nora | life lately (3 yr + 4 mos)

My sweet Nora bug is growing up wayyyy too fast. She is so much fun! Her enthusiasm for life is seriously contagious. She is experimenting with how her voice sounds and sings ALL. DAY. LONG. This is the best ever and provides amazing entertainment.

D E V E L O P M E N T

• Nora can now easily peddle her tricycle. She rode it all the way to the park a few days ago.
• She can recognize all of her upper case letters and some of the lower case letters.
• She is knows the sounds of most of the letters and is very interested to hear you sound out words for her.
• She can dress and undress herself. She LOVES buttons and snaps and will spend hours practicing. She also loves keys. She tries every key (play or real in our front door).
• She is learning to tie shoes with daddy. She loves helping him tie his shoes before work.
• She can count to 20 (misses a few along the way). We recently discovered she can count from 10 backwards to 1 (not sure where she learned that?).
• She has a best friend "Ryan" who she hugs every time she sees her. 
• Her language is amazing. I really enjoy listening to her try out new words/phrases. She also has some adorable proununciations.
• "I dunno mommy"
• "That's silly"
• "Beagles" -->Beetles
• "Star - bOOks" --> Starbucks

S L E E P

Nora is back to sleeping through the night (more or less). Occasionally, she will climb into bed with us between 4:30-5:30 am. She still rarely naps and falls asleep on nearly every afternoon car ride (even if its less than 5 minutes).

Night time routine has been varied since she often falls asleep before we get to read books. On nights when Neal works, she typically falls asleep on the floor while I am putting Clara to sleep. While its nice at the end of the night to be able to get into bed myself, I really miss regular story time.

When we do have story time, she is very particular about which books she picks out. Lately, she nearly always picks out Bernstein Bears "Junk Food" (thanks Delaney and Abby). This book is awful. The dietitian in me, can pick out a million reasons why... However, Nora LOVES it. She has this book (and many others) completely memorized. While she is the spitting image of Neal (and the Hartman side of the family), she is an absolute perfectionist and corrects others' wrongs. So... nighttime stories get corrected too (despite the fact that she can't yet read). For example, I wrongly pronounced Papa Bear's "Choco-chums" as "coco-chums" and now if ANYONE reads it correctly, the get corrected to "coco-chums."

E A T S

We have been struggling in this department for some time. I was so proud from year 1-2, Nora ate a tremendous variety of food and loved fruits, veggies, beans, etc. Now, she has fallen into the age-typical food jags. Two words. Macaroni and cheese. This girl LIVES for macaroni and cheese.
Other favorites are granola bars, cereal, bread and butter, tomato soup (or princess soup), any kind of fruit (thank goodness--loves grapes and apples). I still usually do not have any trouble getting her to eat grains (loves bread, quinoa, tortillas, whole-wheat waffles, brown rice), beans (any kind), or tofu (she pronounces it two-fu). I've started to relax a little with Neal giving Nora meat. I still do not like it at all...but she LOVES it. She especially loves ham. Since she does not eat much, its hard to justify restricting her meat intake.

Nora still drinks "morning milk." Right now, this is just whole milk warmed in a sippy cup. She is creature of habit and gets very upset if the milk is not in the "right" cup. She then drinks "vanilla milk" the rest of the day. This is vanilla Pediasure (a high calorie pediatric formula). Shes had a very low BMI most of her life, definitely from 2-3 years. I'm not a fan of the processed formula, but with her current limited diet it provides her lots of good calories, proteins and vitamins/mineral for growth.
Her pediatrician felt pretty strongly that we start her on a formula before the move to St. Louis since stress can reduce intake in kids (or adults for that matter).


T H E  S C H E D U L E
6:45 wakes up
7 am morning milk
8 am breakfast
10 am snack
Noon Lunch
2 pm snack
5:30 pm dinner
6:30 night time routine
7:30 read stories
8 pm bedtime

F A V O R I T E S

• Riding her bike: Nora loves to ride her tricycle and is working on her balance bike from Santa. She has become very fast and peddling. There are bikes on her playground at school. Her teacher often reports her to be biking enthusiastically for the whole 30 minute play period.
• School: Nora has a true LOVE for school. She wakes up very excited to go to school. She picks out her back pack, coat, and mittens for the day. Now that the weather has gotten better, I had to hide the mittens. They are her FAVORITE. The girl LOVES mittens and hats. Notice in a picture below, it was probably 75 degrees and sunny, but Nora was still wearing a fleece hat and mittens.
• Yoga: We pull out the yoga mat regularly. She does yoga Wednesday mornings at school. Current favorite poses are downward doggy, lion pose, butterfly and elephant pose.
• Reading
• Painting nails: Nora LOVES painting nails. We probably paint nails at least once a week. She usually picks purple or pink. To mix it up, the Easter bunny and Santa Claus have brought new colors.
• Going to the store (Trader Joes especially): I think this love comes from the recent cold weather (and my love for shopping...). She really enjoys pushing her own little cart or riding in the big car carts at the grocery store.
• Playing in the water: Nora is constantly playing in the faucets in the kitchen or in the bathroom. She likes to transfer water from one cup to another. Or...tonight she transfered water right into my beer (and it was a really good beer...)
• Cake-pops: Nora LOVES pink cake pops. She will do just about ANYTHING for a cake pop. Despite my professional training (pediatric dietitian)....I often find myself using the pink cake pop as leverage while we are out and about...Sometimes a moms got to do what a moms got to do, right?

N O R A  S T O R I E S

• Nora's friend Ryan's mom told me a story the other day. Apparently, Ryan had come home from school and told her that Nora had told her that she loved her. So, Ryan's mom asked her if she told Nora that she loved her too. Ryan replied excitedly, "no, but I think I'm going to tell her tomorrow!"
• Nora's preschool teacher Miss Shelley told me the other day that Nora had been so tired at school. Nora had been dramatically yawning all morning with her hand over her mouth and laying down saying "I need to rest." 
• Recently, Nora has been collecting rocks from the school playground. Apparently, the kids reach under the fence in the playground to collect the rocks at playtime. The kids (or as Nora calls them all "friends") stuff their pockets full. Nora's jacket and back pack are full. Miss Shelley told me the other day that during yoga the rocks were falling out of all of their pockets. Needless to say, our trash is getting really heavy... 

P I C U R E  T I M E

XO,

Caity

clara | 9 months

Oh Clara girl. The past 9 months have flown by. The love we feel for this little lady is unimaginable. She is such a cuddly, happy girl, who still loves her people. She is so curious and into EVERYTHING. If the past month is any indication, we are going to be watching her very closely to keep her out of trouble. She eats anything she can get her chubby little fingers on. 

D E V E L O P M E N T

Clara is now an expert crawler. She still drags her one leg underneath her. I'm pretty sure it gives her better traction, given her pants are always wayyy too long (short people problems). She is so quick and has figured out the layout of the house. She knows all the different ways to find her people. She loves to disappear into Nora's bedroom and crawl in and out of her teepee. She even squeals and plays peek-a-boo solo. Her other favorite location is the bathroom. We typically find her eating toilet paper or attempting to teeth on the toilet. She has also started to try to crawl up our basement stairs and up went the G A T E S (much to Daddy's dismay).

 

 

This girl has always LOVED to stand. She has even started to stand without support for a few seconds at a time. Even when shes not standing without support, shes holding on one handed or balancing with her belly to keep her hands free. Don't worry mom, shes still a WAYS away from walking. She did start cruising late this month but still isn't close to walking.

Until very recently, Clara was picking up toys and food in a sweeping/whole hand motion. Now, the pincer grasp is starting to emerge. Once shes holding a toy, she easily manipulates and moves it from hand to hand. 

Probably the biggest change this month is Clara's understanding of language. She now understands quite a bit and can even follow simple commands, like "come here," "splash," "dance," and "give it to me." She loves to play games, especially "peek-a-boo" and "so big." She has started to become more vocal. She says and repeats "ma-ma-ma," "ba-ba-ba," and "ga-ga." Like Nora did, she loves to do "ba-ba-ba" on the back of her hand. We were pretty excited about that. We are also loving her little noises. She makes this amazing happy noise sounds like she is gasping for air.

We definitely experience separation anxiety with this little one. As I've mentioned numerous times, Clara loves her people. She definitely does not like when mommy walks away (even if she is in the same room).

S L E E P

Sleep has been one of our larger challenges for some time. Clara was (as this post is a bit belated) waking up 2+ times per night to eat. She is/was so distractable during the day, she was doing the majority of her feeds overnight.

Enter Clara's 9 month visit. The pediatrician asked me if I wanted to start sleeping again. She said there was no harm in continuing the way we were if I was happy with this set-up (somewhat sarcastically of course). After some thought, I knew that despite secretly loving precious alone time in the middle of the night, I would be a better mom (to both girls) overall if I started sleeping again.

While this is really for month 10... [spoiler alert] sleep training (not feeding or taking her out of her bed with as needed comforting) was actually really easy. The first night was a bit rough. The first time she woke up she cried and fussed for about 45 minutes. She woke up and fussed several other times throughout that first night. The second and third night were better with some very mild fussing intermittently and by night four she was more or less sleeping through the night. One of my biggest fears about sleep training was interrupting Nora's sleep (the girls rooms are about 3 feet away from each other). She has had some sleep challenges over the past 6+ months, which have only recently disappeared. This was an apparently unwarranted fear. Nora did not wake up once with Clara's crying.

So here we are at the beginning of month 10. I'm hoping we all continue to improve our sleep situation!

E A T S

Clara has intermittently LOVED to eat and has been less than interested. She is very strong-willed in this department. She will eat fruit with ease and gusto. Vegetables, on the other hand, (this has expanded from carrots to all vegetables except squash), she seals her lips so tight, you couldn't pry her mouth open even with great effort. So... we are sticking to continually offering it and praying one day she decides vegetable are 'out of this world' AMAZING. TBD.

Favorites are still cheerios, rice, bread, grapes, bananas, oat cereal and any pouch with pureed beans. When my friend Alyson was in town, we tried mashed garbanzos, but the skins gave her trouble. She has also LOVED roasted squash. I've been trying to introduce allergenic foods, now that the AAP has changed their recommendations. She has done well with cheese, but seems really fussy with greek yogurt (despite loving it). I have been mixing almond butter in, which she loves. I'm hoping the fussiness goes away (she has no other signs of an allergy).

T H E  S C H E D U L E

6 am Wake-up/BF

7:30 am Breakfast (oat cereal + fruit)

9 am BF

11:30 am Lunch

2 pm BF

5 pm Dinner

7 pm BF/ Bed

F A V O R I T E S

• Bathtime. Still a huge favorite. She could be crying her head off all day, but will play enthusiastically when put in the bathtub. It works like MAGIC. She is an absolute water baby. She splashes like crazy, squeals, tries to eat the bubbles and even drinks the water. About 90% of the time she remembers she can't breathe when she's face first in the water. She gives me good scares and I have to watch her SO closely.
• Peek-a-boo. Clara laughs soooo hard. She has the most amazing laugh. Peek-a-boo is one of the easiest ways to get her laughing.
• Toys. Little balls (with beads/animals inside). We have a set of balls that look like the parts to a catepillar from when Nora was a baby. Recently, Clara has really taken to them. She likes to shake them and hit them together. They have little animals and beads inside that make noise.

• Activities. Playing in the tee-pee (especially peek-a-boo). Clara crawls into the teepee and then BURSTS out with a giant smile on her face. She will do this for hours if you let her (which Nora rarely does...).

T H E  S T A T S

Weight: 15 lb 11 oz (12%)

Length: 25 3/4 in (2%)

Weight for length: 47%

P H O T O S

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

XO,

Caity