A letter to my tiniest love...

My darling Sophi,

Today is February 3rd, 2012 and in just a couple of hours (1:15am) you will officially be a one year old. Wow. My stomach turns to knots and my heart aches a little just thinking about it. This has been the hardest year of mommy's life but yet, it has been the best and the most rewarding. I love you more than I ever thought I could love. You are my moon and my stars, baby. When mommy was pregnant with you, I knew that what was coming would be a challenge. What I didn't expect was you. You are me. My mini-me. You are stubborn and are all attitude but you are so silly, too. I know that I've said it before, baby, but you are my greatest accomplishment. My sun rises and sets with you (sometimes quite literally). When you smile at me, it doesn't matter how bad my day has been or what else is going on in my world, when I see your smile my world stops and all I see is you. Baby, you amaze me. You make mommy feel things that she never knew she could feel and I am so thankful for that!

As of today, you are crawling all over the place, you are climbing the stairs at lightning speed (with mommy behind you, of course), you will walk holding onto the furniture, our hands, or your walk along toys but you have not started walking on your own just yet, you have four beautiful teeth (top and bottom fronts) with at least two more coming very soon, when you hear music that you like, you start clapping and flailing your arms about (you LOVE Family Feud!), you clap and wave and blow kisses to everyone and everything unless asked to do so (you do not like to act on cue), you refuse to say "mama" anymore, even though I know that you can say it. When I try to get you to say "mama" you very prominently look right at me and say "DA DA DA". Silly girl, you keep me on my toes! You are still nursing at least 3 times a day and sometimes more if you are having a rough day. You are very attached to mama in this aspect and even though I know that it's time, it's going to be very difficult weaning you off.

You are quite small, still. At one year old, you are still wearing mostly 6 month onsies, 9 month bottoms due to the big booty your cloth diapers give you (it's too cute!), mostly 6 month tops but you still pull off some of your 3/6 tops, and you are just now starting to outgrow your 6 month jammies but the 9 months are so big that you can almost crawl right out of them. Your daddy and I had to take you to the doctor recently when you caught a little cold and you weighed in at a whopping 17 pounds. Our little lady! Your 12 month check up is on Monday and I'm looking forward to seeing how tall you are now.

So, my tiniest love, even though I'm a little sad about what day tomorrow is, I know that we have such an amazing future and that not only will I get to teach you about life, but you will teach me about life and about who I am and who I am destined to be. This next year will be our greatest adventure and I can't wait to take the adventure with you and your wonderful daddy! I'm going to sign off now, darling. It's 11:13pm and you will surely be up early in the morning so mommy needs her rest. Big day tomorrow!

I love you,
Your Mommy (a.k.a. your biggest fan)
XoXo

P.S. Here are some of my favorite Sophi moments from the past year:

Will you help our Monkey win her first award?

One morning, earlier this month, I was playing on the living room floor with the Monkey, listening to the news in the background, and trying to caffeinate myself out of a haze when I heard something about the "America's Most Photogenic Baby" contest. "What is this?", I thought...so I decided to look into it. Turns out that every year, there is a national photo contest to find America's most photogenic baby! The best thing about this contest (and the main reason that I entered Sophi) is that it was created to benefit The Children's Miracle Network for Shands Jacksonville and Wolfson Children's Hospital. I've always had a heart for giving but when it comes down to children, especially since becoming a mother, I'm all in.

So on the day of the contest, I bought Sophi a dress, made a matching hair bow, and we were off to have some pictures taken. At the check-in, we were informed that I could enter her in up to 4 categories (Beautiful, Comical, Fashionable, & Precious). The photographer was so great with Sophi. At first, she just sat there staring at his flash but he was able to finally get her comfortable enough to move (that and I had her chasing my keys around). All in all, I think he took 50-something pictures and then it was time for me to pick how many pictures and what categories to enter her into. While I could have entered them all (of course, I am her biggest fan!), I picked two pictures and entered her into the most beautiful and the most precious. Which ones did I enter, you ask? Here they are:

Most Beautiful

Most Precious

Gorgeous, right? Ok so anyway, down to the part where I ask for your help! The judging goes like this: For each category there is a judge's vote. These judges are from various talent agencies around Jacksonville and they will pick the winner in each category. The winner gets title of Jacksonville's Most Beautiful or Precious or whatever baby and then gets to move on and try for America's Most Beautiful. There is also a voter's choice award. This is where you guys come in to play. Sophi needs your votes!! Each vote is a donation to The Children's Miracle Network in the amount of $.50. That's it! Just 50 cents! You can "vote" as many times as you'd like. Now I am not one to EVER ask for money. As a matter of fact, I have been sitting on this since early January because I hate asking. But the fact is, it's for a REALLY good cause. So here's what I want to do: I am going to add all of the links to the contest below and also give you all my paypal address. If any of you feel like helping our little Monkey win the voter's choice award, that's great! If not, it's no big deal. We appreciate your love and support and know that times are tough for a lot of us right now. If you do decide to help, we will need your donations no later than this Sunday (Feb. 5th). The money has to be turned in by the 11th and it will take a few days to trasfer funds from paypal to our bank account. She's waking up from her not-so-nap (a whopping 25 minutes) so I need to jump off but if you have any questions, Facebook me OR send an e-mail. My e-mail is the same as my paypal address. Thank you all SO much!


Links:
America's Most Photogenic Baby Contest
About Children's Miracle Network
Sponsorship Form
PayPal address: kammi.killeen@gmail.com

Tantrums

Lately, Sophi has been throwing a lot of temper tantrums. This is a concern for me, I think, because of her age. Is it typical for an 11 month old baby to have at least 4 tantrums a day where she will literally throw herself onto the ground, lock her entire body up, arch her back and start screaming like she's possessed? She does it any time I try to remove her from doing something that she isn't supposed to be doing or any time I dare to try and change her diaper or get her dressed. I'm at a total loss. One day last week, I tried to remove her from climbing up under a console table in our living room. I went to pick her up and as soon as I did, she pitched herself backwards in a fit and slammed her head into the metal foot of the table. Scared. The. Crap. Out of me. I have no idea what to do about these tantrums. I refuse to spank at this age. I firmly believe that a child does not understand discipline until around age 2. I've heard to just ignore her but how do I ignore her when she throws the fit while I'm holding her? I try "loving her through them" by holding her and trying to calm her down but the longer I do this, the more tantrums she seems to throw. I talked with Mitch about it last night and I think we are going to try to ignore them as best as we can by just not reacting to them. Hopefully this strategy works. If her tantrums are this bad now, what will they be like a year from now?? I told my mom that I totally blame her for this. The whole "one day you'll have one that's twice as bad as you" curse stuck for me! ;)

Starting Back Simple

When Sophi was a newborn, she would sleep on me all of the time. I used to get so much joy from watching her while she would sleep. The way her legs and arms would twitch ever so slightly, the way her eye lids softly flutter or her lips perch like she was nursing away. I always wondered what exactly she was dreaming, if she was actually dreaming. It has been (what seems like) forever since I've watched her sleep like that. Probably 7 or so months. She will be a year old in just a few weeks and today she gave me a gift greater than I could have wished for, something that I had no idea how much I missed. Today, my baby fell asleep in my arms and I got to watch all of her little infant sleep movements, possibly for the last time. I got to hold her for nearly an hour and even though my arm was aching and my back was slightly uncomfortable, I was so happy just being there with my girl. It made me realize that maybe I need to breathe in every single one of the moments between now and February 4th because before I know it, my baby will be a one year old. I am so sad but so happy at the same time. Even though sometimes she makes me feel like I'm going to lose my mind, I marvel in her accomplishments and I'm deeply moved by the quiet moments that we will share. She is endlessly fascinating. She is my greatest love. My greatest accomplishment. My angel.

Wordless Wednesday

Sometimes life just happens

Isn't it funny how I get so motivated about doing this thing again and then my writer's block comes flying back in and I disappear for a month? Well, what can I say? I'm a busy mom to a very demanding child and I think it's safe to say that if the option is sitting here with a cup of coffee and blogging about this life that I love or making my baby smile, she wins every time. :) It's been about a month since I've been here(I think. I'm too lazy to check). I promise I'll try to do better. :)

My, how she's grown!
A week from tomorrow, Sophi will be 8 months old. I can't believe how fast time is moving now and I just want it to slow down. I love to look at all of the pictures that we take of her (which is a lot...about 500ish a month) and see how much she changes even just over the period of a month. See?

Taken Sept 4th (7 month b-day):


Taken last night:


Crazy, right? She is pretty much sleeping through the night now (Thank You JESUS!). This has been so great for me. The waking up every two hours at night to nurse and go back to sleep thing was killing me. Now, she goes down about 7:30 and sleeps until 5:00, wakes up to eat and then back down until between 7:00-8:00. This is awesome. I'm no doctor but I'm guessing that this is due to the fact that she has finally doubled her birth weight and is eating 3 meals a day with a snack or two in between. Plus, we play hard during the day. She is trying so hard to get mobile so we do a lot of encouraging her to try and crawl, which usually results in a belly flop and a swimming motion or her pushing herself backwards and then getting mad that she can't go forward to me. We also do a lot of holding her hands and letting her walk. She's really learning how to get those knees up and move her feet as long as we are there to guide her top half but she hasn't quite figured out how to trail the furniture yet. I'm sure it won't be long. We were given her cousin's old (to him) dinosaur ride/walk toy and the Monkey loves that thing! It's mane (what is this really called for dinos? Does it really matter?) lights up and it sings little tunes. She loves to be pushed around on it, to try and pull up on it or even just to sit and play with it. See?


My next mission is to find a park that has baby swings. If the sun ever decides to come back out here in Jacksonville, I think that the Monkey would really enjoy swinging and sliding and other fun park stuff. The weather has been pretty craptastic here lately, though so we haven't hit the swings yet. Maybe it will clear up one day this week. Also, why are there not see-saws anymore?? For whatever reason, I want the Monkey to experience one of those so bad! I think she would have so much fun on one. I get the safety risk, I do, but it's not like I would throw her on one side all by herself and then go flinging her around. I just have this awesome picture in my head of Daddy on one side and Mommy on the other and Sophi with one or the other of us and having a see-saw good time!! I told Mitch that since our new house comes with a nice workshop, there is no excuse. We want a see-saw darn it!

I wish I could say that we've had more (away from home) adventures to tell about but things have been pretty tight around here lately with Mitch's mother living with us and trying to get closed on our new home. I know that it will pay off in the end and really, I think Sophi likes being here at home and I look so forward to being in our new home and being able to swing on the back porch and play in the sandbox with her. At the new house, I'll feel more confident about taking her out and walking around the neighborhood. Maybe we can even get a wagon! I would like to take her to the zoo again soon, though. We went when she was barely 5 months old and she hardly left her stroller. She is much more curious now though and I'm sure will really be into it. I need to rally up some of my girlfriends with kids and plan a get together or something.

Mommy Stuff
I'm not sure if I blogged about this or not but at the Monkey's 6 month check up, I talked to her pedi about the fact that I was feeling pretty anti-climactic about life again. I was nervous that my PPD was creeping back in. It was different this time, though. Instead of having negative feelings about Sophi, I was really downing on myself. I felt like I was so far away from who I actually am. I miss working out and not having to worry about how many calories I get every day and going to get a haircut or a manicure whenever I want. I felt like a frumpy mom. I didn't feel pretty at all and I felt completely undesirable. [Let me say here that these feelings were all mine. Mitch is the most amazing man ever and makes it very well known every single day how beautiful and sexy he thinks I am and that he (very much) desires me.] Anyway, the doc wrote me another prescription for Zoloft and scheduled me an appointment to see the nutritionist on base to see if I could set up a plan with them that would allow me to work out again and try to rebuild my confidence. The Zoloft helped. My appointment with the nutritionist on base was a couple of weeks later. I was nervous going in but it turns out that there was nothing to be nervous about. The woman I met with was also a nursing mother and completely understood my concerns about working out and decreasing milk supply. After talking, she told me that it would be best if I did not start working out again until after I was done breast feeding because my supply is already so low that she wouldn't want me to risk it lowering anymore. Neither would I. So, my work outs now consist of pushing the Monkey around on her dinosaur or rolling around on the floor with her or going for a walk. I'm good with that. If it means that I get to breast feed my child until 12 months, I'm totally good with that. Buying some clothes that actually fit helped, too. ;)

Home Stuff
I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WE CLOSE ON OUR FIRST HOME IN A WEEK AND A HALF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ....and we haven't even started packing yet. Oops!! Truth is, our lease isn't up in this house until the end of October so realistically, we have a little over a month to move. We do want to be living in our home within a week of closing, though. So today, I will (hopefully) be able to get some packing done so that we can get things moving along. Everything is going great with the house. The appraisal came back just over what we are paying for the house, the general inspection repairs are completed and the WDO repairs are in progress. Once we get a clean WDO report, we will be ready to close. I still can't believe that we are actually going to be home owners! We have been dreaming of this day for years and it's finally almost here! Just in time for the holidays!

Closing with some more Monkey business

Writing earlier about how much the Monkey has grown in just a few weeks made me remember that I wanted to post some more then and now pictures that I have of her. I can't believe how much she has grown/changed. She is still my little beauty and I love her more and more every second of every day!

5 months old:


7 months old:


What a difference just two months makes!!! Here are my favorites though:

9 days old:


7 months old (same pants, same chair):



And just for comedy sake
If you know our Monkey, you know that she is not always the easiest baby in the world to get along with. She has a serious attitude and a bad temper. She gets it right, though. Mommy and Daddy passed along equal parts of both. When the Monkey isn't getting what she wants, a tantrum ensues. So a couple of days ago, Mitch brought home something to help with the tantrums. Soundproof headsets from work. The kind that the guys wear out on the flight line. They're awesome. And completely hilarious. Here is Monkey trying them out:


And here is Daddy giving them a test run during a tantrum at dinner time. Clearly they worked well. Notice the smile on Mitch's face:


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First Foods Friday....er....Saturday.

Ok, so I didn't get my Friday entry actually entered on Friday. I know that SO many of you look forward to watching my kid with food smeared all over her face! ;) So anyway, here it comes....along with some other things, too.

The next food on our "try" list was decided by Mitch. He wanted the Monkey to eat some zucchini. So, zucchini is what the Monkey had. Did she like it? Not in particular. It was tough getting that first meal of only zucchini in her. We learned quick that in order to make zucchini meal time fun, it had to be mixed with some most awesome sweet potatoes. After we started mixing them, those things went down without a problem! I don't know that we'll be doing much zucchini for a while.


That same night, we sauteed up some green beans for ourselves and I thought we would hand one to the Monkey to try, since she's been doing so great at feeding herself the Mum Mums every night after dinner. This did not go so well. She tried to stick the green bean too far back into her mouth and gagged a little, I freaked out and took the green bean and had a mini heart attack. She was fine, of course, and looked at me like I was crazy. Anyway, here is Monkey with her green bean for the short time that she had it:


Our next food up is something that I have been excited about since the day that I made it. Butternut squash. I just knew that the Monkey would love it. And she absolutely did! She was practically jumping over her tray to get to the bowl and another bite. She bangs on her tray and opens her mouth up so wide, that you can see the intensity all over her face. It's beyond cute! In the Sunday paper this week, I saw that Babies R Us has Earth's Best Organic baby food on sale 20 jars for $10. This is a seriously good deal for that food so I decided to go ahead and grab some jars of stuff that I normally would not make or would not think of mixing. One of the jars that I got was apples and butternut squash. I figured that since we have already tried apples, it would be safe. So we tried it, and the Monkey reeeeeaaaally loved it! So that's what we do now. One apple cube and one b.n. squash cube and we have one happy Monkey!


We took the Monkey to the Farmer's Market today. It was her first trip to such a big market! One of the vendors in the front of the market gave me a peach to try. I decided to give the Monkey a taste. She loved it. She loved it so much that I ended up, little by little, removing the skin off of almost the entire peach so that she could eat it. She would just chomp away on the sweet, juicy peach with her little gums and she was in peachy heaven! That baby was such a mess afterward, sticky and covered in fruit but man, was she happy!! We, undoubtedly, bought more peaches to bring home with us. I think I may just peel them and slice them for her to enjoy as finger foods since she did so well today. It was so much fun to watch her discover her first peach!


In other news...
Daddy took the Monkey outside for some air yesterday when she got a little cranky. She really enjoys being outside and I honestly, don't get her out often enough. Anyway, I went out a few minutes later to see what they were up to and here is what I saw:


Yep. Daddy had that Monkey propped up on his bike. At first I was like "omg whatareyoudoinggetheroffofthatthiiiiiiiing!" But then I saw what I good time she was having and quite frankly, how stinking cute she looked and I got over it....and took more pictures. :) Here are a couple of my two favorite people in the world:



Monkey and the bath tub saga
So if you recall, a couple of posts ago I was bragging about how the Monkey has moved over to the big girl tub and is having a blast and all that. Well, that has now changed. After only about a week and a half of being in the big tub, she has decided that she does not like it. In fact, our child who has always loved her bath time so much, started screeching as soon as we put her in the tub and was slamming her hands into the side of the tub until we took her out. Finally after a couple of nights of this behavior, we decided to try her back in her little tub in the sink. That Monkey could not be happier. She is a very strange child. I don't know what it was that made her not want the big tub anymore. Maybe the fact that she couldn't see us at eye level or, for that matter, see anything but the walls of the tub, or if it was something else. Either way, our little Monkey is content in her little tub for now so that is where we will keep her until she is too big for it or she shows signs of wanting to switch back over. Since moving back over to the sink, she has developed an obsession with the knob at the end of the faucet. She tries to eat it the entire time she's getting her bath. It's funny. Here are some pictures:



That's about it for now! Mitch has a 4 day weekend this and we are going to be celebrating the Monkey's first Labor Day with my family on Monday so look forward to more pictures soon of that day!