Big week

We have been visiting my parents this week (Steve came for the weekend, then had a ton of overtime to work, so Kadence and I stayed for the week), and it has been a big week!

First, she has been trying to sprout her top teeth for a couple of weeks now, and they FINALLY popped through. I had seen her top left middle and the one to the left of that for a couple of weeks, but the top right middle decided to make an appearance at the same time. Poor girl was feeling the pain of all three trying to break through at once. Her latest skill is grinding her bottom teeth on her new found top teeth--a gut-wrenching sound! Hopefully she'll stop when the newness of her top teeth wears off. So she now has 5 teeth.

Second, my mom asked Kadence several times over the phone to wait until she could see her to start walking. Well, she did. The first night we arrived Kadence was holding onto her stroller when she decided to let go and take three steps all on her own. This morning she took six steps in a row. She is gaining confidence quickly.

Third, she stood up without holding onto anything for the first time. She was playing with a clean diaper in the middle of the room. When I glanced back over she was standing up, still holding the diaper, but there was nothing around to aid her to stand up. Sigh. She's growing up so fast!!

Finally, we took her 9 month portraits this week, and for once they very quickly emailed them to me. Here are some of my favorites. (Christy--what great taste you have!! Both of the outfits are from you :)

Is this a pillar or a drum?

So serious, but so pretty!

her slightly crazy grin that now pops up whenever she sees my camera

she was waving the flower around like a wand

big girl standing

9 months

Well, Kadence has officially been outside of my belly for as long as she was inside of my belly (I know, I know, my womb!). She turned 9 months old on Saturday. This last month flew by!

The biggest news is that she is very close to walking. She will let go of whatever she used to stand up and take a couple of tiny little baby steps before falling or grasping onto the object she was going for. She is really good at walking when we just hold one of her hands, but is not quite brave enough to venture very far without that security. When we hold both of her hands--look out! She thinks she can sprint across the room. She leads with her head and drags us along with her.

The other change is she is sprouting more teeth. She has had 2 white spots peeking through on top for over a week, and just today one poked through. It's not her 2 front top teeth, though, it's her left top front, and the one to the left of that (that's the one that poked through). No sign of her right front tooth.

She loves peek-a-boo and for us to chase her. She has a love/hate relationship with all animals, including great Uncle Larry's goatee that looks like an animal, and a little finger puppet mouse in a book. She is very scared to the point of tears when she firsts sees or meets any animal, but after she faces and conquers her fear (in a few minutes), she giggles and squeals when she sees them. Except for Uncle Larry's goatee :) Never quite got over that.

We're going to get her 9 month portraits next week, so hopefully there will be some cute pics from that. For now, here she is in another favorite summer outfit.

Wanna play Wii?

Father's Day

Happy first Father's Day to Steve! Thanks for being such a fun, playful, adventurous, comforting, and supportive daddy.

We started celebrating on Friday by meeting Steve at work for a picnic lunch. Then we spend the weekend with Steve's family in Concord. Here is a video of Kadence walking, and some pictures from the picnic.

Private

Yep, I think I'm going to do it, too. I don't really want to, but Oprah scared me.

I am going to make my blog private. This is a little hard because I really want everyone I know to be able to watch Kadence grow...but I need to be a little more careful to make sure it's truly just people I know. I'm not a huge Oprah follower, but I happened to catch a show the other day about the dangers of the Internet, and I think I need to be a little more aware that there are truly creepy people in the world, and a little more protective of my beautiful baby girl.

So, please please PLEASE email me (gruenholz@sbcglobal.net) with your email address so you can continue to keep up with us (well, ok, really just Kadence). Even if you only check it every once in a while--we want to keep in touch.

On a more pleasant note, here area couple of pics of Kadence in some of my favorite outfits. There are so many cute summer outfits for her to wear--I'm excited it's getting warm enough!

This first one is from one of my college suitemates, Amber. Our proud little mustang!!

This adorable top is from Christy--she bought it for Kadence a loooooooong time ago...back when Mervyns existed :( Anyway, great job picking out the correct size for the season! I love our girl in blue. The shorts are from Kara, another awesome college suitie.

By the way--Kadence is getting really close to walking. She loves to walk when we hold her hands, or even just one hand. We used to have to lean her from one side to the other for her to step, but suddenly she is stepping by herself, a LOT. She has this super proud look on her face when we help her walk. So does her mama.

We have a climber!

Kadence went from not being able to climb at all on Thursday, to being a champ on Friday. I have no idea what happened, but something must have clicked. First, I was holding her on the couch when she decided that something on the shelf next to us was very interesting. She started climbing up the back of the couch. I was amazed, and instead of stopping her, I decided to spot her in case she fell, but I wanted to see how far she would go. Well, she made it pretty easily to the top of the couch back and was standing up trying to grab the frogs on the shelf (awesome gifts from Matt & Michelle!) See picture below to envision this craziness--no baby in the picture, I was too busy keeping her from falling, but it gives you the shelf/couch-back setup.

A little later that day, she was playing with our video game chair, which she likes to use to help her stand. Well, yesterday she didn't just use it to help her stand, but she stood on top of the seat and proceeded to climb up the back of it until she literally could have climbed on top of the bookshelf if I didn't stop her. It's a pretty steep climb. This kid is fearless. Here is that set up so you can imagine...again, no baby.

Finally, she headed for the stairs. We have a bottom stair gate, but have only used it when older babies come over because up until yesterday, Kadence had no interest in climbing them. Yesterday Steve was playing with Kadence, then went upstairs to get something while I was still downstairs with her. She decided she wanted Daddy, and started climbing the stairs like she's done it her whole life. I had to jump up and grab her--she had climbed 3 stairs by then. We tried to get it in video, but only mildly succeeded. Our little attention lover was a little distracted by the camera, so after each step she made, she turned around to make sure we were still taping her. The first time when she was chasing Steve was much faster. Then this morning, she made it up the entire set of stairs (16 steps) with her Daddy close behind. Needless to say the bottom of the stairs gate is now up.

And since the other pictures didn't have a baby in it, here is a picture with a silly face that makes me smile. Hopefully it will make you smile, too.

Friends and Firsts

Here are some pictures of Kadence and her friends.
First is little Jake--Sandy and Ryan's baby. Though he's not so little...it's not an optical illusion--he is almost as big as Kadence. He was 10lb 10oz at birth. Here is 2 months and Kadence was 7 months. They got to meet mother's day weekend when we went to Sandy's parent's house to visit.

Here is little Emma, Troy and Becky's baby. Emma is about 3 months older than Kadence. The girls are playing during Emma's baby shower here in Sacramento.

This is little Micah--yep, he's kissing Kadence. What a sweetheart! He is Kadence's friend from church.

Her last friend featured today is Piper. Piper is Sandy & Ryan's dog. Kadence was pretty scared of Piper when we first arrived, but by the end they were good friends. Piper let Kadence ride her (with help from her dad), and let Kadence pet her (aka pull out her fur).

Sandy's parents took us out on their boat, so Kadence got to go on her first boat ride. She LOVED it. She loves the wind in her face, and wasn't scared at all.

We went to visit my parents a couple of weekends ago, and Kadence got to go swimming. This was her 2nd time, the first time we went with Micah and his mom, but I forgot my camera. She LOVES swimming. It's like a giant bathtub. She splashes around, and tries to drink the water. She is now a force to be reckoned with in the real bath tub because she had so much fun swimming!

8 months of joy

It's that time again. Time to mark another month of growth for our little girl!

She is quite the active little girl. She crawls everywhere (including under her exersaucer where she got stuck), and is pretty fast (since she's been crawling 2 months now). She sometimes crawls in a very unique "tripod" fashion, with one knee bent in a normal crawl-stance, and the other leg straight out to the side. She uses the same tripod stance to bounce herself up and down, and I'm thinking it might also be the way she will eventually figure out how to stand up without holding onto anything. She has mastered the art of standing up while holding onto something--the couch, the wall, my leg. She is also quite good at what just learned is called "cruising". In other words, she can get around the room pretty well while holding onto something for balance. Finally, she has had several instances of staying standing on her own for a few seconds, before she realizes she let go of whatever object was stabilizing her and she falls over.

She talks a lot, but doesn't seem to have any real words yet. The closest one that has been consistent is "emmmm" for mom. She will crawl over to me, climb up my leg, and say "emmmm" if she wants me to pick her up. That is also often what she says when she wakes up and is waiting for me to come get her. So we'll call it her first word for now :)

She is very friendly and loves to wave to people. She really means it now (a month ago I wasn't sure if it was on purpose). She is also very recently learning to clap, though she doesn't keep her hands stiff yet, so she pretty much just gets really excited and flails her hands together.

She is still a great eater, though she does not yet enjoy her level 3 Gerber dinners or her home made baby food. Yes, I, Melissa Gruenholz, tried to make baby food. I swore I would never be one of those people. But I thought it couldn't be too hard, and might be cheaper--this kid eats a lot. NOT WORTH IT. It dirtied just about every appliance I own, isn't really cheaper, and she didn't like it. Fun experiment, but I will never make baby food again! She loves her little star puffs and is very good at feeding them to herself. Also, maybe tmi, but I'm no longer breast feeding. For a combination of reasons including her getting teeth and therefore causing pain, my thyroid issue, my need to take allergy pills (apparently you shouldn't while you breast feed), among other things...we've been weaning for about 5 days and I'm down to pumping just once a day already. It's quite a relief emotionally, too, as it was getting pretty frustrating to keep her focused on breastfeeding. EVERYTHING was more interesting. Now with a bottle, she can still see what's happening while she eats, and we're both happier!

Finally, I'll leave you with this video of our musical protege teaching herself piano at 8 months.