14 Months

I can't believe how quickly time is flying bye.

This last weekend we flew to Tennessee to visit my sisters and their families. Grandma & Papa flew in from California and we all went to watch Rebeca (Savannah's cousin) graduate from High School.

Savannah loved the animals at Auntie Angel's house. She has a cat, a dog, and a bearded dragon. I've learned the following words..."da" is dog, "ka" is cat and there was no word for dragon just a lot of babbling. She enjoyed the times when the dragon was out of his cage and was on the floor, Savannah would squat down and talk to him, but don't even think of having her touch the spiky looking thing. We have some cute pics on various cameras that I'll work on getting posted to facebook here shortly.

Savannah also enjoyed Auntie Beth's house. Cousing Josiah (6 months older) had lots of new toys that Savannah could play with. Her favorite seemed to be the magnetic toys on the fridge and dish washer. I'll have to look for some similar toys for her to have here.

The flight home was not horrible, but not her best flight either. She was very tired but did not take a nap. She was squirmy but was quiet most of the time.

I was glad to see that summer had finally arrived in Chicago when we arrived. With that said, I was up until about 11 pm installing window AC units in the living room and Savannah's room so the house could cool down. I've bought Savannah a small pool, so she can play outside this summer and hope she enjoys it.

Savannah is now saying more words and makes me laugh everyday with the new things she is learning. She now says "hi", "bye" and I think she was attempting to say "milk" tonight. She gives kisses and hugs now, knows where her eyes and nose are, and enjoys reading her books more than eating them. She loves to jump up and down on the beds (hers and mine) and even took her blanket into my room tonight. She was a bit upset I didn't let her stay.

She's begun hitting when she is mad which isn't a good thing and throwing temper tantrums. Terrible two's are approaching early. I've tried to do sign language and she knows some signs, but still doesn't use them on a regular basis. I guess I need to amp that up to give her additional communication skills so she isn't so frustrated when she tries to communicate.

Here's to another month of unconditional love and many laughs.

Mid-month update

Savannah has now figured out how to walk backwards and has started pulling items rather than just pushing them. Tonight she was re-arranging several items in the house. First she pushed the step stool out of the kitchen into the living room. Then she began working her activity center into the living room by both pushing and pulling it in and out of the kitchen. Lastly she went in to get her swing, but was unable to move it, though not for a lack of trying.

Parts of the body

I've had very long days over the last few weeks and it's not likely to change anytime soon.

I came home today, exhausted but couldn't wait to spend some time with Savannah. We've been working on learning the parts of the body. She's known where her belly is for the last several weeks and enjoys showing it off and poking her belly button with her finger.

Today I asked her where her head was and she quickly put her hands to her head and gave it a pat. I then asked her where her feet where and she grabbed her feet. Followed by the removal of one sock.

We did this most of the evening with me asking where her belly, head and feet where, as well as playing with her favorite toy...her ball. I asked her where her hands where and showed her mine but she did not mimick me in my actions, we'll keep working on the rest of the body.

13 months

Today Savannah is 13 months old and quite the little mover and shaker. She doesn't like to sit still for a moment, but i suppose that is normal for her age.

She has continued to get sick, even after the surgery. I recently got a call from the school stating she has a fever of 103.4 and when I arrived at the school they said she was wheezing a little bit. Her Pediatrician instructed me to take her to the nearest ER to receive a breathing treatment. While we where there, she got an x-ray of her chest that revealed pneumonia. She did receive a breathing treatment and also got her nose cleaned out via suctioning. Needless to say she was not a happy camper through the whole visit. On top of the pneumonia she also had an Upper respiratory infection. At her follow-up visit she got more blood drawn to test her immunoglobulins. The test came back on Thursday, they are a bit low, which explains why she has gotten so sick over the last 8 months. So, she has to see another specialist at Children's and is also going to have more allergy tests run as well. There seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel and I'm thankful for that.

Due to the amount of time she's been sick I wanted to pull her from daycare. I love her daycare, the teachers love her so much and it is clean, but despite that Savannah's body can't fight off the germs so I've found a way to keep her at home. Friday was her last day at daycare and there were tears and best wishes from her teachers. Savannah gave them a card and some beautiful flowers that morning to say thanks for taking care of me over the last year. All of the teachers signed a big card for Savannah and some of the notes brought tears to my eyes. There are pictures in it of her and her teachers and some of her friends. The older kids made Savannah some flowers as an art project. A few of the teachers gave Savannah some cards and gift and she will be missed, but she and I will miss them as well. I told them not to worry, they'll see her again. I'm able to take her in as a drop off, if my new sitter is sick.

One of Savannah's part time sitters is becoming a full time nanny for her. She'll be cared for at home with daily excursions when the weather is nice. Daily trips to the park, the beach, the zoo, or the children's museum are in store for Savannah. I have to create daily menus, and activities now, good thing I have experience in this area or I'd be lost. With the one on one attention I expect to see some wonderful cognitive growth in Savannah rather quickly.

She is walking and even trying to run. She loves to climb the stairs but would rather hold on to finger and step up then climb up them on her hands and knees. We haven't really tried going down the stairs yet, but I'm sure we will once summer gets here and we can play on the steps off the patio. She can climb onto the couch now as long as I'm sitting there, she grabs onto my legs and pulls herself up, she tries without me too and is so close to success.

Tomorrow we are going to visit "Little Gym" and see how their parent child play groups are. With her being out of school I still want her to be socially developing and be able to play well with other kids. Next week we will be visiting "Gymboree" to see whose classes we like. We may not go to either, but rather go to the children's museum for play time, we'll see.

As for her language development, she's not really repeating words. She says a few and uses them at the right times such as uh-oh, mama, but I anticipated she'd be further along at this point. Although I know she understands what I'm saying, she doesn't try to mimic sounds. Sign language usually helps to develop language but she hasn't really gotten into that either. She does use it occasionally, but still not as often as I'd hoped she would. We will continue to work on her language...verbal and non-verbal.

Her nesting cups are her favorite toys. She love to put the cups in one another over and over again. She tries stacking them too and can do it if she has the right cup in hand. She hasn't yet figured out that if it doesn't work to try another cup, but she will be doing that before we know it. She is in a very repetitive stage right now. Doing the same thing over and over again to see the results. I love watching her play and start formulating her opinions.

That's it for today, I hope you enjoyed reading my blog about Savannah.

12 1/2 months

Savannah is doing so much now I'm afraid I'll forget everything so I thought I'd give a little update.

Savannah is walking all over the place now. She still likes to take a finger mostly to lead you where she wants to go. Tonight she took my hands and walked me straight to the back door and fussed when I tried to direct her elsewhere. She knew she wanted to go outside, so we did for a few minutes and she lead me to the stairs, I wonder where her final destination was if I'd let her lead me to it.

She has learned to click her tounge in the last few days and is rather pleased when you mimick her sounds.

She got her first molar in this weekend with another 3 about to burst. Canines should come in next and I hear those are the most painful for the little ones, so I can't wait for that time.

She is finally starting to use sign language. I need to put more of a focus on teaching her more signs. At this point she still mimicks them rather than using them on her own accord, but I'm still very pleased. She is signing more, finished, and milk most commonly but we are working on hurt and food items like cheese, cheerios, and crackers.

She has started learning about her body. If you ask her where her belly is she will lift up her shirt and show you. We are working on head, feet, legs and eyes. Eyes only because she insists on poking me in my eyes and I tell her eyes then show here where her eyes are.

She can pull her shirt off her head and tries to put clothes on by putting them around her head. I pulled down her pants today and she tried to pull them back up it was so funny I laughed and then she laughed. She takes her pants off on a regular basis now and tries to put them on when in a laying position. When you give her socks she will reach down to her feet and place the sock on top, she is so smart to know her sock goes on her foot.

Well, I suppose that is all for today, hope you enjoy reading about her development as much as I enjoy experiencing it.

12 Months

On Wednesday Savannah will turn 1. I can't believe that it has been a year already. She has grown so much and is so active it is hard to believe she used to be only 6 lbs 12 oz and as helpless as can be. She is now doing so much that I am astonished at what she learns each day.

Over the course of the month she has been practising her walking. She took her first step one day before she turned 11 months and throughout the month the number of steps have only increased. She is now walking short distances and becoming more and more confident with each step.
She has figured out how to open the kitchen cabinets and Papa had to install locks while we was visiting this week. She doesn't like the fact that she can't open and close the cabinets but it makes for a safer kitchen.
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''/'/'/mkjjjjjjjjjjyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, , 90----f8b90bftghgf chj

That is Savannah's contribution to the blog.

After several consultations with her Pediatrician and ENT specialist, it was determined that Savannah should have her adenoids removed. Over the last 5 months she has had constant congestion that turned into sinus infections and 1 ear infection. Her doctors believe that the infection was located in her adenoids and that the antibiotics where not killing the infection completely and then it would return a few days after she finished the antibiotics. Hopefully the surgery will cure the issue.

With the weather turning nice Papa took her to the park everyday during his visit where she realized she liked the swing and the wind blowing thru her hair. She enjoyed climbing up the steps and sliding down the slide on her tummy. I can't wait until we have a weekend with good weather so I can take her to the park.

She enjoys pushing anything around the house, including her high chair and the step stool. She climbs up to the top of the step stool but doesn't quite know how to get down. She has mastered the ability to get in and out of her rocking chair and enjoys making the chair rock. She also likes to climb in and out of her toy bins

Today she was so cute trying to put a square toy into the circle shape of her shape sorter. She also tried the triangle spot, but did not turn the toy around to be able to access the square spot. To see her working her mouth to talk and figuring out how to make things happen each day is wonderful.

This month she visited the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. She enjoyed the aquarium much more than the museum. We went during the week so it wasn't crowded, allowing her to get out of the stroller and be up close and personal to the fish. We went to the show, but she wasn't very impressed it was difficult for her to see the action.

She likes to say "uh-oh" all the time. She says mama and lots of babbling. She often sounds like she is singing her babbles and loves to sway and move to music.

Well I suppose that is about it for today, thanks for reading!!!

11 Months

Okay so apparently I forgot to log back in and do an 11 month blog. Sorry :)