57 weeks

Anna has a new found love for popsicles.
This happens to be a pedialyte popsicle.

Enjoying a popsicle with Aunt Duck.
(We call her Aunt Duck because (1) Anna says "duck"
and (2) she buys Anna a lot of duck things!)

Nice cheesy smile.
Nice outfit from her Auntie Katie and Uncle Todders
for Christmas.

Our first "stab" at a fork.  She did ok.

After showing her, she tried to stab her own food with her fork.
See video below.

She dropped a cheerio down her jammies.
She went looking for it!
Hahaha

The many faces of breakfast.

Kisses to the camera

"the" look.

Another week has gone by, this week was a little less fun.  Anna struggled some evenings.... and mommy was reduced to tears several times.... but the culprit of the madness was a newly emerged tooth on the top. So now the little babe has 3.2 teeth.  2 on top, and 2 on the bottom.  This week, she was fine during the day, but at night would scream terribly for anywhere from an hour to three hours.  (That's where the tears came in on my part.)  So, I'm hoping that we're in the clear for better sleep this week.  Otherwise, it was a busy week, but a good week!

Anna went to the doctor as a follow-up to the hives/ear infection incident.  Her ear infection cleared up, but there was still a little bit of fluid in her ear.  The doctor rattled off some statistics, but the only thing I remembered was that 95% of all children have the fluid clear up on its own within 12 weeks.  So, unless she gets sick with a cold or congestion in the next few weeks, we do not need to go back to the doctor until her 15 month well check.  If however the fluid becomes an issue and doesn't clear up we may be looking at the possibility of ear tubes.  (Poor girl!  She may have inherited her mother's ears!)

So, I've touched a little bit on sleep.  We have fallen into a pretty nice routine when she isn't teething or sick.  She's been going down between 8:30-9:30, with a few nights a little later (due to our schedule).  Normally she's in bed closer to 9 though.  Most nights she slept from 9-1:30, and then ate, and then went back to sleep til about 8 each night.  (Except for the 2 nights when she wailed terrible as described above.)

Anna has been eating well this week.  I found that she really likes hot dogs.  So, if she is good then I've been getting a hot dog after our shopping trip to Sam's club.  This week, she ate half of the hot dog all by herself!  Ridiculous!  hahaha....  I've been impressed with her willingness to try most things.  This week's newest item is a banana.  She's enjoyed banana flavored things in the past, but wouldn't eat an actual banana.  So, this week she's actually been eating a banana.  She also was given gold fish crackers too.  (Of which she tried to share with her gluten-intolerant grandmother.  She's such a good sharer! Too bad, grandma couldn't enjoy!)  She still likes cheese, yogurt, baby food pouches, yogurt melts, bread, eggs, pretzels, ritz crackers just to name a few things.  We've also been doing well with milk intake.  I've gone back to adding a little bit of breastmilk in with her bottle, because then she tends to drink more of the bottle.  Right now the ratio is probably closer to 1:4.  1 ounce b-milk, to 4 ounces whole milk.  I've also been giving her a sippy cup with plain cold whole milk.  And, she has taken a few sips on her own (tipping it up too!!).  So, I think we're making progress.  At this point, she most often is just nursing before bed (and sometimes not even that), and in the middle of the night.

Anna isn't walking yet, but she is doing well walking on furniture or with toys.  She has really improved even over this past week.  She is also crawling VERY VERY fast.  Anna does very well climbing up the steps, and can do that pretty fast too.  This past week, though, we put up our permanent gate, so she's not able to climb up there as easily unless we let her (or leave the little door open).

Since Anna went to the doctor's office as a follow-up, she was also weighed.  Now granted she did have her clothes on... but it looks like she possibly has gained almost a pound in the past month.  (Actually a little less than a month.)  She weighed in at 19 pounds 6.5 ounces.  So we're still not at 20 pounds, but she's starting to get really heavy to carry around.  Ha!  Anna is still rockin out the 12 month clothes, size 2 shoes, and size 3 diapers.

Anna continues to be a chatterbox.  She is still saying her favorites: Mom/Mama/Mommy, Dad/Dada/Daddy, Baby, Baba, Anna, Nana, Papa.  She continues to greet me most mornings with "Bop"... I have no idea what that means, other than potentially "baba."  This week, Anna added "bubbles" and "Mimmee" which we believe is close to "Kimmee" since she said it when she was at my parents house.  It's kind of cute... actually it's really cute, since she is soooo in love with Kimmee.  I LOVE that she says her name now... or at least tries.  I know that Kimmee loves it as well!!

Anyway, that's about it.  So I hope everyone is well.  Thanks for checking in on us!