18 months, 13 days

That's how long it's been since Michaela joined the family. Here's some info about what our little toddler is up to these days. At her 18-month medical appointment, Michaela was declared to be a healthy little gal. She weighs 21.5 pounds (10th percentile for her age) and is 32.75 inches tall (75th percentile). She got one vaccination, but luckily doesn't have to get another one until her 2-year appointment! That will be the longest stint she will have gone without an immunization. The doctor expects Michaela's verbal development to skyrocket over the next few months and encouraged us to try to get her to say words out loud which she currently uses hand signs for (like "please," "thank you," and "more"). Words she does have in her vocabulary right now: Mama, Dada, blanket, milk, more, up (pronounced "bup"), doggie, book, bye-bye, and a very mangled attempt at banana. She understands nearly everything we say, though, and I find it incredible on a daily basis. I had to ask the pediatrician about the 3 'P's at this appointment - peanut butter? potty training? and pillow? The answer was yes to the peanut butter, since we don't have any peanut allergies in the family that we know of. As of now, Michaela doesn't seem to like peanut butter, a great disappointment to her mother. Potty training... the doctor says Michaela is still really young and just said to do all the things I have been doing - sitting her on her potty chair, both clothed and without a diaper on, and waiting for her to do her thing. And Michaela is way past the risk of SIDS now so when I find a small pillow that I like, we'll put it in her crib. Lately I've noticed she's been wadding up one of her blankets and laying her head on it. Hmm.




Using a spoon to feed herself Malt-O-Meal... a work in progress




With cousin Genevieve at Playdate PDX - a fun indoor park!



Unfortunately her 18-month check-up was bookended by ear infections. One at the end of January, and one on the mend now. It was a scary time for Adam and I as we tried to figure out why Michaela was running a fever, was so lethargic and yet cranky, and wasn't sleeping for any length of time at night. The first time I took her to the doctor, she just had fluid in her ears, but it wasn't infected, however after the course of a weekend (during which poor Abbey, Dave and Greyson were visiting) Michaela had developed a double ear infection. Conveniently she loves the pink color and bubble gum flavor of the antibiotic. Then about a week or so after her last one cleared up we awoke to her crying and running a fever in the middle of the night... again. So I gave her a day and when it didn't seem to get better, off we went to the Children's Clinic and it was confirmed - yup, an icky ear infection.  So we're 4 days into this next run of antibiotics, and she's getting close to feeling better again, for which I am very grateful. We have, however, gone through an entire bottle of children's ibuprofen.

But back to happier things... here are some other funny things Michaela's been up to lately:

-- coloring in her coloring book, just a little scribble on each page

-- closing doors (say on me while I'm in the laundry room) and then knocking on them. She also likes to close herself in a room (i.e., the bathroom) and then knock

-- she's into talking on the phone - but only fake phones. Just today she was talking into the calculator.

-- diapering her baby dolls. Actually, I do the diapering, and she does the undiapering. Multiple times per day.

-- climbing backwards down our staircase all by herself. However, it's so much more entertaining if she's also carrying one or two items in her hands.

-- dancing with her index finger pointed up to "This Little Light of Mine"

-- going down slides; the small one in the church nursery she goes down on her bottom, but the big one at the park she can go down feet first on her tummy

-- and of course... READING! We read and read and read and read and read...



Michaela, Isaiah and Lily at Lily's first birthday!!



Family Photos

At the end of the year, Adam's friend Kyle was in town with his wife to visit family, and they kindly stopped by to see us and to take some family photos. We enjoyed catching up with Kyle and Haley, and also enjoyed sharing a meal with them at Chipotle.

Is it 2011 already?

As the approximately 3 of you who read this blog may have noticed, it has been an embarrassingly long time since I last posted the doings of Team Puckett.  I'm not really sure what has happened, except that I started using naptime for something other than writing a blog post. I started out reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as cultural enrichment, and it turns out that I am really enjoying them. I only have about 100 pages left to go in the entire story, so please no one ruin it for me! So yes, naptime for Michaela has been decadent reading time for me.  Hopefully in days to come you will get to see some of the exciting things we have been up to in these cold and rainy first weeks of the year.

O Christmas Tree...

Several Saturdays ago, our family went to get a tree from a Christmas tree farm connected to one of Adam's co-workers. We are so thankful for their generosity!! Since we didn't get a tree last year, this really was Michaela's first Christmas tree outing experience. She loved it. I realized how come I love the Christmas tree cutting day so much - I experience all of the reward, and all of the hard work is done by Adam! He just smiled when I observed this - apparently he had already noticed that fact.

Posing with our selected Christmas tree - notice their matching boots!

The face of pure excitement

More excitement as it appears the tree is coming home with us!

"My first Christmas" bootie ornaments from Grammy (we received them last year, but they are unappreciated by a 4-month-old)

Ta da!

From Baby's Point of View

Now, when I say "baby" I actually mean Michaela's baby doll, who, for lack of creativity and effort on the part of her parents, is largely called "baby doll." It's 9:00 am, and where is baby doll currently spending her time? In between being carted around in the arms of her loving, if not gentle, mommy Michaela, she is tucked into the green tupperware lettuce crisper that has been in Michaela's play drawer for months. Every morning (and sometimes several times during the day) the lettuce crisper is dumped upside down to empty it of unwelcome toy contents and carried to baby doll. Baby doll is placed in (right side up, thankfully) and then carried around. This morning, however, there is an extra special touch. Baby doll has been wrapped up cozily in my kitchen dishtowel (surreptitiously stolen from the oven door where it hangs) and then placed in the crisper. Of course, by the time I finish this post, Michaela's moved on to other things and I didn't get a photo to prove it, but just enjoy the mental picture. Happy Friday, all!

Giving Thanks for Family... and Heat

A bit about Thanksgiving...


Michaela is happy to be eating her 2nd, or 3rd, bite of chocolate!!



Our little family had planned to travel up to Adam's parents for a couple of days prior to Thanksgiving. Then, be prepared, everyone-- the warnings for Arctic Storm 2010 appeared on the news! As many of us predicted, nothing too wild and woolly actually materialized, and so we continued north, where things got considerably colder and snowier. Adam's parents told us that they didn't have power, which happens a lot to them so we didn't think it through. The difficulty specific to this storm, however, was that the tree across the street had actually fallen on their power lines out front. So when we arrived for family fun times, the temperature in their house was 56 degrees. By the time the power company had taken down the tree, fixed the power lines,  and the heat kicked on (24 hours later) the house was 50 degrees. Not terrible, but enough for Adam to walk around shrouded in a blanket the whole time. I still maintain the memories will not soon be forgotten: eating dinner by candlelight, sitting talking around the fire, drinking mugs of warm hot chocolate and cider to stay cozy, playing board games by daylight, and analyzing the tree on the power lines outside.



Michaela and super-cute cousin Greyson

 We tried not to ponder what prepping Thanksgiving dinner was going to be like if we only had the gas stovetop. It was the closest I've been to camping all year, and I savored nearly every minute (the toilet seats were pretty cold).


 

 Luckily, the power came on just in time to prepare desserts for the extended family dinner. As you can see, Michaela was loving the pumpkin pie. She tried and seemed to like most everything on my plate, but I'm pretty sure she ate almost an adult-size serving of dessert. Her mother's child! We had fun with the three second cousins being together: Cousin Sally's daughter is 2 1/2, Michaela at 15.5 months, and Greyson at 4.5 months. Greyson slept through Thanksgiving dinner, as apparently we weren't exciting enough for him. He'll take it all in next year, though, I'm sure.

So very much to be thankful for. 

Happy Belated!

The week before Thanksgiving I had the pleasure of lunch with friends (and housemates) Lisa, Mindy and Julia from college. We met at Red Robin, which is a nice middle ground considering we've all moved since our days at George Fox. Pictured with Michaela is my roommate from my freshman year (11 years ago!!!). Michaela loved playing with Julia, and even loved her more after she received some bites of the birthday ice cream sundae. The cute blonde head you see is Lisa's 18-month old daughter, also loving the ice cream. 

Ah, Julia... the times we had watching boys' tennis practice from our window (maybe that was just me), staying up too late watching "chick flicks" and sleeping through alarms - speaking of alarms there was the late-night fire drill - and many other good times. I'm glad to say that we've grown and changed since then, though. Congratulations on being the first one from our group to hit the big 30! May the Lord bless this year for you!





Mindy and I posing for a "matchy-matchy" photo



Clinically speaking

This morning was Michaela's 15-month appointment with her pediatrician. It warms my heart to see that she does not yet hate the doctor's office, or remember what shots are. Both the nurse and the doctor told Michaela what a good little patient she was being, although who doesn't behave when they have two whole tongue depressors all to themselves? Our doctor is also the mother to young children and knows just how to distract them and get the job done all at the same time. My favorite part of the morning was when the doctor walked in and Michaela was sitting on Adam's lap, wearing nothing but her yellow Bum Genius diaper and her pink fleece-lined boots. They are supposed to stay undressed after being weighed to wait for the doctor, but it's difficult to keep a toddler entertained on a lap when there is ground to be explored. Hence the boots made for walking.

Now for the stats: Michaela has yet to break the 20-pound mark. She weighed in at 19 pounds, 6 ounces, still sitting at the fifth percentile for children her age. Her height has also remained the same at the 50th percentile, and she is 30.5 inches tall. Poor thing had to get three shots today, and she cried crocodile tears. Thankfully by the time we walked out of the office all that was left were traces of tears - the actual waterworks were over. A mama's heart can only take so much!

Another interesting thing is that we are going to purchase a potty chair and introduce the idea of potty training. It seems crazy to me that she is big enough for this already! For about two weeks now Michaela has been pointing to her diaper and saying diaper when she thinks it is wet or dirty and needs to be changed. She has only been wrong once, though there are plenty of times she doesn't catch. I'm sure this will prove to be an entertaining journey, to say the least.

Well, that's all for now folks. Our little Puckett has once again been officially declared healthy and on track. Sometimes it's good for me to hear that from someone with letters behind their name.

15 Months!

So, maybe I couldn't resist another month-a-versary post. 15 months seems like kind of a big deal, say, compared with 13 months. Part of me just likes to write it down so I don't forget it as time flies by. 15 months ago right now, I was engaged in something I would rather not describe in this public forum, however, suffice it to say that she was born 15 months ago, 10 minutes from now.



All ready for swim lessons!

We think Michaela is getting to be at a really fun stage right now. She is walking all over the place and carts her "baby" with her everywhere. I am struggling with whether "baby doll" really needs to be up in the high chair with Michaela, sharing her squash and cereal. Michaela firmly believes she does. She is showing an affinity for music and for words with a beat (anyone read Sandra Boynton's books?) - she dances front and back and side to side, and also likes to tap out a few notes on the piano when the mood strikes. Michaela's first participation certificate is currently posted on the refrigerator door, a neon green testament to Michaela's completion of parent/child swim lessons (which she loved!)
The last week or so I've also gotten brave enough to try the ponytail options for Michaela. The astute observer may notice that she is not the only one getting used to these hairdos. I hope to be a pro soon.


The 1st ponytail



Doubles

Michaela is a little gal who thrives on her schedule. She gets up between 7 and 7:30 usually (though on the weekends Adam and I try to get her to nap in bed a little with us) and is ready to hit the sack about 7 in the evening. Her afternoon nap lasts about 1.5 hours. She also loves to read; before-nap books, after-nap books, after-dinner reading and playing with Daddy, before-bedtime books. As I type she is handing me "Goodnight Moon" and requesting a reading. We just finished reading something of the "hello kitty" variety. I am pretty thrilled to discover our local library has a section of baby books to lend, seeing how I can nearly quote backwards and forward the books we currently own. We hope to start attending the book babies group this week, too.


Dressed up as Rudy Fernandez for Halloween. She's having fun - really.



We'll get a more "official" update out once we see the doctor on Friday this week. Until then - Cheers!

Beach Bums

Last weekend was the long-awaited, much-anticipated weekend at the beach with friends. We did a similar deal like this last summer at Sunriver, however... this year we had three children that we didn't have last time we vacationed together. Talk about a change of pace! A little more planning, a lot more packing, and more discussions of naptime were the name of the game this time around. Also... a lot more rain, and some thunder and lightning, hail, and winds gusting up to 75 miles per hour. I love storms at the beach!

Enjoy the photo gallery of our weekend. I'm sure Kalina and Travis have some more group shots, and artistic food shots, etc., so keep an eye out for their post, too!

Josh and Travis playing NBA Jam on the Wii. I'm not sure why they felt the need to stand up while playing. Adam and I beat them good a couple of times.

Tillamook Cheese Factory! Posing with Kalina, Isaiah and the cow
(and a random guy in the background?)

Checking the cow for authenticity.

Lily loving her ice cream (or rather, her mom's ice cream). She is ready, just in case any should drop.

Michaela getting one of many bites of my ice cream. She was a little demanding about her need to get the good stuff. She doesn't realize she is lucky I shared any with her at all.

Bathing buddies - Michaela's first time sharing the bath.
She had a hard time respecting Isaiah's need for personal space. In all fairness, he was the one who got to sit next to the super-cool faucet.