Dear Eisley...Nine Months

Dear Eisley,

This month was busy, exciting, hard, and fun! You crossed so many things off your milestone list, you are a completely different little baby. It is crazy how I can be equally excited and sad to see you grow and learn new things. The sadness is loosing the small baby I had, and excited feeling is learning about the big girl I am gaining!

We got to take your third airplane trip. We visited your Aunt Anna and your Gruncle in Salt Lake City, UT. It was during this trip that you started crawling! It was so cool to share this milestone with family watching. and it only took a few days for you to fully get a hang of it. You are now officially a mobile babe! This means you are no longer content to hang out in your pack in play or your jumper, now that you know how to crawl, it's all you want to do! You quickly moved onto cruising, or using the furniture to walk around with. You are now into everything and we had to really baby proof things around the house. You never stop moving these days. Even when we are trying to get you to sleep, you're crawling around in your crib, you love to practice your new skills at bedtime...which can be a little frustrating at times.

Speaking of sleep...I miss it! This month it seems like you just forgot how to sleep. You no longer go down easy for naps and bedtime, you stopped sleeping through the night and your naps are way shorter! Some of this can be blamed on you getting your first two teeth, or your battle with some bad colds and ear infections. We think the other reason is due to some separation anxiety. You are no longer this engaging baby that loves everyone, you notice "strangers" and you snuggle in close to me or dad when you see other people trying to interact with you.So at nighttime, you no longer like sleeping by yourself--which means that most nights you end up in our bed. We will deal with this new habit soon, for now we let you snuggle up and snore away with us.

You have all this new use of your hands! You can sign "all done" and "more". You were able to sign "all done" last month, but I think it finally clicked with you that the hand motion means something. Another fun thing you figured out is how to clap. When you first did it you looked at your hands like "how did they make that noise!" it is so fun to watch you learn and discover what things your body can do. You can also use your hands to wave Hello and Goodbye, but you are still pretty picky about who you wave to.

It seems to me that you are a very passionate. When you are happy you laugh and squeal with delight, you let us know that you're happy! When you are frustrated you grunt, cry, and yell out, you let us know you don't like something. You like what you like! When something you don't want is in your pathway, weather it is a toy on the floor or food on your tray--you throw it as far you can out of your way. However, with food, you have been eating like a champ this month! Three solid meals a day. I've pretty much given up trying to spoon feed you anything because your are too independent for that, you just feed yourself which is messy but I just feed you naked and give you a couple baths a days.

You make lots of other great sounds these days. Whenever you hear people laugh, you start laughing. It's really cute...you look around like, "whats funny guys". you also have this hilarious  fake laugh you do sometimes, along with a fake cough. More importantly than new noises, is the words you are saying. Your first word was Mama, but you also say Papa, Kitty, and Hi. It made my heart so happy to hear you call me Mama, but when you were so sick, you just kept looking at me and saying Mama in this pathetic whiny voice, and that broke my heart because I couldn't make you better

The photo's this month were much harder to capture because of how active and mobile you are. People are saying you look a lot like your Papa these days. I just think you look like my sweet Eisley girl, and I love you.

headband by: RollyPollyBowtique

Eisley Adventures II

These are the wonderful adventures Eisley has been on since April. We saw cherry blossom trees in bloom, went carp fishing, explored Seattle, visited Utah, spent some time at the Oregon coast, went to Yakima, Wa, and even had an adventure in the back yard!

Dear Eisley....Eight Months

Dear Eisley,

This month was busy...and you changed so much! I had some major changes too. I graduated from Grad school! You came to my graduation, at first you were excited with all the people, but when they started to clap you hated it, it scared you so much. I could hear you crying as I walked across the stage. All I wanted was to go over to you and give you kisses. And it is fun to give you kisses because now you kiss back, we get these big open mouth wet gummy kisses! Its so cute to see your budding personality, how you show your love and care. You have also started to snuggle a little, you will rest your little head on my chest, just for a min, but oh how I love it.

Some other things I love are all the new noises you're making. You are babbling, saying hi, grunting, yelling, and copying what we say! You are very expressive with your sounds and tell us exactly what you want. You also started to make this funny inhale noise, like when someone laughs really hard and they take a big inhale breath...yeah you do that lots, especially when you find something funny.

During my graduation your Momo and Grandaddy came to visit, and your Aunt Anna even came for a surprise visit. At first you were a little unsure of everyone, but you warmed up quickly and loved having everyone's attention on you. We all took you to the ocean one day. You were mostly un-interested in it all. You didn't like the sand on your feet, and you really didn't like when Gradaddy put your feet in the water. Speaking of water, we went fishing with your Dad one Saturday and he caught a carp while wearing you in the front carrier. You slept through the whole thing! Dad is a little worried that you will not be a water baby based on your dislike for the ocean and your napping all though the river trip. I think there is still a chance because when we took you swimming for the first time this month you LOVED it! You laughed and kicked and splashed all around. If your anything like me you will like the water, I was jumping off a diving board at 2 years old!

We took a couple trips this month too. Dad had to go to Seattle for work so we went with him. You and I spent the time walking around downtown, going to the aquarium, eating yummy food, going to great coffee shops, getting lost around town, and hanging out at parks. We also brought you along on our 6th wedding anniversary trip to beautiful Yakima, Wa (haha). You were a pretty great baby and mostly went with the flow. I hope you're this laid back when you're a toddler!

A new thing this month is you HATE getting dressed or undressed. You used to love the changing table, but now it is your eternal mission to get off that table as fast as you can. I try to find new and interesting things to keep you occupied while we change you, but you have been working on your throwing arm...it is amazing how far you can chuck things sometimes.

 You are a busy little girl. I always say you've got jobs to do. You will scoot over to something and pull yourself up to standing. You are always so pleased with yourself when you do this, you look at us like "holy cow are you seeing this!"

 baby girl you are so fun! I love all your new noises, facial expressions, and personality quirks!

Dear Eisley...Seven Months

Dear Eisley,

Woah...that month went by super fast. Again, in 30 days you have become a completely different kid, all these new skills, sounds, likes and dislikes. It is kinda fun learning who you are and who you are becoming every month.

The biggest change this month is that you moved into your own room at night time. I think we were all keeping each other awake all night. The first night you only got up once! and now you sleep like champ in there. Mama and Papa didn't get as much sleep at first because we were watching you on the video monitor all night. You still look so little in your big crib, and I know in no time at all you will fill it all up.

You really started to babble and talk to us. You are pretty proficient at saying "babababa" and your working on your "dadadada." You still have your wookie call, and your screeching  You make all sorts of noises, I think we will have quite the talker on our hands. You also are laughing so much theses days, everything is funny to you. There is not much better than big baby belly laughs! We can get some good laughs when we tickle you, you have two very ticklish spots, your hip bones and your collar bone, It won't be long till you are tickling us back. You also started humming to yourself, you mainly do this when you are really concentrated on playing. It is such a sweet sound.

Dad is convinced that you are going to be a drummer. This makes your Aunt Anna excited, she said she would give you her drum-kit someday.  You love banging on things, and you love taking your toys and banging them on things too. Sometimes you randomly bang to the beat of music and we declare your a musical genius, then we realize that it was a fluke...but who knows!

Long gone are the days when I could leave you in a spot and you would stay there. You are a moving little lady. You haven't master crawling yet, but is just a matter of time. You are really great at scooting along, doing 360's on your belly, and rocking from sitting into a belly flop. You will even stay standing if we put you in that position and let you hold onto something, you are super strong!

We are still breastfeeding  and now that you have almost mastered your pincer grip, you use it on my breasts all the time. It really hurts! I order a teething/feeding necklace for you to play with in hopes that you would pinch that and not me, but so far it has been no help. I will be honest, I don't have much patience for being pinched, I hope this is something that you get over quick!

Overall you are still a super happy baby...you have your moments, but the big smiles and laughs far out-way the cries. I love your inquisitive little personality and I can't wait to see what will be new for you next month. 

Dear Eisley...Six Months

Dear Eisley,

WOW! you're a half of a year old, how did that happen! You have changed so much this past month. You seem much less delicate and more like a sturdy little kid. I can already tell that you are a determined one, you don't give up easily. You are so intense when you play with your toys. You love toys that make music, you have this little piano and you slam away at it. Speaking of music, sister, you LOVE it, you light up when you hear music. Sometimes it seems  like you are singing along--well it is more like screeching along. To bad Emo-Scremo music is so last decade, I think you would have had a calling for it.

The new thing in your life this month is eating some solid foods. Sadly your first real taste of food was a lime...Dad thought it would be funny to watch you make a sour face, and, Oh BOY! it was funny. you would take a lick, close your eyes, make a sour face then grab for another taste. We decided to let you try some real food so your first "real" meal was avocado. You are a pretty good eater! We give you a mix of table food and pureed food, it is amazing to me at how skilled you are at eating, even though you have never done it before. Also...how are you old enough to be eating what I eat, Slow DOWN kid!

You seem to get excited about pretty much everything these days, you like the cats, my nose, dads laugh, your toes, when dad whispers "secrets" into your ears, and especially dogs. We can tell your excited by your high pitch squeal, or your big belly laughs. You love to flail your arms up and down like your trying to fly away. You also have this super cute leg that we call the waggler, that is constantly moving, or waggling about.  You also are always moving your little feet in circular motions, its really cute!

You carry all this movement into the night, and it seems as though you are not sleeping as well as you used to . When you wake up and can't fall back asleep you lift up both your legs and power-kick them down at the same time, I am not sure what your are trying to achieve with this, but it is a really loud thing to wake up to in the middle of the night. At times I feel like you're a newborn again, waking up every two hours. This makes for a very tired mama and papa, but we do our best to keep our cool in the middle of the night and give you the loves and milk that you seem to need. This bad sleep might be due to the fact that we are trying to wean you from being swaddled, you just like the feeling of being hugged tight through the night.

Sometimes I blame your lack of sleep on the fact that you might be teething. It seems like all the signs and symptoms are there but we have not seen any teeth pop up yet. You sure do chew on everything you can get your hands on. But your favorite things to chew on is Sophie the giraffe or our fingers.

Well little lady, I love this happy, fun baby that you are most days. I am so thankful for you and all the joy you bring me! I had a great time celebrating my 30th birthday with you, it was the best one yet!