Sharing fake food

We bought Callie some new felt food play sets. She is into sharing right now both her real food and her fake food. She especially likes if she can pull stuff away from your mouth or she can pretend to feed you but take it away at the last minute. Here she is sharing fake bacon with daddy.

Dishwasher obsession

Callie loves the dishwasher. She comes right over anytime you open the door. She likes to touch the dirty dishes, take out the silverware, roll the racks and touch the soap dispenser. Here she is helping daddy load it up. What a good helper.
Also you can see we use the dog bed in the kitchen in the morning as a feeding spot. Callie thinks its comfy and will hold her bottle and watch me get everything else ready for the day.

Splash splash

Callie got a new tub/pool. We bought a few different tubs to see what would work for Grandma's house. We kept this one for home to test out. It gives her more room to move around than her prior infant tub, has a deeper water level, and soft sides so she can't get hurt on the sides. Here she is using it as a tub and also as a pool outside. She normally would dive right in but the pool water on the deck was pretty cold so I think that's why he barely splashed then would keep taking her hands out.

Dancing with Elmo

Callie loves to dance with her Elmo doll when he plays songs. I think it's so cute. Maybe she will be a better dancer than her mommy and daddy since she is starting young.

Forks?

I want to start with a CIO update. Last night there was quite a bit of crying but she did go back to sleep every time. I woke up 3 times with her crying but with the monitor on the other side of my room I am able to go back to sleep so I can't say how long she cried for. Hopefully in a few more nights there is no crying.
I bought Callie new silverware as she has been trying to eat with anything she can get her hands on. She loves big people utensils but I worry about her with a regular metal fork so I bought plastic sets. She loves to hold them at dinner time and tries to scoop and stab food but is very unsuccessful. She doesn't want you to help so then she just gives up and uses her fingers.
I have been trying to come up with some new food ideas. One very successful one is tofu nuggets. It's tofu breaded with coconut flour and dusted with cinnamon. She loves these little bites. The other thing you will see are roasted beet fries. She's growing up to be my little health food but :)

CIO...... Cry It Out

We have officially started cry it out. Callie is 10 months old and hasn't leaned to sleep through the night. I have seen her do it so I know she is capable but she likes me to come and snuggle her, giver her a snack and put her back to bed in the early morning. Last night I decided it was time. No matter what I was not going in to get her. She was going to have to cry it out.
Surprisingly she only woke up once and cried for only a short time, maybe 30 min. I moved the baby monitor across the room so if she does cry I can go back to sleep. With it next to my head its terrible and I can't sleep even on the lowest sound setting.
So we have started the cry it out method. Hopefully in 4 days she will sleep by herself through the night. This would e a huge relief for me as I am tired of getting up!
To help make it easier to not feed her in the middle of the night I officially stopped breastfeeding and ate a big wheat roll today! So no more crazy strict diet for me either. Hopefully this is the beginning of more sleep and freedom for me and Callie learns to settle herself like a big girl.
Along the same lines this big girl loves to help with the vacuum. Here she is ms adorable the cleaning lady.

Happy Birthday Chase!

Today we went to the birthday party for my friends 3 year old boy Chase, who I just happened to be his PT for 2 years. It's amazing to see how far he has come and how awesome he is doing these days. Callie has met him and his sister quite a few times and always likes them.
Callie was very entertained with the party. She got to go in the jumper for the first time. People said kids are usually scared, but not my daredevil child. She liked it. She sat inside and watched the kids jump. She did fall over twice so she stayed pretty close to me since all the other kids were so much bigger. She tried to stand and walk in there but even with help it was difficult.
She loves seeing and playing with other kids. It's amazing how much she wants to interact with them. We fed her before going since she has such a restricted diet but she was dying to eat off the other kids plates, hot dogs on buns, Mac and cheese..... Big no nos for Callie. It's hard to keep her away from that stuff and I can imagine it will get even harder as she gets bigger and she can't eat the cake or anything else at most parties. Yikes, ill have to figure something out for her.
For now though she had a fun day celebrating Chase's birthday.

Strawberry Monster

Callie loves berries. Blueberries and strawberries have to be up there on her favorite food list. Recently I stopped cutting up the strawberry and just give it to her whole. She likes them even better this way! I think it is because she feels like a big girl and she likes to bite into them. She eats it just like an apple. She even has learned not to eat the green stem and she will pull it off or eat around it. Very impressive my little strawberry shortcake.

Slippy Slipper Soles

Before I start I have to start by saying Callie slet through the night last night! No medicines to make her sleepy and I slept all night without waking up too. Wow do I feel rested, my first nights sleep more than 7 hrs uninterrupted sleep. I hope this continues... Now on to the previously scheduled blog post.
Callie has these slippers that we really like. She used to wear them a lot but now that she is standing and walking they are too slippery. They dont have any antiskip soles just straight fleece so she falls quickly. She wears her shoes a lot but sometimes it just seems to be a bit much to have her shoes on all day. So I problem solved and decided to sew some leather soles on her slippers. This was my first attempt as sewing leather. Since it was to attach it to an already made slipper I just hand sewed them on. They turned out really good and she has been walking around in them quite successfully. They are not as antiskid as her rubber soled shoes but they still work.
That leather sewing experience was so successful that I am going to try my hand at sewing a new bag with a leather bottom. I ordered another bigger piece of leather that will arrive this week.

Safety Gate

I finally got the baby gate up for the stairs. It is probably just in time as she is starting to walk and was using the stairs to get to standing.
Because it was a difficult area I had to find the perfect baby gate, but I finally found it! KidCo Configure Gate is specifically made for awkward areas and they even showed stairs like our in the photo online. We didn't need all the parts that came with it as it was a smaller opening. LT will probably be upset as now he cannot sun bathe on the stairs as he is also locked out with Callie. However the upside is that because of how its installed there is a small spot under the stairs between the gate where Manny can still sneak through. LT and Callie wont fit through the space but Manny does. So lucky for Manny he will have a safe space to get away from LT.
It has been up for almost a week now. I did have to reinstall the brackets on the wall as the screws were just pulling out of the drywall. I knew that would happen but I installed it with my sidekick Callie and tried to do it as fast as possible. It is now more secure with the mollybolts to hold it on the wall.
Manny has been able to go up and down as he pleases and so far no issues with LT and Manny and we have not been separating them.

Dare devil

Callie is becoming very brave. While she is learning to control her falls better she still occasionally has a real doosy. Yet she has no fear! Today she was sitting outside on the deck playing with the screen door, before I knew it she was standing and trying to step over the threshold into the house. I caught these two photos of her!
Today Juan saw her get into standing without any furniture, toys, or anything to hold on to for the very first time. Of course even though I was in the same room I missed it :( I tried to get her to do it again but she wouldn't. Oh well another day.

Tomorrow is the beginning of my first full 40 hours work week. I am dreading it. Yesterday I was trying to come up with ideas that would allow me to work from home. I didn't come up with anything realistic. Also caring for Callie really doesn't allow me much time to work as she is not the most independent child. She wants constant attention. So I return to work and be sad that for 4 full days in a row I will only see her for 30 min in the morning and maybe an hour in the evening. boo hoo.

10 Months!

Today Callie is 10 months old! Double digits in age (months), is a big deal! I have to say this has been her best month yet. She is finally doing much better with her allergies now that we have eliminated the foods that bother her. While we are still discovering a few more, for the most part we have a regular diet for her that is safe. This was the first whole month of zero medicine, which is actually quite a relief. We do have to carry around her epipen and benadryl but not giving her daily medication is a godsend.
This month has been the big gross motor skills month. She learned to stand on her own for 10 seconds, pull to stand, transition to stand using a small object (almost from the floor too), can cruise furniture, and has started walking, up to 10' or more.
The one thing she just can't seem to master is crawling. I don't think she is going to crawl honestly. She doesn't really even try, she resorts to scooting or army crawling instead.
We still haven't mastered sleeping through the night, but she is able to sleep about 8 hrs straight before she wakes up and wants to eat. I know we need to work on this, but I have mixed feelings about it. Should she really be able to go 11 hours without eating? She sleeps a lot at night, more than other babies I know, so I cant decide if she should cry it out yet. (I wrote this before she slept through the night, so now I am revising and thinking maybe its time for cry it out since we know she can make it 11 hrs).
Her fine motor skills are improving, she is a master at self feeding, bottle feeding, cup drinking with a spout and is starting to want to use utensils although it's mostly just to play with her food. She can pinch and pick up tiny objects now. She can also point really well. I am surprised I haven't gotten a photo of that yet. She will get anything off the floor and put it in her mouth. She loves the dishwasher and taking silverware in and out of the basket.
Her speech is coming along. I thinks she says more words but even mama is not consistent. She tries to copy you and babbles up a storm. I feel like this kid is always talking. She has quite a variety of noises and can even try to make a kiss sound by closing her lips (no real pucker), I have a video coming soon.
This month also has negatives, like going back to work full time and Callie not wanting to nap during the day. Leaving her in her crib has worked well for me at home as she eventually will go to sleep, but she doesn't want to miss out on the fun at Grandma's and has a harder time napping there. We got her a sound machine just like at home and that seems to help. I am also going to try bringing her bear over there to sleep with her as she likes to cuddle him
Oh also mommy attachment is in full effect. She is attached at the hip to me. She cries when I walk away even if I leave her with Juan sometimes. She doesn't want me to leave her side. I have to be paying attention to her at all times. If I am in the kitchen she comes and finds me, complaining and whining the whole way.
I can't believe we are nearing the 1 year mark. Time sure does fly. The last 2 months have seemed to go by the fastest. I think that is because I am getting more sleep and I have a happier baby. It is much more enjoyable to play and have fun now that Callie is feeling better.
Here are the best photos I got of her this week. She really does not leave the month sticker on now, so it's becoming impossible to get a good shot with her and the sticker. I think the one where she is standing and holding the sticker in her hand really captures her right now :)

Quack quack goes the duck

Callie really likes all the duck songs and toys we have but she had never seen a real duck until today. It was so warm yesterday we were planning to go to the beach today but then it was 20 degrees cooler and too cold for the beach. So what should be do on a cool but sunny day? Go find some ducks!
There is a man made lake nearby that has a lot of ducks. Technically it is part of a housing community and its for residents only but I have been there before and no one really monitors it. So we set out to see some ducks. There were all kinds of different ducks, mallards, white ones, black ones, one with a poof on top of his head, and even some seagulls.
Callie loved watching the ducks. She wanted to touch them and wanted to get in the lake with the ducks. She especially liked when they would quack and fight over the bread. She would squeal with delight.
Here are some photos of her at the pond. What a doll. I think we found a new free activity to keep us busy. Now we need to find a petting zoo or a farm that would be even better than ducks! Too bad it's not like CT where we just stopped at the neighbors and fed the horses, cows, sheep, etc.

Chopsticks

We took Callie out for lunch today at Pei Wei and let her play with the chopsticks. She really liked playing with them like drum sticks on the table. I also fed her some of her fruit with the chopsticks and she thought that was neat. Here are some photos of her with her chopsticks.
Also she had bath/swim time on the deck in her bathtub in the afternoon because it was really warm today, 80 degrees at least. She loves that. I can't wait to get her a little pool that she can play in this summer, she will love it!
Tonight Callie is staying home with Jorge and Juan and I are going out to watch a movie. This is the first time we will have left her home at night here. She usually spends e night with grandma and grandpa. She usually doesn't wake up until early morning so hopefully she will never even notice we were gone....

Cupboard trouble

Callie finds all the cupboards she can opens and explores and makes a big mess. She discovered the hutch in the dining room and opens all the doors and drawers. I think it's time for latches before she breaks all my dishes! Notice she is still in her key obsession phase....

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from Miss Callie! We had a miniphoto shoot at home Monday to get a good photo for a gift for daddy. Here are some of the best ones. I wanted to get a photo of her standing by herself but she was not cooperating. It's either stand but not look at the camera or look at the camera not standing, lol. I make the craziest noises trying to get her to look at me but she is just immune to my craziness. She woke up early today. She must have been excited to give her photo gifts to her daddy ;)