would've been forced to leave early. The party was outside in a shed, so it wasn't an environment suitable for her to get down. Brian and I both wore her for most of the party. She also loved it when Jeff gave her a cupcake. By the time we left I had to wipe icing off her face and neck. It was everywhere.

Drea loves to get attention from people now. She loves it when we have company or go somewhere like the party and people talk to her. She is slow to warm up at first, but once she's comfortable she is quite a flirt.

Drea walks

Drea's favorite toy

Walking and Talking

My laptop started causing me some problems that discouraged me from using it too often. That's why I haven't put anything here in a couple of months. Well, there's that and the fact that Drea has been keeping me very busy. But now I've got a new laptop and finally found the blog again.
Drea has changed a lot since I last posted anything. In the last month she's taken her first steps and learned a few words. She's getting into everything. She's also quit eating baby food entirely and can chew and swallow well enough to eat a wide range of solid food. She has five teeth now.
Drea's words so far: She can say Mama, Dada, uh-oh (her favorite word), kitty (her favorite toy is a stuffed animal cat), dog (she also clicks her tongue trying to call him), Nana, and stop (pronounced Dop). She also waves bye, claps when you say "Yay!", and indicates when she wants a bottle by using the sign for "milk". She has a specific sound she makes when she wants something to eat, and makes a certain noise when she wants to try and tickle someone (she loves to watch people have tickle fights).
Lately she smiles and babbles happily in the morning when I come into her room. She has finally really noticed Aries and LOVES him. She stands at the door when he's on the back porch and clicks her tongue at him. She asks to go outside and visit with him several times a day. Sometimes she pets him. She also wants to go outside and walk every day. Every once in a while I take her for a walk, but Brian does it two or three times a day. She gets really excited when he puts her on his back because she knows it means they're going outside. She counts on it as part of her daily routine now.

I can't believe her birthday is going to be here in just a few weeks! It doesn't seem like my baby should be one yet.

Pasta, a Pool, and a Play yard.

Since we got home from the beach I've decided to take the next step in solid food since Drea has gotten better at the pincer grasp and has started chewing efficiently. She's already started insisting that she will only eat what she can feed herself and wanting to eat any time she sees us eating, so I assume that she will start refusing food that looks different from what we're eating any day now any way. I've been giving Drea the same food each night that we eat. I cut it up into much smaller pieces to lessen the risk of choking, and I also mash it up with a fork. Drea has a taste of the food we're having for dinner, and so far she's loved most of it. Especially pasta.

She's had spaghetti with meat sauce (heavy on the spaghetti, light on the meat), a chicken, zuccini, bell pepper, and mushroom stir fry in teryaki sauce, a chicken stir fry in sweet and sour sauce, angel hair pasta with marinara sauce, and at John and Susan's she had another spaghetti dish topped with a sort of zuccini, sausage, tomato sauce, and cheese casserole. She LOVED it. I hope to introduce her to a large variety of flavors now while she's still figuring out what she likes. It makes a HUGE mess most nights, but I love that she's feeding herself. I think it's good for her. She decides how much she wants to eat, and this means that no one is stuffing food down her when she's not hungry. She's also learning all sorts of textures and generally having a fantastic time at the dinner table. I hope that she will always be this enthusiastic about dinner time.

We bought Drea a little pool. It folds up and fits in a small bag and pops up ready to go when you un fold it. It also has a little sun shade that attaches to it. I took Drea outside to play in it for the first time today.

She took her hat off and decided to wet it and chew on it like she tries to do with the washcloth at bath time every night. I decided to just let her do it since we were in the shade.

She loves water, but she honestly seemed to enjoy playing with the grass and leaves more than the pool. She had a fun time outside. After I brought her in, dried her off, and gave her a bottle she took a brief nap curled up on my chest. When she woke up about 1/2 an hour later she looked up at my face with a sleepy smile and very softly said "Mama". She's said it before, but this was a particularly sweet moment. She seemed happy to wake up with me already there.

I also recently purchased an indoor/outdoor play yard. Drea has been getting into so much I felt it was necassary for those times when I need to run to the restroom or cook dinner. I bought several extensions so that it takes up most of the living room. I guess I wanted her to have plenty of room in it. I was worried she might not really like it much, and I was sort of right. She is fine playing in it in the late afternoons/early evenings if Brian plays in it with her, but she gets really upset if we leave her in it alone. Brian usually sits in it and plays his x-box games while she crawls all over it playing with toys. I get tickled when I walk by the living room after she's already went to bed for the night and see him still sitting in it playing a video game. He looks like he's been incarcerated in baby jail.

Family Visits

The day after we got back home from Myrtle Beach Ken, Wilma, Vivian, and the boys all stopped by the house for a couple of hours. I think Drea entertained everyone. She always enjoys checking out visitors even if she isn't so sure about them. I'm glad they stopped by for a while. I think she really wanted to take away the x-box controller from Conrad. She thinks they are teethers. Everything in the house is a teether.....except for actual teethers. Those don't get the job done apparently.
On August 4th I took Drea to Piedmont to visit Nannie (my paternal grandmother). Nannie hadn't seen her since around Mother's Day and had told me to come by again any time. We had a nice visit with her, and the three of us went out to grab some lunch. Drea enjoyed eating green beans. Lucky for us she didn't make as big a mess with those as she does with sweet potatoes. Nannie showed her a dancing turtle (it dances to the song Can't Hurry Love). At first she was interested, but afraid at the same time. She sort of reached out from afar like she wanted to touch it, but wasn't quite sure it was safe.
It took her a while to finally get up the nerve to grab it. It's so cute to see her curiosity and interest in everything. She is scared of new things and people sometimes, but she never lets that stop her. She keeps trying until she finally works up the nerve to examine them.

With these two family visits she was sort of nervous about letting unfamiliar people hold her at first, and she kept wanting to come back to me for reassurance, but I was so happy to see that she did eventually let them hold her a bit without any tears and eventually warmed up enough to have some fun with them.

Drea's first beach trip

Drea's First Vacation

We rented a house in Surfside (just south of Myrtle Beach) from July 24-31. My parents, my brother Jeremy and his girlfriend Heather, Austin, Trinity, and Lydia were able to join us. We were hoping Daniel and Melissa could make it, but were glad the kids got to come with us at least.


We were staying pretty close to the beach. Here's a view from our porch.



Drea loves water, so she had a great time in the ocean and at the pool.



We spent most of our time on the beach playing in the water and sand, but we also went to the Dixie Stampede, had our photos taken with a tiger cub and monkey at the T.I.G.E.R.S. preservation station at Barefoot Landing (I'll be showing some of those off as soon as I get upstairs and use the scanner), and went to the Ripley's Aquarium on our way out of town.




It was a great trip, and I was sorry to see the week end so quickly. Drea had a wonderful time playing with her cousins and exploring. She's gotten more physically active and talks more since we took our trip. I think it was good for her. It means we really need to get out of the house more often.

Just When I Thought It Was Safe To Relax And Go To Sleep..

I love the message board at WTE. I've gotten a lot of great advice and learned some really neat stuff from the other mommies there. It's also nice to just be able to interact with mommies that have babies Drea's age.

But for the second time we've had a baby on our board die while sleeping. The verdict of whether this was actual SIDS or not is still out, because the medical exam and autopsy hasn't happened yet. The last time it happened I felt weirded out by the mother (I found out for sure she wasn't faking, but she still weirds me out even though I feel sorry for her), but this time I don't have the same feelings and doubts.

Averie's parents were really young, and they struggled to provide for their little boy. They weren't perfect parents (who is?), but they were trying their best to do the right things to support their son. He was eight months old - born just a little less than a week after Drea - and I'm sure his mom had been thinking (as I have been) that the risk of SIDS is decreased so much by this age that it's not something you should worry so much about.

I don't know details - I've heard that he was taking a nap and crawled underneath his blanket and they think he suffocated, but that's not SIDS technically. I have no idea how thick the blanket was or if he just happened to be under one and that makes them think he might have smothered. I have no idea. In the end the details never help me feel less nervous when I hear of something like this. You always hope though that there will be some sort of explanation so you can avoid the same thing happening to you.

I think about it every night. I have to sleep in a different room from Drea to sleep at all, because I constantly worry if she is still breathing. I've done everything I can do to prevent it; my baby is probably cold every night because I'm scared to even put so much as a receiving blanket in her crib. She rolls over on her tummy and scrunches up in a ball every night, and it makes me a nervous wreck. When I hear stories of all the myriad things that can suddenly take a child away I am consumed with fear for Drea. During the day I'm OK, but at night I have a hard time staying calm. I can't imagine how little Averie's mom feels; I hope and pray that I never find out.

Glimpses of every day life

Next Thing You Know She'll Be Driving

We bought Drea a walker that looks like a pink and white Mustang GT. It has a steering wheel that has lights and plays music. She loves the steering wheel, but she hasn't figured out that she can walk in the walker yet, so she isn't too excited about it at this point.

She's growing so quickly it makes my head spin. Instead of short spurts in the living room, she's now crawling all over the house. She's also gotten really good at pulling up on furniture, and has even started "cruising" - hanging on to things and taking side steps. She likes to pull on my fingers and stand up, and has started trying to take steps with us holding her hands. The evening of Brian's birthday party (July 11) she let go and stood up all alone for a couple of seconds. She's in a hurry to be on the move. I can hardly get a picture of her these days that isn't blurry. She's not a fan of sitting still.

Drea and I have been to a couple of local babywearing meetings with Brian's cousin Katie this month (we're going to miss seeing her and the boys now that they've gone back to Germany), and I'm planning to go back to one of the groups in the future. I haven't decided whether to go to the Clemson or Greenville meeting next month. I think Brian might want to go to the Greenville meeting - there was actually a babywearing father there.

Katie made Brian a mei tai wrap conversion to make it easier to carry Drea on his back. We also bought an Ergo and got a short homemade wrap and sling rings from Katie. So three new options for babywearing in addition to the two wraps we already had. But I still want more.....

Drea has been eating a lot more solid food now that she's gotten much better at feeding herself with her fingers. She refuses to be fed purees from a spoon. She wants things she can pick up and feed herself. She's been eating mashed up bananas, watermelon, cauliflower (steamed), apples (steamed), grapes (sliced into tiny pieces), sweet potatoes, and squash (steamed). For snacks she loves the Gerber graduates snacks for crawlers. Just in the last few days I've noticed that she seems to understand what the sign for "milk" means when I'm getting her bottle. She gets excited when I do the sign and looks at the fridge (we get the bottle from the fridge a lot). I can't wait for her to start doing signs herself, but that's a way off I think. It's possible that she also understands the sign for eat now, but I'm not sure about that one yet.

She's been saying Ma-Ma occasionally when she wants me to get her. Tonight she spent some time at Mama's house while Brian and I went out for our anniversary. Mama attempted to hand her over to Daniel, and she leaned back to Mama and said "Nana!". It's amazing to see the things she seems to learn over night.

She's got three teeth coming in now, and she's been a little clingy and fussy this last week or so. She wants to get down and play, but she keeps coming back to be held every few seconds. She wants two things at once, which is sometimes frustrating for both of us.

In the last two weeks she's started throwing her arms up in the air when she wants me to pick her up. I always pick her up when she does it too - even if I was planning to walk away for something. I can't turn down that sweet little face when she looks me in the eye with a hopeful expression and throws her little hands up. I don't care if people think I'm spoiling her; there will come a day when she no longer wants to be picked up, and I'm pretty sure I won't regret one single time I've done it when that day arrives.

It's all going by so fast. I keep thinking if I blink too slow my baby is going to be replaced by a teenager begging for car keys and heading off to college!

July 4th weekend

I haven't updated this blog in a while because we've been pretty busy and my laptop has been uncooperative. Drea's had some ear infection issues, we had a holiday weekend, and we took a little extra time to squeeze in some visits with Brian's cousin and her kids while they were visiting South Carolina from Germany. Now we're getting ready to take Drea on her first vacation next week.

During the last week or so of June Drea had to take some Amoxicillin for an ear infection. Her fever came back and the doctor prescribed Keflex, but she wouldn't take it (she spit it out), so he gave her a shot. This finally seemed to take care of the infection, she's been doing well ever since, but we had to wait out the July 4th weekend before we were able to go in and get it. So our poor little pumpkin spent the holiday with a fever.

We went to a party held by my high school friends Jeff and Lia on the third. We drove through Williamston on our way home just as the city's fireworks display started. We enjoyed both the party and the fireworks.

July 4th we had Mama, Daniel, and the kids over to grill steaks. We had a good time with the kids, good food, and the boys lit some fireworks in the driveway afterward. Drea seemed interested in them at first (she's too little to know she should be scared), but we had to go in after a while because she was getting sleepy and wanted a bottle.

On July 5th we went up to Clemson after Drea's doctor appointment and had some barbeque with some of the Stepp family.

We had a pretty busy holiday schedule, but we enjoyed spending time with our friends and family. Drea got to see some family members she hadn't seen since Christmas and try out some new foods (we gave her watermelon and canteloupe).

Summer Days

Drea has been her usual wild self lately. Since she figured out crawling she spends most of her time trying to figure out how to stand up. She pulls up on all the furniture she can reach, and she has managed to stand up several times. She also tries to stand up by herself by getting on all fours and then trying to stand up on her feet. So far all she has accomplished is sticking her bottom up in the air (she can't pull her upper body up so her hands stay on the floor).

She's getting into everything she can, and is more aware of the world around her than ever. We are starting to use signs for "milk", "more", and "eat", and plan to add more as we go along. It should be a couple of months before she starts using signs back, but I think signing will be a great way to help her let us know what's on her mind until she gets better at talking.

She started doing something new over the weekend. Instead of sitting during her bath, she's now crawling all over the place and splashing her toys into the water. This makes her mommy and daddy very nervous, but she's having a great time.

Our AC just can't seem to keep up with the heat now that it's been so hot. It got up to 78 degrees in the house today. I guess I should at least be glad it's working at all. I want to get a pool for Drea; she loves water so much I'm sure she'd love it. We need to go swimming again at the Y soon; if I could just get over this whole insomnia issue so I feel up to getting up and about during the day. There's so much I want to be out doing with the baby now that it's summertime.

We've rented a house in Myrtle Beach for the last week of July. We're planning to share the trip with several family members. It's been a long time since we went anywhere like that as a group. I can't wait to see how Drea reacts to the beach.
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Brian's Father's Day Video

I made Brian a video in honor of his first Father's Day. I used the song Unforgettable because he loves to play it for her at night.

Good Times/Bad Times

We've definitely had our ups and downs lately. Drea's sleeping patterns have become more and more erratic over the last month. For the last few weeks especially. The last few nights have been unbearable, frankly. But tonight was a little bit better than last night - so that's something I guess. I think she might have a cold. I don't think it's the sole reason behind the sleeping problems, but I'm sure it's not helping matters. We're going to the doctor today to see if he has any ideas.
On a happier note, Drea's started crawling forward in the last few days, and has learned to have more fun playing on her own. She's still getting the hang of it, so she has a bit of a hitch where she pauses because she's trying to figure out what to do with her arms and legs. I have a feeling that she's suddenly going to be crawling all over the place in the next day or two though.
We had a good time during my birthday and Memorial Day. We got together with my parents and my brother's family both days. I'm looking forward to going to the beach in July. I hope everything works out OK and we're all able to enjoy it.
I'm looking forward to Thursday night. My mom is going to bring the other kids over here and have a slumber party with the baby while Brian and I go off to get a full night's sleep somewhere else. Drea always loves being with her Nana and her cousins, and they will enjoy having run of the house - so it should be fun for everyone. Except maybe Nana - but it was her idea.

Caught the Right Moment

I just happened to be recording Drea playing when she sat up on her own for the first time. Click on the video again after it starts playing and you can see the whole screen. I didn't realize the blog margins cut off so much of the video until after I embedded it, and I have no idea how to go about fixing that.

Busy Days

I made this little video a couple of weeks ago, and just never got around to putting it here.

Drea seems to be learning so much so fast lately! Everyday she gets closer and closer to crawling! She can pull herself up on all fours and rock back and forth. She's been going backwards by accident, but today she figured out how to move her legs to go forward. Now she just needs to figure out what to do with her arms and she'll be crawling. She's gotten really good at rolling across the floor in both directions, and has started trying to pull herself up. She's also sitting by herself indefinitely now once I put her in a sitting position, and she's been trying to figure out how to sit up from a lying position.

On May 20th (around 2 or 3am) she surprised me. She'd woken up and Brian walked over to her crib to try and calm her back to sleep. When she stopped crying he turned around and went back to bed and she yelled "Da Da". Now I know they aren't supposed to talk yet and they are usually just making sounds at this stage, so I assumed it was just a coincidence that she picked the consonant that sounded like the person she was mad at. Well, just a few minutes later she started back up. Brian went to get her bottle, and I got up to try and soothe her until he got back with it. She thought I was going to pick her up and started crying and said "Ma Ma". There's been a couple of times since then that she's made the muh sound like that when she wanted me. If it was just the Da Da or MaMa one time I'd say it was just babbling, but I really think she was saying words. She knows who Daddy and Mama are, and we've been playing the "say da da - say ma ma" game with her since she started babbling. It really had a different tone than we she babbles.

We've had her first trip to the zoo and finished baby swimming lessons in the past week or so, and I hope to get around to posting pictures of both of those soon. Brian and I had a nasty cold for the last week; we're getting better, so hopefully I'll update the blog a little more often soon. I don't know if anyone but me is actually still reading it, but I like to use it to keep up with what happened when since I never remember to write things down in baby books and such until after they've happened.

Rockin & Rollin

Drea is officially on the move! I went late last Thursday with Susan to look at rugs, and I ended up going back the next day to buy one. Almost as soon as we had it down Drea was rolling all over the place! She now rolls in both directions easily and has figured out that she can roll to something if she wants it. She's also trying her best to learn to crawl. She's been pulling up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. She's actually scooted backward a couple of times; I expect her to at least be able to creep forward any day now.
She's also started making some new sounds lately too. In the last two weeks she's been using M's, N's, and D's more when babbling. Last night she imitated noises Brian was making. She tries to sing along with her toys that play music now too.

We've made a good bit of progress with eating solids too. She doesn't get a lot to eat, but I try to give her a fruit or cereal around lunchtime and a veggie in the evening before her bath. She's pretty cooperative with most foods, but seems to prefer green beans to almost everything else at this point. I'm looking forward to her being able to pick up small pieces of food and feed herself. There just isn't enough variety available in jarred baby food. I've considered making some baby food for her myself now that I know what she is most likely to eat. She has figured out what we're doing when we eat and drink, and gets upset if we eat or drink and don't give her anything. I've been pretty picky about what food she eats, but since we both only drink water we've actually let her have a sip or two from our glasses occasionally. Of course now whenever she sees one of us holding a cup she thinks we are supposed to give her a sip.
Just last week she started being able to sit up unassisted for a few seconds at a time. She's doing it for longer periods of time every day, and is even attempting to push herself up to a sitting position (she's got a good bit of work to do before she can actually do that though).
I can't believe how fast she's growing and changing! She's gotten so sweet in the last few weeks; she's so cute sometimes I can hardly take it. A few weeks ago at church (I think it was on the 2nd) I took her over to another baby to let her see him. She was so excited she smiled and squealed. She turned around to me and grabbed my face with both hands and pushed her face into mine. She does this now whenever she is overexcited or feeling embarrassed/shy. She's got quite a temper and is easily overstimulated, but most of the time she's really happy and sweet.