8 months old!

Isa is 8 months old! Whew, time is flying by and she is growing and changing tremendously quickly. In the course of the past month she has: learned to push herself to a seated position from lying down, learned how to pull herself to a stand, can crawl like a champ, can cruise around when holding on to furniture, has gotten her four top front teeth, and is signing milk and saying "mama" and "baba" (papa) unquestionably now (and just beginning to wave goodbye).

This was a rough month, losing Aunt Donna took a toll on us and Isa had to deal with a few days of her mama in tears. She gave me lots to smile about though, and always gave me hugs or laughter when the tears were flowing. It was like Aunt Donna's laughter reflecting through Isa - reminding me to experience the joy and celebrate life.

She got weighed recently and is a whopping 25 pounds and we think around 29 and a half inches long. This girl can eat! She is eating 99% breast milk at this point. Any food we give her gets squished around on her tray and hands and not much makes it into her actual mouth. She sits with us at dinner and gets tiny pieces of our food to try, but mostly she gets her sustenance from nursing. Now that she's gotten very mobile in the last few weeks, we think her weight will start to stabilize.

The weather is changing to spring here and we're looking forward to getting outside and enjoying it!

seven months old

Isa girl is seven months old! So much has happened this month that it's hard to keep track. She can get around the room pretty easily by now. She uses a variety of methods such as army crawling, taking a couple of actual crawl steps, or pivoting and rolling. She can definitely get up on all fours easily now, and she's taken to even getting into the downward dog yoga pose quite often. She can now stand on her own if we put her next to something to hold onto, but she can't quite pull herself to a stand or fully crawl just yet.

Just in the past couple of days she's been sticking her tongue in and out as well as rocking her head back and forth like a little rock and roller. There are some videos of these things if you follow the link in the upper right corner of this blog. This month she has also started to truly communicate with us! She has started to say "mom" and  has learned how to sign "milk," two of the more important parts of her life.

Her napping has also consolidated a lot in the past month. She can now stay awake for about 3 hours between naps and she almost always sleeps over an hour per nap. She takes 2-3 naps a day, down from 5 or 6 a month ago. This means we can get out and about more easily in her awake times, which is great!

Lately she's been talking a lot like Gus Gus from Cinderella -- hilarious kid! No more teeth yet, and she won't have another doctor's appointment until 9 months, but we think her weight has stabilized for the past month or so, which is a relief for us!

Enjoy these 7th month photos:

Signing baby!

Even though we're just a day away from Isa's seven month birthday post, I have to report on a small but exciting update: Isa is signing!!

Starting at her six month birthday, we starting signing "milk" and "nurse" to her. We did this about half of the time she was about to eat. We wanted to be more consistent with it, but we are new to signing and didn't remember to do it each time. Well, last night Patrick was home alone with Isa while I was at class and she started to get fussy. When he asked her with the sign if she wanted milk, she stopped fussing and signed milk back to him! When I got home, he couldn't wait to tell me the news, but I hadn't seen it for myself.

But again this morning, right as Isa and I were waking up, we came into the front room and she signed milk to me! So I turned to her, asked her if she wanted milk (again signed it back to her), and she smiled and signed it clear as day right back to me. So I gave her some milk!  Now, we are planning to add more signs to the repertoire. On a side note, she has definitely began saying mamamamaaa when I go out of the room and she wants me to come back. 

It is super exciting for us to be able to communicate with her.  She is talking to us, and we are understanding her, which is wonderful and exhilarating for all of us.

isa and mama 6 month photos

six months old!

Isa is half a year old, and she is a wonderful, beautifully big baby girl. She has mastered the art of sitting unassisted and is well on her way to learning how to crawl. She can roll across the room in an instant, so we have to keep a close eye on her. She is working each day to pull up her knees and get up on all fours. In the meantime, though, she pulls up to a stand every time we give her our hands. She loves to stand and is quite stable standing, but she can't quite pull herself to a stand yet.

She spent most of the last month of her life away from her Papa, who was in Uruguay readying the farm, and with her extended family in Chicago. She spent lots of time with Gramma Heidi and Poppy and Aunt Lindsey and Uncle Matt who gave her baths, played with her and held her. She saw her Nana, Grandpa Charley and Tia Anna, Uncie Col Col, Auntie Em and Uncle L! She met tons of babies over at Nana's house and she even experienced an extremely cold -40 degree day (from inside the house of course).

She just got her six month check up along with four shots to the legs (one of which was a flu shot). She surprised the doctor by how strong and big she was. She's in the 100th percentile for weight (22 pounds) and length (29 inches) and in the 97th percentile for head circumference. The doctor was so surprised that she couldn't even hold Isa still to check her ears, she has quite the neck strength! Since the vaccinations she's been a little more fussy and clingy to mama than normal. She is a really tough girl, so we expect her to bounce back in a couple of days.

We wake up every day excited to see what Isa will teach us next!

five months old!

Our beautiful baby is five months old already! A lot has happened in her life in the past month. She got her first two (bottom) teeth, she is rolling all over the floor, she laughs a lot, is doing mini-push-ups on the floor and loves playing with her hands and feet. She's discovered a few new sounds her mouth can make, and practices all of them until she turns red in the face!

Her Aunts Emily and Anna and Uncle Linus came to visit her and gave her lots of hugs and kisses during Thanksgiving break. She is going to have a busy fifth month of her life, as she'll be visiting Arizona to see her great grandmother Nan and her Great Uncle Kurt! Then Isa and Mama will be going to Chicago for the Christmas and New Year's holidays. She's a very well-traveled girl already!

First tooth!

Isa got her first tooth! It's the bottom left (from her perspective). We're so glad the teeth are finally cutting through, she's been suffering through a lot of teething pain in the past couple of weeks and especially in the past couple of days while her aunts (emily and anna) and uncle (linus) visited. So, we're finally seeing the fruits of her hard work and I hope the teething pain will begin to settle for her! Pictures to come when I can find a way to stick my camera into those gums :) (update: got the pic!)

In the meantime, here are some recent pics of the baby girl: