19 months old

In contrast to last week's post, when I somehow barely had any photos of Willow, this post is all Willow. She's had a great couple weeks and has been eating really well. She was weighed again on Wednesday, and gained 3 ounces; she's now 18 pounds 3 ounces. Here's a little update on what else Willow has been up to:

Willow is getting more and more verbal. She definitely understands most of what is said to her, and her own vocabulary grows every day, thanks mostly to Linda. She says Linda's name now, pronouncing it "ya-ya". When she hears Linda's car pull up in the morning, she says "ya-ya" and looks towards the window. She loves her ya-ya. Other new words she says a lot are paper, eye, cheese, banana, spoon, bath, and all done. She still loves to sing and seems to always have a tune running through her head - it comes out when she's playing, or distracted; she'll rarely sing if you ask her to though. In addition to twinkle twinkle and Frere Jacques, she also sings B-I-N-G-O and three blind mice. She sings baa baa black sheep too, but it's the same tune as twinkle twinkle...though you can differentiate the words.

She's had two weeks now of her Music Together classes. They're pretty fun. She doesn't seem to notice or care much about the music so far though; she's too interested in watching the other kids. The first class we all had sticky name tags and that was her main goal of the night: to get the name tags off of everyone's shirt. The class is mostly older (3-4 years) boys; there is a 13-month old girl and a tiny baby boy who comes with his older brother. I think this class will be good. She doesn't get to see other kids very often. We also took Willow to a concert at the local library on a Monday night. Linda's friend Jess's band, Trees, was playing there. They are really good. Willow was mesmerized into silence for the first few songs, then she wanted to run around and wreak havoc, so we left after the first set. She was the only kid there. It was fun though; she got a lot of attention. :)

Willow still doesn't sleep all night. I guess that sounds crazy to most people and I'm a little embarrassed to admit it. I was sort of trying to night-wean her before she got sick over labor day, and we were doing pretty well. Then she got sick and all she wanted to do was nurse, plus I was so worried about her getting calories and she wouldn't eat any food, so I nursed her a lot, including at night. Now it's like we backtracked, and she is waking up 1 to 3 times a night again. It's not too bad, honestly. I barely notice or wake up most of the time. She'll stop when she wants to, I guess.

She went poop in the potty one time; it was mostly a fluke, I think. Linda caught her at the perfect moment. However, she does not like to have a wet or dirty diaper and pulls on the front or back of it to let us know it needs to be changed. I think that's a sign she'll be ready to start potty training soon.

Here is a video showing some of the tricks Linda taught her. She can also point to her hair, eye, knee and toes. I should've cut off the last bit of it...oh well.



Here are some photos from the past few weeks:

Big blue eyes:
















With Daddy after a bath:















Being silly:




















We got her this winter coat at a consignment sale. She has some growing to do...it's 18-month size.




















And finally, the new porch! It makes a great playroom, though it will be too cold in the winter. Josh and my dad did a great job on the floor.

Labor Day weekend trip to MN

Hello,

We ended our summer with a 4-day weekend trip to Duluth and Hastings. Unfortunately the trip was cursed with various misfortunes, from death to a sick baby to a skunk. Still, some fun was had.

We left work on Friday to head for Duluth. We spent the night at Sharon and Andy's, though it was a sad night because their friend had just died.

Then there was Willow. She was not being herself at all and was cranky, clingy (to Mom) and not eating much. The not eating worried us a little because of the whole failure-to-thrive thing.

Saturday morning, we got to see our friends from Jackson Hole, Mary and Amy, briefly. They were passing through on a cross-country road trip. Amy and I worked closely with each other in the good ol' JHMR human resources department..I miss it! Then we headed for Hastings. Willow was still not quite herself, but Sunday and Monday were the worst. She basically ate nothing those two whole days other than nursing. With help from Auntie Jill, FNP and three pharmacists, we diagnosed her as teething - she did have two bottom molars coming in that looked sort of painful. So we dosed her with baby tylenol and some Hyland's teething tablets. Those seemed to help a little. Sunday night she had a fever, puked, had some diarrhea, and by the afternoon on Monday we were close to bringing her to the hospital - she was limp, her eyes looked glassy and red, and I could have sworn she looked visibly skinnier. I was envisioning her wasting away until an ER trip which would end in a NG tube. I thought maybe a preemie eating aversion had manifested itself or something. Oh, and the skunking occured Sunday night - Scouty's 4th one this summer, I believe.

The good parts of the trip were seeing our friends and family - we also saw Mark and Amy Sunday night - and going to the State fair. Josh, aunt Jill, uncle Mike and I went on Saturday. It was very crowded, but we still had a great time. We saw Reggie, the biggest pig ever:















some huge pumpkins:
















and some butter sculptures.
















We ate a lot of greasy fair food:
















and rode a couple rides:
















Mike even won me a sweet stuffed monster. I wish I had taken a picture of it.



Monday night we celebrated Great-Grandma Lois's birthday.




















When we got home, I brought Willow to the doctor - on top of everything else she had a rash too. Turns out it probably wasn't teeth at all but just some sort of virus. the doctor predicted she'd be back to her regular self within a day, and she was. She's back to eating normally, thank god. She even gained a half-pound from the last time, though I can't understand how when she ate next to nothing for days. She was 18 pounds even.

The one of Willow with Lois was the only photo of Willow I had for the blog this time - I guess we weren't in the mood to take pictures with her so sad and all - so I just went up and snapped one while she naps. You can see here how her hemangioma is already almost gone. She naps in her crib on weekends.




















This weekend has been very chill. Just hanging out, getting stuff done...Josh and my dad are in the middle of remodeling our porch with paint and a hard wood floor:
















Maybe I'll have a photo of the finished product on the next post.