Wednesday, November 11, 2009

14 Months Old



Mena turns 14 months old today. Here she is playing her piano that we've borrowed from my friend Tess. Mena can make music with the keys on the bar with her hands and she can make music by stepping on the keys at the bottom. What a great toy!

On October 13th Mena started cruising next to the furniture and on November 6th she started walking with a push toy alone. Her development has been doing great since I'm staying home with her. We did have LPS evaluate her this month. The scores from their tests show that Mena is right on the dividing line between her development being behind and her development being on the low side of average. Two of the women on the team evaluating her were familiar with me since they'd worked with children in my classroom when I worked at St. Mark's. One of the women came to our house to finish her evaluation of Mena. At the end of her evaluation she said she thought I was doing great with Mena and that with my background I'd have Mena caught up in no time. She asked if I wanted to just keep doing it on my own or if I wanted her to qualify Mena for help through LPS. I told her that I'd spent the last 7 1/2 years working with 3 year olds and that I would appriciate the help LPS could give me since I was spending a lot of time trying to research what a one year old needs to learn and how to break each skill down into things that Mena could master. Just in the couple of hours that we spent with the specialists from LPS they gave me 3 or 4 activities I could do at home with her that are really helping. We won't hear for sure until next week, but we'll probably start having a teacher come each week to our house to work with Mena and I on her gross motor and fine motor development.

This month Mena has also started showing her opinions more. I moved her up into size 4 shoes. While at Target I found 2 different tennis shoes that fit her. I held them both up for her to choose between. One was white with a little pink and the other was pink and purple. She took both shoes from me but then set the white ones aside and kept playing with the pink and purple ones. Then we needed to get her some mittens. I found a set of solid pink and a set of pink and grey striped. She took the striped ones out of my hand both times that I held the two sets up. Last we went to pick out a toothbrush. I held up an orange and yellow one with Elmo and a orange and green one with Big Bird. She literally shoved Elmo aside and grabbed Big Bird out of my hand!

Our home scale shows Mena at just over 23 pounds. She's wearing size 18 month shirts and pants now. Our little girl isn't so little any more! This month she's also started clapping a lot! She gets excited and claps for herself or anything that makes her happy. She's a bundle of joy and we're enjoying our time with her!
Posted by Picasa

Beginning to Walk



Mena is now cruising along side of furniture and in this video you can see her walking with one of her push toys.

Happy Halloween!

Gene and I took Mena to Gateway Mall to go trick or treating. She got really interested when she realized everyone was putting things into her bucket. Mena likes tootsie rolls, but chocolate seems to be difficult for her to digest so we have to limit how much chocolate she gets.
Posted by Picasa

Visiting the Olson's


We went up to Fremont to visit Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Olson for his birthday. While there she climbed on Grandpa Frye's lap with her magazine page and then waved at me when I took the picture. Great Grandma Olson was trying to teach Mena to roll the ball between the two of them. Mena just wanted to hold onto her ball and watch Great Grandma roll a different ball.
Posted by Picasa

Reading a Story


I keep a few books in the living room for Mena to read. The rest of her books I have stored on this 3 shelf bookshelf in her bedroom just behind the closet door. I was in the other room getting something done while Mena played quietly. The quietness lasted a little too long so I thought I should go see what she was doing. She was happily reading books. By the time I finished what I was doing she'd pulled every book off that shelf. Now when I need 20 minutes to get something done, I know where to put her. The only problem is when we need to get into the closet we have to pick up all those books first!
Posted by Picasa

Mashed Potatoes



So far a spoon is a fun toy to play with. Not many of the mashed potatoes made it into Mena's mouth. We've tried mashed potatoes on other nights and have come to the conclusion that she really just doesn't care for eating them; likes to play in them but not eat them!
Posted by Picasa

Climbing Fun


There is now a slide in the middle of our living room! We're borrowing it from Aunt Beth until baby Tyler is old enough for it. Mena's gotten brave enough to climb up on the second step since this picture was taken, but she hasn't yet made it to the top without help. She enjoys sliding if we hold her hands and she thinks it's funny when I hide toys under the slide.
Posted by Picasa

At the Park with Gavyn


Nicole and I walk each Monday together. When the weather is nice, we like to let the kids play at the park when we're done. When I hold Mena's hands, she enjoys the slide. Mena absolutely LOVES the swing and giggles everytime!
Posted by Picasa

Teething is a Tough Job!


Mena's got her 4 front teeth and is now working on some new teeth. This is requiring some serious chewing! At least in this picture she's chewing on a teething ring. She's also tried chewing on our legs and on the furniture.
Posted by Picasa