Fiona and Mama visit the doctor

Thursday was an exciting day - both Fiona and I had checkups. Fiona's was second, but we'll cover her first because she's cuter... see?

Fiona is now 15 months old, and weighs 21lb, 9oz (29th %). She is 30 1/2 inches tall (52nd %). Her noggin is more in proportion with her height now, and is 45.8cm in circumference (47th %). So she hasn't grown much in the last three months, but that's normal given that she's a lot more mobile than she was and some days refuses to eat anything but yogurt. She also got 3 shots, one of which was for flu, which aches for days (for me anyway) and she's had a fever and been in a horrible mood all day today, so I'm going to assume that means they're working ;-)

Other than that she's healthy and developing just right and we're happy we have made it this far without ruining her. Yay! :-) And see how happy she is?

Fiona thought my appointment was much more entertaining than hers... she thought it was very interesting when the doctor got to inspect my tummy (because normally that's Fiona's job). We're pleased to report that at 16 weeks everything is still going great, and apparently I'm 'gaining weight nicely'. Thanks twixes!

Michelle and Amanda keep asking for 'bump' pictures, so here's one for you guys showcasing all those twixes... :-)

We're looking forward to the next appointment in 4 weeks where we'll (hopefully) find out which variety of baby we're having. If you'd like to guess the variety, take the poll on the right hand side!

Unassisted walking!

Well, she did it! On her 15 month birthday (on the 24th) Fiona decided that she didn't need my help with walking anymore, and she was ready to go it alone. She'd been taking some steps before that, and would walk a long way holding my hand, but on the 24th she started walking all over the house without any help at all. She spent about an hour walking up and down the living room and was so proud of herself!

She likes to carry something with her when she walks... first it was a little ball that rattled, then it was her cuddly monkey, but then it was her gigantic blue ball. It's really cute, but the size of the ball does cause her some problems...

Since then she's been unstoppable! She loves to walk all over the place. She got very annoyed with me at the library today because I wouldn't let her run off and climb into the fountain. I can tell this is going to be an interesting development...

That doesn't make any sense! #5

Ben and I go to Target a lot. They sell everything there. Well, everything except cornflakes. I have NO IDEA why they don't sell cornflakes, but I shouldn't get started on how much that irritates me.

When they built the Super Target (the "Super" means they have a full grocery section, I'm not just saying it's super) they also built a lot of retail space nearby in case you ever wanted to go to a store that was not Target. Mostly we only go to the Liquor store (because in MN you can't buy your booze in Target, or after 9pm, or on Sundays... again, I shouldn't start on how inconvenient this is ;-)

Anyway, there is a point to this story. Every time we go we pass Famous Footwear. We've been in once, a year ago or so, when they first opened, and Ben bought some shoes, but then returned then because they were lumpy.

Recently when we passed, we saw this sign hanging outside the store...

Huh? What in the world is a "RE Grand Opening"? I know it's not actually meant to say "Grand Re Opening" because they've only been open for a year, and they didn't take a break from being open recently... so I have to assume the sign has been printed correctly.

Did they decide the first grand opening just wasn't Grand enough? They've been feeling like failures for the last year because there weren't enough balloons, or they didn't have a famous-enough celebrity cutting the ribbon, and had to have another go at it? It just doesn't make any sense! And they have not one, but two of these banners, on different sides of the building, so everyone knows about it!

I'm confused. I seriously doubt anyone will pass by and say to themselves "oh, I must stop in to Famous Footwear, they're Re-Granding their Opening". I'm not even sure that sentence is actually English... the whole thing strongly reminds me of those 'missed translation' signs you see in other countries...

(I found this sign here. Check out the rest, they're hilarious!)

In other non-signage related news, Ben and I officially drink too much wine. For the first time ever, we actually used our bottle opener so much that the metal wore out, and it fell apart...

And yes, it was one solid piece of metal, it wasn't glued together or anything. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this is something to be proud, or ashamed of. All I know is that we need a new bottle opener. But it's ok, they sell them at Target.

Question of the day...

What's the best thing to do if your Mummy is growing a big, somewhat squishy tummy?

Treat her gently, trying not to elbow/knee/jump up and down on/otherwise manhandle her somewhat sensitive stomach area?

No... Fiona's answer is to pounce on it, and obsessively blow raspberries until both parties involved require at least a large towel, and preferably a shower...

What am I going to do with this crazy girl? Every time my stomach is in her reach, this is what I have to brace myself for...

Mystery Solved!

It's no secret that Brodie suffers untold abuse at the hands of Fiona. She loves to tackle him and give him big cuddles. She likes to examine the inside of his nose, mouth and ears. She thinks it's funny to hold onto his tail. He has lots of fur that is easy to grip onto to help with standing up. Today I found her sitting on top of him playing with something while he just lay there with a long suffering expression. He follows her around and gets up and goes to her room when he hears her wake up from her nap. He LOVES her, and until now, it wasn't entirely clear why...

Well... mystery solved...

(I'm trying putting the large videos on youtube, and then making them accessible here. We'll see if it works. If it's having trouble playing, try pausing it and waiting until the fainter red bar is further along, then start again. It's only 50 seconds long so it shouldn't take too long.)

Fiona in captivity, and other news

Well, the crib cage tent works great! I impressed even myself with my ability to put it together, despite the bizarre directions, and Fiona doesn't seem to care that she is now a caged beast...

In other bedroom accessories news, I've been stalking Craigslist (local classifieds) for a used glider chair to have for baby 2. With Fiona I had a wooden rocking chair that we got from Goodwill for $30, and it worked, but after many hours of sitting in it, it was far from comfortable. Last weekend I found a glider with matching footstool that seemed like a great deal, so we drove the half hour so see it, and it was in perfect condition! Score!! Fiona was happy to share it with me at first...

But when I moved it into her room she claimed it for herself and is super possessive of it! If someone else sits on it, she'll complain loudly and push them until they get up, and then she'll climb up and sit there triumphantly.

She's also learned how to open and close doors, and gets very frustrated if a door is permanently closed to her. Being refused entry to the basement let to a lying-on-the-floor tantrum. When Ben was having some private time in the bathroom luckily he locked the door...

"Daaa-Daaa?"

"Daa-DAAA?!!!!"

*polite knocking* "Daaaaaaaaa-Daaaaaaaa...."

(Maybe he can't hear me... I'll try yelling through this crack...) "DAAA-DAAA!!!!"

(Well, fine. I'll just sit here and look sad. At least I have my buddy Brodie to hang out with)

Monkey Child

Fiona is 14 months old, but instead of learning to walk, she's been putting all her efforts into climbing. I was (foolishly) checking my email in the living room last week when I looked over to find her sitting on the kitchen table. She scaled a rope ladder at the children's museum like she was spiderman. She can effortlessly climb onto the couch, and then from the couch to the coffee table, despite the table being almost 2 feet away. I don't know where it came from, but she's got monkey in her somewhere.

Fast forward to Thursday night. Ben and I were both tired, and looking forward to getting our darling, crabby, overtired child off to bed. However, Fiona had other plans. After we put her to bed, she started really screaming. Usually she goes to bed very easily, lies down with very little fuss, and goes to sleep, so we waited a few minutes to see if she'd stop. Suddenly there was a loud thump, and the screaming continued. I rushed in, and sure enough monkey girl had managed to channel her rage into some kind of super strength, and climb out of her crib and fall on the floor. Crap. Now what? We couldn't put her back in... she was furious, and likely to just do it again... we couldn't try to have her sleep wth us... she stopped falling asleep with either of us in the room as soon as she became aware we really existed, and needs to be left alone to put herself to sleep wthout distractions... we couldn't just put the mattress on the floor in her bedroom because she would immediately crawl off it and climb on the bookcase... we were in a pickle.

We tried a last minute dash to babies 'r' us to see if they had a solution... they had nothing. So, defeated and frustrated, we came home again. On the way Fiona fell asleep in the car. We hoped that we could get her into the crib without her waking up too much, and maybe she'd just go to sleep and we'd get her out as soon as we heard her wake up in the morning. No such luck. She was very very sleepy, but the second her body touched the mattress, she bolted awake and resumed her Olympic standard screaming.

Time to think of a new plan. And here it is. We moved the pack and play into her room. It's much lower, so if when she climbed out, she'd have less far to fall. We also moved almost all of the furniture out so she wouldn't have anything to climb on that could topple over and squish her. We surrounded the pack and play with pillows and blankets so she would have a soft landing, and we put the lamp and monitor in the stupid, useless crib, so at least she wouldn't electrocute herself with those. Here's what we're left with...

(click to enlarge so you can really see the very proud grin on her face)

After she finally fell asleep I did some googling, and ordered a crib tent online. Here's a picture of one in action. I can't tell if the kid is angry or excited, but either way, she seems pretty well trapped in there!

Genius. And a little more humane than chicken wire (thanks for that suggestion, Michelle ;-)

Apparently it will be here on Monday. Hopefully it'll work. If she seems upset by the whole 'being stuck in a cage' thing, I'll throw in a bunch of bananas and remind her that she got herself into it in the first place with her monkey antics.

Fiona's House

A few months ago I made Fiona a house using her carseat box. Recently she's started to play inside it. She likes to gather all of her cuddly toys inside it...

And then she throws them all out again...

She thinks this is very funny!

If they're lucky, she'll give them all a cuddle at some point, but this game mostly consists of merciless stuffed animal torture.

I made a video of her in action, but it seems that the files are way too big for blogger to handle, so you'll have to check it out on flickr.

So goofy.

Fiona's newest tricks

Every day it seems like Fiona is more and more of a little girl and less and less of a baby...

First, I had to give her a haircut. She has lovely curly hair, but it was too long in the front, so she always looked like she had just rolled out of bed...

(She likes to climb up on Brodie's pillow and smack him lovingly)

It looks neater now, though possibly a little squint and slightly too short... between Fiona squirming all over the place and Ben freaking out that I was about to stab her in the eye with the scissors it was tricky to cut straight! I only cut the fringe though, so overall she still has cute curly baby hair.

She's also started to give cuddles and kisses. If you ask her to 'cuddle monkey' she'll give her monkey toy an enormous hug, but she won't really do the same to humans. However, she'll give kisses to anyone who puckers up if she's in the right mood. Sometimes she misses and it turns into a headbutt, but it's still very endearing. She also loves when I give kisses to her monkey toy, for some reason she thinks that's hilarious.

She is cutting tooth number 14 right now... Only 6 to go. As you can see from this diagram she's quite the tooth growing overachiever! (The red dots are teeth she has.)

Last week we discovered that she'll eat almost anything if you give it to her on a fork and give her a pile of ketchup (or the appropriate condiment) to dip it in. She truly is her father's daughter.

The biggest one though is that she loves to walk around. She won't walk alone, she insists on holding someone's hand (she takes a few steps here and there if you trick her into it) but if you're willing to walk where ever she wants to go at a snail's pace, she will be your friend for life. Last week Ben and I took her and Brodie on a short walk to the convenience store for milk (and an emergency twix) and she walked for almost two blocks. I had a cute video, but blogger is refusing to upload it. I'm currently trying to upload it to our flickr page instead.

Maybe in the next couple of months she'll be walking on her own... and then she will officially be a toddler. Awww.