For New Years, we visited our friends JP & Lisa, and decided to stay over along with our friends Rob & Christina too. Our last New Years that we stayed over was a couple years ago, and let’s just say we didn’t want to repeat it any time soon. Jameson was up early, we had little sleep, and we were dead on our feet the whole next day.
A couple years later, and it didn’t seem as bad. And it actually wasn’t! The kids did a ton of snacking. I think that’s all we did was snack. I had Coraline’s hair up in these cute little tails, which is challenging because it’s hard enough getting one in, let alone two.
P.S. Coraline totally growls better than the boys do.
We always exchange a little Christmas gift too with the kids. I think next year it might be less, but we set a $5 limit this year (2 kids each, and two families, so that’s $40 in kid gifts right there so $5 seemed to work at first til I tallied it up!)
Christina made a gift for the older boys this year, which were a huge hit. Super hero capes! Jameson got a batman one.
Coraline got a cute little farm animal little people tractor set and book, which is always a win.
I tried to get the kids to sit on the couch for a photo, but that was not really working. Lots of hyper giggles!
We even practiced counting down to the New Year, but that also ended in hilarities. Jonathan came around to give everyone their New Years kiss!
To settle the kids down, we put on Frozen. The boys got into it, singing “Let It Go”. We also went ahead and put on the Madagascar “New Years Eve party” episode to celebrate the New Year a little early. This worked out pretty well, with the kids in bed at a decent hour.
The boys all slept in Jonathan’s room in new sleeping bags. Coraline slept in the pack and play upstairs with us. We were shocked, but she actually was really excited to get to sleep in it. She was a much better sleeper than Jameson was a couple years ago.
The next morning, we had breakfast and felt (relatively) rested. We stayed up too late and drank and played games, so even with good sleepers we were a little tired. It wouldn’t be New Years otherwise though, would it!?
Coraline developed major attitude this month! From shaking her head yes and no, she moved just shaking her head no to everything! She also started pointing and yelling “no”, a development while we were visiting Meemaw (perhaps from yelling at the dog to leave her alone?). Coraline was hitting and pulling hair this month as well, finding this funny, because perhaps we laughed at her once. So we’re working on being “gentle”, and petting nicely (both humans and doggies).
Our “bye bye” now includes a wave as well, and we’ve actually seen a couple signs and spoken “more” and “all done” from her, though not consistently, since whining still gets her what she wants, usually. We’re working on that one as well.
Coraline even got her very first pedicure, from Aunt Melissa! (Jameson got his painted blue as well)
A little pretend play from Coraline. She will make sucking noises for a baby doll, and woof woof from her dog stuffed animal. But these are still short but sweet episodes! She also learned how to blow the whistle (and somehow pulled the vent cover off the floor and put a bunch of the musical toys in it one day without us noticing)
The teacher who followed Jameson for most of his time at school from each room is taken to coming to Coraline’s room and doing her hair occasionally. She never sits still for us for more than a clip, if that, but I love these little pony tails on top of her head!
This month we really noticed that she wants everything that we or Jameson has, like snacks and cups. She still loves being chased, and she loved bouncing on Jameson’s bed at Meemaw’s house. Putting things back together or making them work brings her delight and I love her little laugh.
She enjoys bouncing on pillows, so we added one to her crib. She doesn’t sleep on it for very long, but she smiles happily when I lay her down on it.
She’s very ticklish, under her arms and the bottoms of her feet. The tickling laugh cracks me up, and also sounds remarkably like Jameson did. However, she sure is hard to capture on camera smiling. When the camera comes out, her solemn face appears unless I can capture her on the move (which is just as difficult!).
Coraline is reasonably indiscriminate about what she eats, enjoying most meat and fruit. Vegetables and pasta are hit or miss depending on the day. This month we started her on Jameson’s “special yogurt” tubes, which she also likes, though she needs help to avoid squishing it all over her face and clothes. We also began putting her in the booster seat, and we all eat together for dinner. She still throws a lot of her food to Sasha.
She’s only allowed the bottle morning and night, and we continue to try the sippy cup at daycare during the day. On weekends though we don’t tend to even offer the sippy with milk because she refuses consistently. Instead, we give her water all day long.
For some reason, she has suddenly developed an intolerance for getting her head and hair wet. While she still loves water and bath time, she hates the part where we have to rinse her head. I’m hoping she gets through this phase quickly since she really seemed to love water! Our bedtime includes several books, and she always wants more. Her favorite is Jameson’s former favorite, Doggies by Sandra Boyton.
But the biggest change this month? We have a walker! In one week, we went from crawling to walking nearly all the time. Her first time walking on command was to Jameson, of course! He was delighted. She still a little uncertain on the grass and wants to hold hands, though.
One week later, she’s kicking a ball around the room!
She is starting to do a lot more climbing as well, and showed how she could climb from chair foot stool against Jameson’s bed to being on TOP of Jameson’s bed (and then falling off it when we weren’t looking the very next day).
Lately, Coraline has been putting her face into the water, voluntarily. I think we will need to do swimming lessons with her, and soon! She will put her entire head and body right under the faucet, and keep it there, despite sputtering and coughing with water running down her face. When we move her, she moves right back!
When the faucet is turned off, she moves to literally putting her face into the water up to her ears. The other day, she managed to blow bubbles, which encouraged the behavior (my laughter, as well). She did it again, but inhaled instead and even after coughing and gasping for a minute, she wanted to go right back at it! (I stopped her at that point). Even when washing her hands, she loves the water and licks them when we’re done.
This little water baby lady won’t have any problems going underwater I think.
Easter morning, Coraline was up a little earlier than Jameson, so I brought her downstairs for a little egg hunting testing. I wanted to see how observant she was, since the Easter Bunny had to hide the eggs a little better this year for Jameson than in years past.
As it turns out, Coraline was very observant (perhaps more than Jameson at that age?). I took some video of her, and later after church, of both kids doing some Easter egg hunting.
When Jameson joined us downstairs, he spotted eggs right away and wanted to find more. It was tough, but we told him not until after church (just as it was for me growing up!). So we ate breakfast, got ready, took some family photos, and went to church before hunting eggs. It was quite a busy morning.
The Easter Bunny left their two baskets full of good things. Jameson got a box of 7 Jake and the Neverland Pirate puzzles; new bath crayons and bath bubbles; Jake car keys and stickers; a little metal school bus car; and chocolate covered animal crackers and gummy penguins.
Coraline received a new sippy cup which she quickly used with its straw; a Mega Blocks stacking egg with chick; a touch and feel Thumper the Bunny book and hippo puppet; new finger paint colors and stickers; and this Peek N Shake egg carton toy with little eggs and chicks inside which she just adores.
Jameson helped find one of the pink eggs which were designated as Coraline’s, and she got to munch on goldfish (off the floor, how thrilling).
Jameson just loved finding eggs this year, but still passed up likely spots I thought for sure he would see right away. He found all the eggs the Easter Bunny hid high up, but had a harder time being thorough looking at his kitchen set which had several hiding in it.
After Coraline’s nap, we went over to Grandma and Poppa’s house, where the Easter Bunny hid even more eggs for him to find! Aunt Melissa and Grandma helped the search, but Jameson nearly lost interest by the end. Looking for eggs outside was hard work.
Inside, Coraline and Jameson played so nice together while dinner was prepared.
The kids got to open a couple more Easter gifts, and Coraline loved her new pink lounge chair!
After dinner, we played with Jameson new toy, a lightweight Styrofoam airplane. Poppa taught Jameson how to fly it, though Jameson was a bit too excited to launch with a steady hand or figure out the proper position or posture. Still, it was a lot of fun for everyone watching him throw his airplane so excited!
Coraline loved being outside. She has no fear or concern for the grass, and was happy to watch all the activity. And crawl, too, because she certainly doesn’t sit still much any more!
By the end of the day, she was exhausted. Coraline loves to throw her head back and assume someone will catch her (most of the time, this works). She loves to be upside down, so at the end of the tiring day, she was a little slap happy and throwing herself backwards over daddy’s leg. Too funny!
It was a fun Easter, though I imagine next year we might see some more competition for hunting eggs. We’ll see!
Jameson turned 3 a little over a month ago, and I’ve neglected to talk about how our 3 year old preschooler is doing daily. He loves to tell us that he goes to preschool, and even demonstrated how teachers read books by doing it with Coraline and Sasha.
What Jameson is Wearing:
Size 24 month pants (mostly for the waistband). He has a few in the 2T size, which fit better lengthwise for sure, but the cinching straps are pulled pretty tight!
2T shits, but 3T looks okay if a little big on him. Loves to wear sweatshirts because they’re soft.
Size 2T-3T Pull ups at night, but big boy underwear all day, everyday!
Two piece penguin pajamas any nights they’re clean.
Chapstick from Aunt Melissa
What Jameson is Eating:
Meatballs, chicken nugget, hot dog, and most any meat he can eat with ketchup and only with ketchup
Meemaw’s spaghetti, but for the most part he only eats a bite of it anywhere else
Cucumbers and carrots with ranch
Baby oranges (the biggest of the baby oranges)
“Special” yogurts. These come in the tubes and are special because we used to only let him have them on the weekend. He has them everyday now for convenience and because he stopped eating the kind with fruit on the bottom. We try to stick with the greek tube yogurts without characters all over them (my request)
Tootsie roll treats for wiping himself on the potty and having no accidents overnight (that last one doesn’t happen frequently right now)
Most candy, except skittles and hard candies which we don’t let him have.
Not a big fan of trying all of his food. There is usually a lot of negotiating. Threats to go to bed or no TV don’t seem to work. I don’t require a clean plate, but we try to have him try everything on his plate every night.
Granola bars, which are becoming a problem right now since he wants them all the time.
Cheeseburgers from McDonalds (only those, cheeseburgers anywhere else he barely touches even when he says he wants them)
Orange juice and cranberry juice.
What Jameson is Saying:
Jameson is starting to tell stories and “lies” though he doesn’t know them as such. He insisted he peed in his clothes at the end of school, I guessed so that he could change into PJs at home. He also told us he flew in a helicopter for vacation after seeing one in a book.
He loves to pretend to be a monster and scare or surprise us in the morning or before bed.
He can count up to the teens, then they get all mixed up. They work on numbers up to 20 at school.
When recounting his day at school, the first thing out of his mouth is always “Logan came back!” and “Nathan came back!” even though they are both full time kids and also “come back” everyday.
A recent favorite conversation, about nutrition week at school on the day they learned about fats and sweets.
“Jameson, did you learn about fats today?”
“They’re bad”
“Are candy fats?”
“No, candy is good to eat!”
“What kinds of food are bad?”
“Hmmm… Broccoli is bad!”
What Jameson Likes These Days:
Reading stories at bedtime, as many as we will read to him. And when those are done, he sometimes looks for “song books” for us to sing to him in bed. Books he likes include most of the library books we bring home, his vacation book with pictures from vacation last September, his new Thomas the Tank Engine books, his big long Dinosaur book from Christmas… really I could go on. He likes so many of his books.
TV Shows: Handy Manny, Jake & The Neverland Pirates, less of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood unless it’s a new one, Sophia the First (it’s not one he requests but he likes it when its on)
Movies: Monsters Inc & University, Lion King, Toy Story (he cried while watching Toy Story 3–because the bad babydoll was crying. I don’t think he understood the baby doll was bad), Tinkerbell, The Lorax on the ipad.
The ipad, games and mostly the PBS show app where he can pick what he wants to watch, which isn’t usually the same thing we watch on TV. On the ipad, he frequently selects Super Why and Clifford The Big Red Dog.
Playing soccer, which we just started this month. He likes to wear his shin guards.
“Playing” with Coraline (on his terms) or making her laugh.
Big boy underwear to bed. He never gets it, so he wants it. We tell him we need him to practice calling for mommy and daddy at night, which he has only done once a couple months ago.
Listening to skidamarinkadinkadink and two Christmas songs which we can’t get away from: Rudolf and the 12 Days of Christmas
Puzzles! Every since Meemaw and I did a puzzle over Christmas break.
He little bear Duffy, his brown blanket, and then he alternates between loving on his midsize bear Bobby or the other two little bears.
Doing the recycling. He loves to throw the recycling boxes out into the garage. Dad also let him give Sasha water the other day. Starting those chores early!
What Jameson Doesn’t Like These Days:
Napping at home, not even resting unless he’s really exhausted or ill. He still naps at daycare 4 out of 5 days a week, but gave up naps at home a year ago.
Trying food, or really, sitting still to eat at all.
Being told “no” or “not right now” in any way, particularly with watching his TV shows or having snacks before dinner.
Drinking milk
Occasionally insisting on NO songs before bed, for some reason he doesn’t want this as much anymore. When he does want a song, it’s always Old McDonald who has a turkey, rooster or pig.
Kisses from Sasha (haha)
What Jameson is Doing:
Going potty without having any accidents, unless he gets too wrapped up in playing and he has a little one. But otherwise we don’t need to tell him ever.
Hugs, kisses, high fives and knuckles with his friends and family for greeting and saying goodbyes.
Cleaning up messes from Coraline eating with his broom and dust pan or toy vacuum.
Practicing using a knife. We got him new plasticwear utensils which included relatively dull knives which he loves to use to cut his food.
Making Coraline laugh
Stalling before bedtime.
Having sleepovers with Aunt Melissa where they get to do all kinds of fun things like go to the bounce house center, playgrounds, and the movies.
He has seen his first movie at the theater with Lily, her mom and myself, and then another one with Aunt Melissa! He sits on our lap and sits perfectly for the entire movie.
What We Are Working On:
Cleaning up and putting things away when we are done with them. Sometimes he does this voluntarily and suprises me but I’d love to see it more consistent. He really is a good helper when he focuses on the task.
Sharing his toys with his sister, and even her own toys which he likes to play with too.
Sharing TV time.
Trying food, or really, sitting still to eat at all.
Calling for mommy and daddy at night when he needs to go potty. However, he is a very deep sleeper and we cannot wake him enough to try and help him learn this in the middle of the night.
Apologizing after not listening to mommy and daddy. We are struggling with how to handle his tantrums, whether he needs quiet time or a time out (depending on whether hitting was involved in the tantrum) and trying to teach him to count to ten to help him calm down. This is not a frequent thing, and mostly happens when he doesn’t have a nap and is overtired.
And then I decided to do a little interview with him, so he could tell us his favorite things in his own words. However, I think most of what came out of his mouth was what popped in his head first. Haha! He also couldn’t really focus much on me, and ran around like a crazy monkey. I think this is typical toddler, but was pretty funny so I am glad I video recorded it.
Here are the questions, though I didn’t get to ask all of them before he got so distracted he stopped answering.
What is your name? Jameson Charles Thomas
How old are you? 3
What is your favorite color? Brown(Often this is actually orange but he calls it brown sometimes, especially when he turns on his stars at night with the Twilight Turtle)
What is your favorite animal? A horse
What is your favorite book? Pete the Cat
What is your favorite TV show? Handy Manny
What is your favorite movie? Lion King
What is your favorite song? Muffin Man (not sure where this one came from!)
What is your favorite food? Macaroni
What food do you not like? Grilled Cheese (he actually tends to like this, but claimed he was “too big” for it in this interview)
What is your favorite drink? Orange Juice
What is your favorite snack? Cranberries (which he never has had… he usually selects a granola bar, candy, fruit snacks or nuts lately)
What makes you laugh? Coraline
What is your favorite thing to wear? Sweatshirt
What is your favorite game? Raisins (what…)
What is your favorite toy? A football(he actually doesn’t really have a football or play with it inside, I wonder if he was thinking of soccer)
Who is your best friend? Nathan (in the past he has volunteered that Lily is his best friend as well)
What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Big Corduroy (this is his enormous bear he got from Santa, and he does not sleep in his bed so that was interesting. I was really surprised he did not say Duffy)
Where is your favorite place to go? Here (the top of the couch, which I only let him up on because I was trying to get this interview done, haha!)
Where do you want to go on vacation? To see Mickey Mouse
What do you like to do with your family? Hide (he was hiding behind the couch)
What do you want to be when you grow up? A baby
What did you do when you were little? Play with Coraline What do you like to do now that you are big? Turn on the fireplace(which we really don’t let him do without close supervision…)
What is your favorite thing to learn in school? Nathan What is your favorite thing to remember? I tried this but stopped getting answers.
What do you want to buy with your money? Didn’t get to ask this
What is the thing you do the most awesomely? Didn’t get to ask this
What a big month for Coraline! From Christmas, to New Years, to her first experience in the snow. Coraline even got her third tooth, which you can see a little in this photo! We were so lucky to be able to have Coraline home a lot this month with Christmas breaks, and unfortunately for a little illness from daycare, hand foot and mouth disease.
It’s hard to see here in this photo, but she had a rash on the backs of her hands and her feet up to her legs. This particular virus presented itself differently (and much milder) than the traditional form of the disease which is usually on the palms and soles of feet. The doctor did diagnose her though since he saw some sores in the back of her mouth, so we kept her home for a couple days. Luckily, it was over the weekend, so we didn’t need to keep her home as long as we would’ve during the week, since the doctor recommended 3-4 days.
She has been teething most of this month, getting a lot of teeth in. Aside from the one that came in, I believe her other top tooth is nearly broken through, and the two on either side have been swollen most of this month as well. It hasn’t prevented her from eating (well, she did get fussy with the bottle occasionally). She loves solid food, the kind which she can put in her mouth herself. She loved the ham that Meemaw made, and noodles are also a favorite. She’s had chicken nugget as well and cleaned it up. However, the baby food has gotten a bit more difficult, and she now lets us know that she’s done by spitting it out back at us. She can sit in her high chair for an hour or more if we kept giving her finger foods to eat!
Coraline has been putting everything, even items which are not food, in her mouth. I don’t remember Jameson being the same way, because he learned that things like the fuzz from dog toys don’t taste good. I have found now Jameson’s plastic coin from Christmas, a sharp piece of wicker from a basket, and fuzz in her mouth. She leaves it in there and rolls them around in her mouth until I realize she has something with gagging.
She’s pretty funny, throwing her head back against the jumparoo and jumping or swaying with her head back. She also learned to click her tongue, though she does it rarely. Her current favorite babble is nananana (having already done mamama and dadada earlier). Coraline just loves to show us things that she picks up, which is funny every time. She still twirls her feet, but she doesn’t want to sit still nearly as much now! She’s learned to scoot!
This is an odd little milestone to note, but there is something thrilling when you realize your child has now been in this big, wide world longer than they were in your belly!
Coraline started playing peekaboo this month with blankets. She doesn’t really wait for you to shout peekaboo out at her before she already has the blanket up in her fact again, but it’s so fun to watch her. She also loves laughing when everyone else laughs, particularly with Jameson.
She really just seems like the happiest baby to me. She only gets upset when she is ill, tired, or very hungry. Or sometimes when people leave the room; she has definitely noticed that this month!
Coraline has some adorable little quirks, like twirling her little feet around in circles at the ankle when she is sitting. And she does love to sit; she is later than Jameson to be on hands and knees since she is just so content to sit and play with her toys. Jameson was on the move earlier!
But this month she has started adding some movement to the reaching she does when she bends all the way forward almost parallel to the ground. She now scoots herself on her butt slowly, and when she is on her belly, she does scoot herself backwards with her arms. She very rarely still gets on her knees; instead, she puts one foot behind her while the other stays in sitting position, but she is starting to move in her own way!
We did find her in her crib twice last weekend sitting up! So she managed to get herself from belly to sitting up position.
This month she actually seems less inclined to do any standing rather than more; I think that’s because she spends the majority of her time sitting or on her belly. We will need to start propping her up against some furniture on her feet some more for practice.
As I mentioned, she is noticing when people leave the room. To go along with that, we have experienced a little shyness with her the past couple weeks. When she has met someone she doesn’t see as often, like Grandpa, even though they live close, she tucks her head into my neck. It’s also pretty adorable. It’s hard to get her to smile for those new-to-her people as well!
Another big milestone for us this month was the finale of nursing. We had slowly been decreasing our nursing time since she stopped wanting to nurse (or even take a bottle) at night before bed and were just down to the morning time when, one day, she refused. It’s hard to believe this baby, who only wanted to nurse and gave us such trouble early on has finally stopped nursing. I am relishing the freedom, and just like with Jameson, I am happy that she chose herself so that there was no particular day that I had to decide to quit instead.
We have been doing more baby and solid foods, and she loves to eat! With Jameson, we struggled with baby food since he only wanted to feed himself real food; with Coraline, we have not had any issues at all. We also bought a new high chair that is much easier to clean! It’s all plastic and so easy to wipe down. Coraline has discovered how to drop food from the leg holes though and likes to do that when she’s finished eating.
Our final big event this month was health related! On Friday the 13th, exactly 9 months old, Coraline finally got tubes put in her ears. We actually had another rupture to the other ear just last week a couple days prior to her procedure, which was our 4th or 5th time (I may have lost track!) We continued to have ear drums rupture one after another every 10-15 days, though the last one we had a gap of 20-25 days between. The continued ruptures were due to pressure build up, either of just fluid or from infection, and put her hearing at risk.
Coraline did really well. We arrived at 6:30 in the morning and she was done by 9ish and on our way home. She was a little crazy crying when she woke up in recovery but after just about inhaling 7 ounces of formula, she was sucking her thumb and ready to sleep for much of the day. Now, we only have to give her drops in her ears for her infections which is great.
We did have a terrible experience when in came to actually scheduling the surgery, where they didn’t call us with our time the day before as expected, and due to a series of misinformation given by our scheduler, we didn’t call to inquire until they were closed for the day! So after calling 3 different numbers and speaking to 3 or 4 people, an on call doctor finally called our doctor, who wasn’t “sure” but “thought” she was the first appointment. Thankfully, she was. Or we wouldn’t have been happy to wait with a hungry baby!
We have a follow up appointment in a month to test hearing and check on the tubes, but so far, so good!
I love her baby-ness with the little dimples on her finger joints and elbows and the couple rolls on her thighs. I love her darker hair and the eyes that seem to be remaining blue. We love that little two-teeth smile that we’ve enjoyed for longer than we thought we would (though we think she might be starting to teethe again!).
In the past month, we’ve seen a big change in sibling interactions with Jameson and Coraline. For one, Coraline is really focused on his activity and watching his every move. Jameson though has also begun taking more of an interest in her.
At first, he seemed to like her and talk about her, but didn’t volunteer much to do anything with her (which was typically just me asking him to sit next to her).
Now, he doesn’t mind sitting next to her as much as he used to, and loves to try and hold her hand (sometimes she is not too excited to hold his). The other night, he even asked to hold her himself, which he hasn’t done since she first came home.
Jameson will also read to her, and dad even let him feed her a bit (she was refusing the bottle anyway, as usual at home). He will get toys that she has dropped and point out all the puffs that she has left on her highchair and of course wants to push her stroller.
He even includes her in his play sometimes. Here he is measuring her head. He was also using the saw, but I told him he could only use the soft saw on her.
He has also made up a game, “Kaboom” which Coraline had to try too. Coraline, despite the high risk feet involved, absolutely loved it. She was laughing just as much as he was and grinning at him the entire time.
When I first put her in the swing, he insisted on helping push her and told me that she wanted to go high (she did not).
Jameson has also picked up on more of what we are saying about Coraline, saying “I pinched her” (which we joke about when she is crying and which we have tried to stop saying since then!) and “I woke her up” when he actually didn’t.
And perhaps most shockingly of all, we can actually sit with both kids in our laps for an extended period of time. When I say extended, I mean 5-10 minutes which must surely be hours in toddler time. Jameson doesn’t mind that we are all sitting together.
We are really enjoying how their sibling love has grown. I know it won’t always be like this, but right now it’s so wonderful to see their interactions together.
Miss Coraline… 6 months old was here before we blinked our eyes.
This month, Coraline got her very first tooth, swung in the swing, and became quite the little grabber. Last month was all about toes, and this month is all about hands! She will reach for anything in front of her and started to reach for puffs to put in her mouth with her fist. She’s tall enough now that she can touch the bottom of the exersaucer and can sort of spin around.
Coraline loves to chew on things. Our little teether particularly loves the rings but is pretty indiscriminate. She had a bit of a rough time for 3 nights, getting up for about an hour each night during the worst of the teething breaking through.
We fed her sweet potatoes and carrots this month, her first foods after cereal. Meemaw fed her her first vegetable after we went to the fair, sweet potatoes, and we got this funny face. By about day 3 for each food she seemed to like it more.
Coraline sometimes makes a funny “chewbacca” sound as her teacher calls it when she has liquid (spit or food, yum) in her throat. She’s so silly.
We tried the sippy a couple times this month but didn’t focus much on it. She mostly used as a chew toy. Soon enough!
The doctor told us she’s basically only getting enough calories to maintain and recommended we add to her bottles, so we will start doing that. Our daycare provider recently suggested that as well saying that she’s having more of an appetite recently! From being in the 50th percentile at birth, she is now in the 16th. Coraline is just over 14 pounds, and is smaller than Jameson was at 6 months.
Coraline got all dressed up for her first school pictures just before turning 6 months, but we haven’t gotten back the photos yet. We dressed her in this adorable outfit which her teacher said made her look like Rosie the Riveter, haha. Jameson got dressed up to match, and hopefully we’ll have a photo of them together. He said he wasn’t interested that morning (and fussed all the way through getting ready in a button up shirt), but he did request to get a photo with her in the evening, so I am hoping they had success.
Perhaps one of the most special moments this month though came from interactions between Coraline and Jameson. Coraline is really starting to react to him and his big grins and laughter cause her to imitate and respond to him. Coraline grins and smiles readily, but only laughs when getting nuzzles on the belly or during peekaboo sometimes in the evenings when she gets a little slap happy with exhaustion. I loved seeing her laugh in response to Jameson!
And of course she has become an expert sitter. She loves sitting up! Coraline still tries to pull herself up at the chest pretty unsuccessfully but when she’s lying down its enough to see to splash around in the tub, which she loves to do.
We are slowly trying to introduce more flexibility into Coraline’s sleeping habits; not necessarily on purpose but just for practicality. We have extended her bedtime from 7 to 8 successfully, though she requires some TLC to get there. Right now, she really needs a 7 o’clock bedtime to stay her usual, cheerful self. She is pleasant all day and most evenings, which continues to be a wonderful difference between her and her brother who required quite a bit more (focused) attention. Coraline just wants to be held!
And speaking of sleeping, we seem to have passed a hurdle, and she now consistently sleeps through the night, except (understandably) while at the peak of teething. She can also roll the other way, belly to back, but will not demonstrate it except in dire circumstances. She hunches herself all the way up on her knees like she’s going to crawl, and I think she just teeters over onto her back. I know she’s done this at least twice from observing the monitor before and after, but I don’t think she’ll ever be a pro at it until she has another way of doing things anyway. She still mostly loves to be on her belly and is happy to play that way for long stretches.
Now that we’ve reached this perfect 6 month stage, pre-crawl and post-sitting… I would be happy to stay her awhile. I love this stage, and this little girl.
We celebrated Grandma’s birthday at our house a couple weekends ago. I was pleased to get this shot of grandma and kiddos together. Coraline isn’t smiling; I can already tell how difficult it’s going to be to get both children smiling in the same photo.
Even Grandpa had some time to hold Coraline! She was observing him very intently.
Aunt Melissa came over to celebrate as well. We gave Coraline a bath and I loved getting a shot of her in her one girly pink towel I have for her. She is really loving her baths lately.
She always seems to have a hand by her face; I guess that is because she doesn’t take a pacifier. At least I’m not always tugging that out of her mouth like I did with Jameson!
Coraline is discovering noises and balance lately. We’ve seen less rolling (a little less; she still rolls a lot more than Jameson ever did) and more activity with hands and sitting. Here she is doing the airplane move!
