Help truck

Emery is starting to put words together which is helping her communicate tremendously. She is a pretty quiet kid. She still relies a lot on her sign language and her vocabulary is not quite where most of the other kids her age are at. But these two word sentences are like magic. Mostly it is noun/verb combinations "Mama sit"or "Emmy eat", which are helping her and us get much less frustrated about how vague single words can be. "Apple". Do you see an apple? Do you want to eat an apple? Should mama eat an apple? But best of all has been that every once in awhile we get an interesting look into her little toddler brain.

Transportation is a new favorite topic. Our conversations are dominated by talk of buses, trucks and choo choos. As we were driving to the grocery store yesterday afternoon a brigade of fire trucks drove past us. "Ooh, trucks", she said. As it turns out they were driving to a car accident that was on our route to the store. It was a pretty serious accident in that the cars were very obviously smashed, but all of the drivers and passengers seemed to be alright. As we passed the smashed up cars Emery and I had a little conversation.

Emery: "Mama, oh no!"
Me: "It's okay. Those cars got into an accident and now they are all smashed up."
Emery: "Oh no! Owie?"
Me: "The cars hit each other but the people are all okay."
Emery: "Owie? Hurts?"
Me: "No, sweetie. The cars are hurt but the people are okay. Do you see the trucks? The trucks are here to help the people."
Emery: "Help truck?"
Me: "Exactly. The trucks are here to help. The help trucks came to help the people."
Emery: "Oh no! Owie. Help truck, Mama"

Then we had a little talk about fire trucks and ambulances and how they come to help people when they need it. "Help truck". Sometimes I feel like I narrate the world for a person who isn't getting any of it. It is tremendously rewarding when it feels like she understands and follows up with questions.

Here comes trouble

Last Wednesday was Emery's 9 month checkup (on her 10 month birthday, go figure). I had expected to be told that she was still on her growth curve, to be yelled at for not getting her to eat solid foods, to be advised to wean her but that ultimately, she'll eat when she wants to eat. Why I think I know what to expect when it comes to kids I'll never know. Emery is 16 pounds 6 ounces, putting her squarely in the 5th percentile and dropping her off the growth curve we had been so dutifully following. And while she was in the 50th percentile for height 3 months ago, now she is in the 10th (oh, but maybe that last reading was wrong, maybe). The doctors were satisfied with what we have been doing to try to get her to eat, but deeply concerned that at 10 months she won't swallow anything. The fact that she is so dangerously close to being underweight just makes everything that much more urgent. And that whole waking up every two hours to nurse at night? Apparently the only reason she isn't malnourished. So, keep up the good work sleep deprived Mom! They couldn't find anything anatomically wrong with her and apparently the fact that she puts toys in her mouth, has never been hospitalized, is meeting and exceeding her other milestones and doesn't have reflux means that this isn't due to any of the usual suspects. The verdict? She's just smart. She knows what she wants and isn't willing to give in, even if that means starving herself for 9 or 10 hours. At least that's their guess, I'm going to go ahead and believe it is true and not believe they were just trying to stroke the ego of the poor, good meaning and exhausted mother sitting in the room. So, we have a recommendation in to an occupational therapist to try to devise strategies to trick her into eating, or something like that.

Yeah, this is going well

I'm surprisingly upset by this referral. I really didn't think this was a big deal. Everything I had read indicated that kids will eat when they're ready. Never, ever did occupational therapy turn up in any of my frantic Google searches. I guess I just associate occupational therapy with kids who have developmental delay and I'm not entirely comfortable with Emery being thrown into that group. But, we'll see how it goes. If they can make this transition easier on everyone then my bruised ego will be worth it. I'm also contemplating making unsweetened frozen yogurt so I can mix in random veggies. Yeah, I'm sure that will work.

First Steps

Emery took her first steps on Thursday. She still needs to be abandoned standing up in order to take any, but I'm sure independent tries will begin soon. Luckily, we have cameras with video functions to document the steps that occurred right after the first:



Also occurring on Thursday was another milestone: we signed enrollment papers to Em to start daycare next month. While we really don't need care until the end of September, when a place at our absolute favorite center opened up for immediate start, we had to grab it up. While I am very sad that my stay at home status is coming to an end, this will be a good thing. I can work on my thesis and maybe actually get that in a submittable state in the next couple of months.

On the list of things that totally aren't working: eating. The daycare assures us that they'll work on it with her, but if you had told me a year ago that I would be exclusively breastfeeding a 10 month old, I would have thought you were insane. I am pretty disappointed that I didn't get to feed her the way I wanted to. I have books with recipes for baby food, special ice cube trays to freeze food cubes, a steamer and ricer to make perfectly thinned and nutritious meals, I've read tons of articles about when to introduce foods, how to get kids to eat vegetables and be adventurous eaters. All of it is out the window. If I can get her to swallow one bite of anything it's an accomplishment. While I have run across a few moms in similar predicaments, most mommies are stunned and seem to believe I must be doing something wrong: have you tried rice cereal? sweet potatoes? apples? Gee, no guys, I thought she was supposed to eat dog food. I've switched out eating locations, spoons, bowls, textures, tried salty, sweet, bland, bold. Nothing. The list of things she doesn't eat? Pears, strawberries, ollalieberry, freeze dried strawberry, banana, apple and asian pear, broccoli, carrots, chicken, salami, avocado, guacamole (so much puking as a result), oatmeal, rice, noodles, bread, Cheerios, Gerber Graduates, cheese, yogurt, peas, sugar, cheesecake, cookies, churro, cake and everything else edible. Except ice cream. She'll gobble that right up. Baby yogurt that has been frozen and mixed with fruit that tastes just like ice cream to me? Of course not.

Emery's New Word

While adorable, this means "mama" has completely disappeared from her vocabulary. Sigh.

Emery has resumed crawling. While the fact that in two seconds flat she can completely disappear from the room is often heart-stopping, I like the crawling. It means that she doesn't feel the need to hold on to me every waking second, just most of them. Also, she stood today unassisted for like 30 seconds. She only fell down because she tried to take a step. Let me repeat that, she stood until she fell because she tried to walk. I still vividly remember giving her her first bath, marveling over her first smiles, how can my baby be starting to walk?

Too Much New Stuff

My Mom was here for a few days last week, so I'm behind on this whole blog thing. Oh, and I interviewed for Stanford's genetic counseling program yesterday, so again, mind not exactly on blogging.

Emery is now pulling herself to standing on every possible surface, sturdy or not. This is not as cute as it sounds. She refuses to crawl now and sits and cries until someone offers her their hands so that she can walk to wherever it is she wants to go. She is also not so sure on her feet and we've had more bumps and bruises than I can even count anymore. We had just gotten baby proofed for the crawling stage and are now desperately trying to keep up with all of the new places she is getting herself into.

She has finally started babbling. I was starting to get worried as all of the other kids at playgroup are expert babblers. So, in addition to raspberries I now hear "babababa" all day long. Every once in awhile she throws in a "mama" so I'm not too offended that her first babbles had nothing to do with me, or anything else I can identify. Possible explanations for what baba means from our friends include: 'grandma' in Japanese, 'water' in spanish, or she is just starting to sing 'Baba O'Riley' by The Who. She did start saying it while my mom was here, so I'm going with Japanese as a first language. Also, she makes kissy noises which are way cute.

Last Saturday we took her for her very first swim lesson. It was at a therapeutic pool where the water is kept in the nineties, so it was like a really big bathtub for her. She seemed to like the water although I'm not real sure that the class is helpful. It's almost worth it just to see her in her bathing suit though:

Play

Emery has had a very social week. She's just popular like that. Wednesday we went to play group and Emery impressed everyone with her mad mobility skillz. Because I am totally afraid of John's new camera, I have no pictures. So, imagine this but with more babies around:


Yesterday we got together with our other favorite baby for a play date. For the first time B and Emery actually looked at each other, like they maybe actually realized there was someone else there to play with. It was super adorable, but they of course stopped doing it as soon as the camera came out. This is the best I've got:


Today we had our music play group and Emery seemed to enjoy it much more this time. Everyone sang happy birthday to her, since she is 8 months today, and she seemed to have a smile from ear to ear the entire time.


I can't say enough about how much more sane play groups and play dates have made me. Having a forum to ask stupid questions, see other babies, and even sometimes feel like you're really doing an okay job at this whole parenthood thing is fantastic. It's too bad that it took me six months to resurface enough to realize I needed an outlet, because I think these experiences have given me the motivation and confidence to be a better mom.

In other sappy news our good friends Jeff and Michelle officially became parents yesterday. I'm surprised at how nostalgic this has made me. All the pictures of their beautiful little wrinkly, squinty newborn really brings me back to Emery's birth. I remember how empowered I felt by what my body had just accomplished but terrified by every little sneeze, cough and sound because I suddenly realized how little I actually knew about taking care of a baby. But she was just so beautiful and sweet and perfect, I knew I would do anything to make sure she was taken care of.

My little peanut seems all grown up now!

I guess I kind of miss the excitement of bringing home a brand new baby. Wondering what she'll look like once all that swelling goes down, how she'll behave, how life will change. On the other hand, Emery is just such a joy these days. She's exploring, showing us who she is and how much she loves us. How could you not be in heaven when you have this to look forward to every night?