More Attention

Maggie is enjoying more of my attention while Mena is at preschool. Kylinn is still coming each day for daycare, but she and Maggie seem to spend more time playing alone. I think Ky (and Mena, also) are getting a little frustrated with how mobile Maggie is becoming and how she is grabbing toys out of their hands. At this point I just tell them to move away from her because a baby doesn't understand not to take toys. They move away, I give Maggie a different toy, and everyone is happy.

First Day of School

Mena started ExCite preschool on August 22nd. She had a new dress and a new backpack for school. I helped Mena onto the bus at our house. Then I drove my car over to the school. I was at the bottom of the stairs to meet her when Miss Jean got her off the bus. I held her hand as we followed Miss Jean and a couple other kids that were on the same bus back to their classroom. I sat Mena on the rug and then looked around the room. When I was ready to leave, I whispered to Mena that I was leaving. She looked at me and then went back to looking at Miss Kim leading group time. Mena was unphased when I left the room. I'm sure it was harder on me than her, but she didn't cry and neither did I.

We've gotten positive reports on her daily sheets all 5 days this week. One night she got mad at me because I told her the school was closed and she had to wait until the next day to go again. This has been a good start for Mena in school!

Grilling Out

We bought a used upright freezer and when we got it home we discovered that I wasn't strong enough to help Gene get it out of the truck. I called up our favorite brother-in-law and Jon came over to help. Peg, Jon, and Jake then stayed to grill out brats and hotdogs with us. The new umbrella over the table is my early birthday present from my parents. It is so awesome!

Backyard Pictures

I got some good pictures of the girls in the backyard on a Sunday afternoon.

9 Months Old

Maggie is now 9 months old. She weighs 21 pounds 10 ounces (92%), is 28 1/2 inches tall (83%), and her head is 18 1/4 inches (95%). Maggie is eating a wide variety of mashed foods but hasn't gotten the grasp of chewing anything more difficult than diced, canned pears. She's gotten two teeth on the bottom, but they aren't much help for eating yet :) So far Maggie will put toys or leaves in her mouth while playing, but she won't put finger foods in her mouth! She just plays with her food. She's taking 2 naps a day and sleeping about 9 hours at night. Maggie's in size 12 month clothing.

Maggie can move herself from laying on her stomach to sitting up and do the reverse. She can pull herself to standing and has cruised about 12 inches to the left while holding onto the furniture. No signs of crawling, but Dr. Bernhardson says that he actually sees quite a few kids that skip crawling and that they are usually the second child and just want to keep up with the big sibling.  Maggie is moving all around the room as she scoots on her bottom and moves from laying to sitting.  I don't think she's figured out how to move to a specific place to get a toy she sees, but she moves around and picks different toys from where ever she ends up in the room.  Mostly she's moving backwards as she lays on her tummy and pushes with her hands.  Then she sits up, turns herself to face whatever toy is near by and then plays there for awhile.

Standing

August 13th, Maggie pulled herself to standing when I held her hands on the edge of the couch. She was so thrilled with herself and continues to do so multiple times a day now without me holding her hands. Not every attempt is successful, but she is persistent and improving at her new skill.

Swinging

Swinging is a favorite activity of the girls. One morning about 15 minutes before I was going to take Maggie inside for her nap, she fell asleep in the swing.

Outside Time

We have enjoyed lots of time in the backyard or going on walks when the weather cooperated. While the big girls were running around the yard, Maggie spent most of her time playing on the red blanket. The big girls were excited when we brought our painting activity outside on the day we lost electricity for a few hours in the morning. LES had a broken pole that they had to move all the wires off of it and onto the new pole. We could see the pole from our backyard so the girls enjoyed watching the men working.

2 Years 11 Months

Mena is one month away from turning 3 years old. It's hard to believe how fast the last 3 years have gone for us! Mena now weighs 35.4 pounds. Mena is continuing to do fine with no naps, but we've decided to reintroduce naps when she starts school. We anticipate that ExCite will tire her out more since there will be so many new experiences. Mena is wearing size 4 tops and shorts. She is now in size 9 shoes.

Mena was so excited when I showed her this teeter totter that I found on craig's list. When we got it home she was so excited to try it out. Then she got on it and freaked out when she realized how hard it was to keep her balance on it. I'm hoping it will help her improve her balance, but we'll see if she'll use it for more than 3 seconds at a time.

This month was the end of Mena's visits from Ruth (Early Head Start) and Dianne (LPS teacher) since Mena will be starting ExCite later in the month. I don't think she understood when I told her to tell them goodbye that she wasn't going to see them again, but with the excitement of school starting she hasn't asked about them so she should make a smooth transition between home based services and school based services.

Trying to Stand Up

We don't think Maggie is interested in learning to crawl. She pulls herself up on her knees next to the play table and if we stand her up by it, she keeps her balance for extended periods of time. When Maggie gets into a position that looks like she's about to crawl, she then pushes her bottom up into the air. We'll see what she decides to do!

Indoor Play

We've had a few rainy days this month so we got more indoor play time. The first picture is Kylinn showing Maggie how to play with her toys. I played a crayon matching game with Mena and Ky. Then we got out a box to play with rice in. We talked about full and empty along with bigger and smaller measuring cups. Maggie enjoys blocks and books. Mena's favorite activity continues to be baby play. Mena's enjoying the lacing animals she got for her birthday.