BellaBlog

Archive for August, 2008

Picture of the Week – August 28, 2008

082508 – Climbing practice

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Now that Bella has walking down pat, she’s moved on to climbing.

Not so pleasant day for Bella

The day started out great because Bella and Paul and I awoke early (thanks a lot Bella:) and were able to play around while we got ready for church.  I cut up toast into 4 squares and tried something different on each one.  She really liked the butter one, licked all the apple butter off the other and immediately spit out the one with orange marmelade on it.  (Sorry Paul.  She’s not like you in every way on this one-can’t believe she doesn’t like orange marmelade-we’ll try it again in a few days.)  She sat in my lap and helped me hold the spoon for my cereal and we played ‘Mama’s bite, Bella’s bite’ for the whole bowl.  We did that yesterday too and she loved it.

When we got to church, this was the first Sunday she actually started running the minute we got in the hallway that led to the nursery.  She walked right into her room like she couldn’t wait to be there-Paul and I were very surprised and pleased that she’d finally gotten used to this.  We went onto our own Sunday school class proud parents of our sweet Bella.  After Sunday school was our turn in the nursery and we were asked to assist in Bella’s class since they were short handed but had a ton of kids.  That’s when the day went downhill.

I was ecstatic to be able to be in Bella’s room and I immediately turned my attention to her and the other kids.  There were 8 kids, all 13-24 months old, and 3 helpers, Paul, myself and another lady that handles nursery a lot.  Bella was excited to see us but then when she saw that we began playing with the other kids too, she became extremely jealous (or at least that’s what I’m gonna call it).  They started giving the kids juice in nursery a few weeks ago and ever since then, she just isn’t the same child until she’s had her afternoon nap.

Between the juice and her jealousy, she only let up on her crying for total of about 5 minutes the whole 1.5 hours we were in there.  The other lady had never seen Bella like this before so she kept trying to appease her but nothing worked.  If she saw us play with or hold onto another child, she got upset.  I tried to change a little girl’s diaper and Bella went bonkers.  Only when she saw the kids being picked up and leaving with their parents did she really start to calm down.  She fell asleep in the car but when I put her in the crib, she woke right back up and wouldn’t go back to sleep.  About 2:30, I knew she had been awake for far too long and forced her to lay in my arms and I rocked her to sleep while we watched TV.  After a few minutes, she calmed right down and I eventually took her to bed.

This evening after dinner, she was her normal self, albeit and little on the wild side, at least it was on the happy, giggly, wild side instead of the whiney, clingy, unhappy side.  She had a rather large dinner with a large portion of mixed veggies in alfredo sauce and a grilled chicken breast and water.  When she finishes eating now, she lifts up her plate and either says ‘all done’ or says ‘more’-I’m sure you wouldn’t be able to figure those out but as a Mom, I can:).  When she finishes eating, she remembers that she has to wash her hands.  This is an exciting activity for her since it’s one of the more independent acts she does now.

Paul and I are enthralled with how many things she responds to now.  ‘Night night’, she either goes to her room for her PJ’s or she heds to the bottle drawer and walks us to the fridge to prepare her milk (depends on how ready for night-night she is:).  ‘Let’s wash your hands’–regardless of where she’s at, she’ll stop whatever she’s doing and quickly head into the bathroom ready to climb the stepping stool to the sink.  She loves the foam soap we bought for her and I’m trying to teach her how to pump it out for herself (or at least letting her help for now).  ‘did you poop’, she looks down at her diaper in the front as if she’s trying to check.  ‘what does a dog say’ – most of the time she’ll respond with ‘woof’ and make a cute face while doing it.  ‘let’s change your diaper’ – some of the time she’ll walk into her nursery and stand in front of the diaper changing table.  Of course, she knows where so much stuff is now that she hardly gets frustrated when she wants something.  Most of the time she can communicate what she wants.

We still have our frustrating moments but mostly, we just love having Bella with us, loving on her while she hangs out with us in the early mornings in bed, when she begins rocking to music that plays, watching her and Paul play around giving each other hugs and kisses.  Speaking of that, one more thing before I end this long note.  Yesterday, Paul and I were making the bed and Paul plops down on the bed on his back when we’re done.  I threw Bella up there with him and we played around for a few minutes.  I pulled up Paul’s tshirt and gave his stomach a raspberry and Bella just giggled.  I did it again and she caught on and tried to do it also but she was much funnier than I expected.  She reached her head down close to Paul’s belly, stuck her tongue out and began flubbering her tongue which got spit all over Paul’s stomach.  Of course, Paul and I rolled in laughter which made her do it more.  I think Paul and I were both crying when it was all over with.  Now that I’ve ended on a great note, good night to all-God bless Bella and keep her safe.

082308 – Soap is yummy

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Bella seems to be working up her immunity to getting her mouth washed out with soap.

Beautiful Bella

Where do I begin?  It’s been a pretty normal week.  Bella’s teachers indicate she’s their favorite (or at least that’s how I take their comments anyway).  I took her to work with me last Friday and everyone loved all over her there telling me how sweet, beautiful and loving she is.  Nick and Christine of Nick’s Cafe in our office building even doted on what a beautiful princess she is.  Of course, we’re her biggest fans and always will be.

She tries to repeat a lot of the words she hears.  She can repeat ‘diaper’, ‘more’, ‘shoes’, ‘blocks’, ‘poop’, and ‘bath’.  Her favorite thing to do right now is to wash her hands.  Paul and Bella have to wash their hands when they first get to daycare each day so Paul thought of a great idea of putting a similar style step stool up to the sink in her bathroom.  It’s heavy enough to not tip over on her but perfect height with two steps and handles so she can easily climb it all by herself.  Getting down on her own is another issue but she’ll get the gist of that in no time.  Now when she needs to wash her hands and we say ‘let’s go wash your hands’, she’s gets so excited and immediately runs to her bathroom and begins climbing the stool.

She immediately reaches for the hot water, of course, so I told Paul that we’re finally to the point where we have to turn our water heater down below 120 degrees to protect her from getting burned.  I think she likes how the handles on the faucet are like the handles on the doors–levers that are easy to grab and turn whichever way she wants.  [Silly Mommy and Daddy, what were you thinking when you switched out the hardware.  Did you want to make it easy for her to open the door to her bedroom and get out?]

She’ll be fine-or at least I pray every day that she will be.  Right now, she’s having a hard time going to sleep.  First time this week that she hasn’t just fallen asleep when we said our goodnights and put her to bed.  I wonder if she’s overly tired and just needs some more calming?  We took her for a walk after dinner tonight and although we didn’t get far (going down the driveway and up the hill on the street was far enough), she did get to have a nice big German Shephard bark at her and we practiced ‘what does a dog say? Woof!’ with her.  So cute!  When she wanted to cross the ditch and get close to his cage, that’s when we had to draw the line.  He looked like he wanted to eat my baby!

Good night Bella-sleep tight.  We love you!

Picture of the Week – August 21, 2008

Affection

Paul asked the other day where Bella learned affection from.  It could be from us, or daycare or she could just be a really loving child.  She is now hugging our legs and hugging us when we hold her in our arms.  Of course, we are also making her fall to sleep on her own now instead of holding her until she falls asleep at night so she may just be hugging us to make sure we don’t leave her alone again-nah. 

Right now, I’ve just put her down for her afternoon nap and she’s having a crying and moaning session to let us know she’s not very happy.  After the first day or so, she really doesn’t cry anymore when we leave the room.  She understand the words ‘night-night’ and the sign for nighttime also.  She helps us with the milk and knows where to lay down while we’re reading her a book.  They started giving the kids juice in nursery last Sunday and ever since, she falls asleep in the car on the way home like normal but doesn’t stay asleep and wants to run around like a  mad woman until you wear her down.  She’ll get used to it, I guess.

She still loves saying ‘no’ by the way, sometimes it’s cute and sometimes it’s not so cute.  I guess we’ll get used to that.

Words…

Now begins the time when Bella starts to imitate the words we use.  On Wednesday evening, I had picked her up early from daycare because she was sick but she wasn’t acting sick.  She and I played around when we got home and she began helping me clean up the kitchen.  Really she was messing with the items in ‘her drawer’ while I was doing the cleaning.  When it came to unloading the dishwasher, she handed me the items and I put them away.  Then came the dirty dishes.  I’m sure it confuses her that she is able to help me with the clean ones but not the dirty ones but I always tell her that she can’t help because they’re dirty.  So as usual, I began loading dirty dishes and she begins unloading them.  I spank her hand and firmly say ‘no-no, dirty’.  I had to do it one more time before she quit messing with them.  After about a minute of just standing there watching me load the dirty dishes, she would reach out her hand towards the dishes without touching them and say quietly, ‘no, no, dirty’.  It was so sweet, it was hard not to laugh.  She did that until I was finished and we moved onto the next project.  I don’t think her feelings were hurt at all.

Now she says ‘No No’ a lot now.  She can also say ‘more’, ‘Hi, Dad’ while actually talking to Dad on the phone, she talks on anything that resembles a phone-chattering away like a big girl.  I found her playing with her shapes wooden puzzle and actually matching up about half of the pieces.  I’m sure she’s going by color right now but she does twist and turn them in an attempt to get them to fit.  I help her with the star piece because that’s a hard one.

 Our little one has a yeast infection from some soft stool she’s been having recently.  She’s not acting sick though, just a low grade fever all the time and a sore bottom which only hurts when we clean her up.  We have medicine for it but we also let her run around without a diaper too since that’s been helping the most-and the doctor recommends it too.  She’s really good about standing still when she’s made a booboo (pee or poop) but fortunately, it’s been on vinyl floors and wood laminate up to this point.

Our baby’s growing into a big girl but still as beautiful and sweet as ever.

Picture of the Week – August 14, 2008

6th Tooth

The top front left tooth came in a few days ago and is really showing now.  There’s a cute little gap and, of course, we’re paranoid that it won’t come in straight.  But she’s so beautiful, she’ll make even crooked teeth an adorable physical trait:).  Last night, she had almost an entire avacado and a ton of watermelon-her face lights up like a lightning bug at dusk whenever she sees us handing her yet another piece of the delightfully juicy red fruit.

Bella loves to play dress up and dance so the other night, I was playing dress up with her and she began to twirl around like a ballerina.  My thoughts immediately remembered one of my favorite songs-Musicbox Dancer.  I asked Paul to find it on the computer and blare it so we could all dance around.  (Note:  I knew Paul had it on the computer already because he had downloaded it from iTunes when he first found out it was one of my favorites.  Yes, that’s my sweetie!)

 When I heard it begin to play on the stereo up in the loft, I rushed her upstairs and all 3 of us spent a long time twirling around together and rocking back and forth to that song as well as others like Neil Diamond’s America and Johnny Cash’s Walk the Line and Ring of Fire-Paul’s favorite.  Man, we were so tired from dancing and laughing and tickling and giggling that we all had a great night’s sleep.

Having Bella in our lives is such a joy!