First steps!

I had a feeling it would be soon, but not only a couple of hours after I posted ... Piper took her first steps today! We were at a play date with our friends Scotty and Eliza, and Piper stood up, took three steps, and then plopped down. Then she took a couple more steps in our kitchen when I was making dinner. So exciting!!! Bring on the walking!

1-year visit stats!

Yesterday Piper had her one year well visit so we have her latest stats! Yes, she has grown a ton ...

Height: 31 inches - 92 percentile
Weight: 24 pounds, 3.5 ounces - 90 percentile
Head circumference - 18 inches - 60 percentile

I thought she had actually slimmed down a bunch with all of the stretching out that she has done, but the numbers don't lie. She's still a very well-proportioned big lady :-)

She also has a new trick! I think she felt like she had to step it up a bit because her cousins came to visit last week, and Ravel took her first steps while she was here. Piper, feeling behind her younger cousin, decided that it was about time that she started standing up in the middle of the room (without pulling up on anything). I wish I could put into words the pride that's in the smile on her face when she stands up like a big girl, but I don't think I can. It is hilarious and makes me proud all at once! Next step will likely be steps, and likely soon. Yesterday, she shifted her weight to one foot and picked up the other, but then promptly sat down hard on her fanny. I think we're about the enter the stage when she's covered with bruises all the time from her learning bumps, so if you see us and are concerned, I swear we don't beat our child.

Back to the cousins visit! It was great, and so much fun to see how they've all grown. Like the last visit, we were reminded that it's nearly impossible to get a picture of the three of them smiling. In fact, we were completely unsuccessful, but they are all sitting on the same step and you can see their faces so that's as good as we're going to get this trip. Maybe next time!

Even cuter though was Piper showing Ravel love before our photo shoot, with a big kiss and a hug for her cousin ...

We swam in the pool a bunch, went boating and worked around three different nap schedules. Here are a couple more pics of the kids on the boat.


I swear there were smiles, although I seem to have missed all of them!

Last quick update for this post ... Piper seems to have become a napper! She still takes her one snooze a day, but it has begun to stretch out to where it's consistently more than an hour. It's amazing what I can get done in that time, and also amazing how much better her afternoon is after a good snooze. I LOVE it.

Okay one more update, which Reid reminded me of after my last post. One of the cutest things she does right now is play the "Hello" game with Reid. She says, "Hi Dad" or "Hi Daddy"; he answers, "Hi Piper". And it goes back and forth many many many times. I know it's a highlight of his day - and seeing the smiles on both of their faces is certainly a highlight of mine.

Piper turns ONE!!

Technically Piper turned one yesterday, but it was such a terrible day that I simply couldn't post. Luckily, her birthday party on Sunday was a lot of fun :-) Although that didn't start off very well either ...

Rewind to Sunday, 4th of July, and the day of Piper's big party. Piper awoke at 5:45 with a fever of 102.1. Her first real fever and quite a time for it! After a dose of ibuprofen, I called the pediatrician's emergency line and was relieved to find out that the doc on call was Piper's regular pediatrician. I spoke with her, and she said that as long as Piper's fever came down, we could party on. Luckily, the fever came down and the show went on. Here she is at about 7:30 ... getting amped up for the afternoon with her Elvis face.
I will say that Piper wasn't in a great mood all day, but she put her best foot forward for coming down with a nasty virus. There were few smiles, and she didn't do nearly as much damage to the cake as I thought she was going to, but there were also no tears so no complaints from this end. Overall, it was great to see family and friends and celebrate such a huge milestone in Piper's life! Here are some cake pics ...

Actually Piper's favorite part of the day (I think it's her favorite part of every day), preceded cake - pool time! Here she is with her cousin Ellen, stealing Ellen's beer. We had to remind her that she was ONE, not 21 ... and then she also loved being a big girl on her own float. So cute!


And let me tell you, I am so thankful for our pool! It has been hotter then hot and disgustingly humid all week and our pool time is the highlight of both our days. Especially yesterday when Piper was totally out of sorts. She started off yesterday at 3:30 am coughing and crying. The only place she would sleep was on me, so from then until almost 7, she would sleep for a bit at a time, in between coughs, while I lay in our guest bed with her, trying to will myself to sleep. I wasn't super successful, which made the rest of the day for both of us a challenge! We went to the doctor's first thing in the morning and she was diagnosed with croup, which is apparently going around right now. The rest of the day she was in a terrible mood (as was I) and had her worst day of behavior ever. She bit me many many many times throughout the day ... basically threw tantrums all day since she only wanted things that she couldn't play with (my sunglasses, etc). Man it was a tough day and I was so depressed at the end as I felt like I spent her entire first birthday either trying to soothe her (unsuccessfully) or disciplining her. Not what I had envisioned, but another time when I am reminded that you just have to be flexible in life, especially with kids! She was exhausted and went to bed at 6. Reid and I went to bed at 7:30, both with sore throats and feeling terrible. Quite a day indeed, but today was better (for Piper and I, not for Reid though - boo) and hopefully tomorrow will be even better! I'm excited for her to kick this virus so we can see our friends again and have some fun.

Looking back over the year, so much has changed, in such crazy ways. And even though yesterday was tough, she is incredible. There have been many challenges, especially the sleepless nights for the first few months, but I would do them all over again many times over to have the amazing and simply FUN daughter that we have. Every day she cracks me up. Either with a giggle, a mischievous smile, diving into the pool, or any of her other little quarks. I'm proud to have her as our daughter and am excited to see what this year brings. Happy birthday, Piper!! We love you :-)

Big muscles

My friend Rhonda always rewards the kiddos trying to walk by saying "look at your big muscles ____!" and I love it. I now say it ALL the time, as Piper is getting closer and closer to taking her first big steps. Today we were at the library and she was a champ, standing up on her own and listening to the stories. Beyond that, nada yet, but she pushes her lion around everywhere (porch, driveway, lawn) with what I would describe as gusto. Maybe her birthday present to herself will be using her big muscles!!

I can't believe she's going to be ONE in six days. The fact that this huge milestone will soon be upon us leaves me both excited and flabbergasted. A year! 365 days! Insane, but I'm so happy to celebrate with her too :-)

It's been a month since I've posted and Piper has just been growing and learning like crazy. She said "snack" today when I gave her a snack cup this morning and I think she has a molar coming in on the top left. She crosses her feet almost all the time (whether she's sitting in her highchair, laying down drinking her bottle, in her stroller, sitting Indian style on the floor, etc) and her legs have stretched out like crazy. We are loving our play dates and the babies are almost playing with each other - which sometimes means pushing each other over or pulling hair, but they're all definitely way more aware of each other. All in all, we are having SO much fun, and I can't believe I'm even going to write this, but Piper is almost making parenting seem easy because we are having so much fun. We're swimming almost every day, she's playing her sandbox and going down her slide. She goes and goes all day, but you can just tell that she's loving every minute of it - and if she is, then how can I not? I thought I would miss work more than I do ... there are days when I miss the rush of a deadline, or the thrill of landing a story in a big pub, but I can't imagine doing anything else other than what I'm doing right now. I've had to readjust my ideas of what's rewarding and what an accomplishment is, but almost a year in, I think I'm getting it and I love it.

And now that I've said that, Piper will go through some huge changes and throw everything for a loop. We shall see!!

Shy pie

I was in the car yesterday with my dad and Reid and my dad says, "I wonder if the little girl used her swing today." Reid said, "You know, Bert, you're right. She's a little girl, not a baby anymore."

Insert sad face here.
Well, kind of. I mean, look at that face! At almost 11 months, she is definitely way more of a little kid than a baby, but at the same time, she's so much fun now and seems to be enjoying life so much that I'm more excited than sad to see her grow and learn. Bye bye baby!

We spent this memorial day weekend in Middlebury (that's Lake Dunmore in the background - pic from this morning) and Piper was nothing but charming. Her latest is that she acts shy (or is it coy?) when she sees and interacts with people. She smiles, then puts her head down very quickly as if to hide. It may get old at some point, but it's absolutely adorable for now. And she spent the weekend trying to say "dog", which will be her first word outside of Dada, Mama and Nana. She got close, but the cutest part was that every time she tried, it was in a very excited tone. And she is dying to walk! This weekend she was "crawling" on her hands and feet (kind of like a monkey), looking awkward and taking a few tumbles. She cruises on everything, loves to walk with us, and I don't think it's going to be too much longer before we have a biped on our hands. Some people have warned me that I'll wish I could shove her back in (I was literally told this by a neighbor) once she starts to really go, but I'm pumped for it! I can't wait to see the pride on her face and I think it'll make playing with her even more fun. Maybe I'll eat my words, but for now, I can't wait.

One last note, Piper loves blackberries ...

Independent woman

I just put Piper down, after lowering her crib to the lowest setting because Little Miss is trying to pull herself up on everything now. In the bathtub, in her pack and play, in her crib, on the furniture, me, everything. Probably the best part about the pulling up is the look of pride on her face when she's successful. Priceless. Probably the worst part is her not feeling comfortable getting herself back down, which is why we found her screaming her head off at 3 am last night standing up in her crib. Hope she figures that part out soon!


Pulling herself up is cool and all, but my favorite new skill is hugging. She gives the BEST hugs - she squeezes super hard with the biggest smile on her face! And today there were lots of hugs and kisses combos. The weather may have sucked today - cold and rainy - and Piper may have been fussy for most of it due to the middle of the night play session she had, but honestly big squeezes and super sloppy kisses made up for all of that :-)

And while you can't see them in the picture above, Piper went from two to seven teeth during the week after I blogged last. Needless to say, it wasn't my favorite week of all of time, but I guess better to just bang them all out at once! She now has all four top front teeth and her left lateral incisor, which means she's able to take serious bites out of both food and non-food items. I found this out the hard way when I gave her my apple core last Friday to chew on when we were at a play date (which I've done a ton of times before with no issue ...). She bit the whole top of the core off. Luckily Reid was watching her more closely than I and we fished it out right away, but no more cores for Piper! Instead, it'll be bring on the bbq. Mmmmm ... ribs ...

She's also way into the water now - both in the pool and in the bath tub. She absolutely loves it! And while this definitely gets me psyched up for summer - we will definitely be swimming together every day that it's nice - it also freaks me out with the pool in the backyard. We're going to have to be SO careful ... and she's going to have to learn that she only goes in with us. But for now, I'm going to enjoy the huge smiles on her face as she dives into the pool at me or Reid and kicks and splashes all over the place. She doesn't usually rock the bikini, but her friend (and supposed future boyfriend according to his parents) Thomas was visiting so she decided to work it a bit. Check out that belly. Freaking awesome.
You can probably tell by the look on her face that she has quite the personality. She's already a bit of a drama queen and I predict will throw some huge tantrums in her day, but what's coming out the most right now is her independence. Standing up is part of that, but the other big deal is what she's eating. It is such a bear to feed her baby food now. She just wants to feed herself. Some days I worry that this means she's not getting everything she should be eating, but the fact is she's still growing so I can't worry too much about it. And this means some days she eats a lot (like last night's pasta with pesto, grilled chicken, roasted tomatoes with peas dinner), and other days, she barely eats (like today's lunch out at Rock Hill with Scotty and Eliza). It used to stress me out, but now I just go with it. If she's hungry, she'll eat, and I better just have lots of finger foods ready for her!

9 months!

While Piper turned 9 months last Tuesday, she didn't have her checkup until today ... so here are the latest stats!

Height: 28.5 inches - 85 percentile
Weight: 21 pounds, 12.5 ounces - 90 percentile
Head circumference - 17.5 inches - 50 percentile

I did have a friend ask today if they measured her thighs to see where those stood - I'm pretty sure those would be off the charts.

And honestly I can't believe how much she's changed since my last post. She's sitting up from laying down on her own (she actually did this for the first time the day of my last post and I just spaced it), and now she's doing it very gracefully and super often. It's very cute :-) She's also progressed from army crawling to real crawling, as of yesterday in fact! She still relies mostly on the army crawl/rolling combo for most of her mobility, but the fact that she's doing more than rocking now is pretty huge. And she waves and claps (I guess she was doing both of these before last time - sorry, Piper, I'm not doing a great job of chronicling everything!). She also says Nana and Mama (Nana before Mama ... grr), and Hi sometimes when she waves. She's a finger food pro at this point, with any kind of pasta being her favorite. Today, for example, she ate a huge portion of spinach and cheese ravioli at lunch. She LOVES to eat - a girl after my own heart.

And speaking of eating, there's also been a big change in terms of nursing - Piper weaned herself! A couple of days ago, she started biting when she was nursing (OUCH - yes, it was painful and crappy for me), and when I scolded her for it, she would dissolve into tears, but then do it again. So we've moved onto all bottles and she's super happy about it. I think a lot of it is that it's WAY faster, so she can get back to being busy sooner, and it's immediate gratification for her effort. As our pediatrician explained today, she now lacks the patience to nurse, which is totally normal (she said most kids will self-wean between 9 and 12 months), and would rather be onto bigger and better things. Even though we had our challenges with nursing,I was bummed about her weaning at first. I'd set a goal for myself of a year of breast milk, and with her onto just bottles now, I don't think we'll make it. I can't pump the amount of milk she drinks each day and this bummed me out a bit - after all, I am super goal oriented. But now I've come around and I feel good about it. After all, Piper is happy! We don't have to go through any sort of weaning drama and she's happy and healthy. Perfect. I bought my first can of formula today and we're going to try a bottle of that tomorrow. I'm going to keep pumping twice a day for now, but at some point, she's going to be on all formula before 12 months comes and that's A-okay.

So anyway, LOTS of changes are happening around here. I guess that's par for the course with an infant this age, but going through it all for the first time is unbelievable. It really is incredible!

Oh, and according to our pediatrician, she's cutting an entire mouthful of teeth right now. She's had two pop through in the last five days (upper right front and upper left lateral incisor) and has a LOT more in the works. Luckily, these teeth (knock on wood) have been way easier than the bottom two. She had one fussy day, but has continued to sleep through the night, and for the most part, be happy. She just rocks. I honestly can't get over it, or get enough of her :-)