The sign for "more"

Today during dinner Cleo did sign language for "more" and I actually understood what she wanted. We both smiled, giggled, and it was cool. And of course I gave her more food.

Well, I didn't know she even knew sign language until exactly one week ago.

Last Thursday was parent/teacher conferences at Cleo's daycare. One might think that a p/t conference for a baby in daycare would be silly...but since they spend more waking hours with her than we do, we thought it would be prudent to go. We learned that night that, developmentally, Cleo is either right where she needs to be or above average in all areas. We also learned that she is being taught sign language to communicate since she can't speak yet. I knew that this existed, but just haven't had the chance to really look into it much. And although she does get frustrated sometimes, I figured we were getting along pretty well without it for the most part.

So far they have taught her 3 words in sign language: please, more, and another one that I can't remember at this moment. Her teacher also showed me the signs for these words so that I could recognize them when she used them. Poor thing has probably been signing to me for weeks now, but I had no idea.

Anyway, she did the one for "more" tonight while eating dinner and it was awesome!

Say "Trixie"

Cleo said "Trixie" today. Well, actually, it sounded like Da-she or something to that effect, but she meant Trixie. I know this because she pointed at Trixie and said Da-she.

She was pretty proud of herself.

She is great at communicating but she is also getting very frustrated at times. She points at objects she wants. Sometimes she points at things she wants to know the name of. She constantly talks in her little language, which fluctuates between sounding like German or Japanese. She loves taking things out of other things or putting things into other things. She loves handing us stuff. She also loves picking specs of leaves or pine needles off the floor (even though we vacuum everyday the dogs bring in this stuff from the backyard so it's a constant battle) and handing them to us so we'll put them in the trash. She likes taking wipes and "cleaning" things.

She also likes climbing on Trixie. Trixie doesn't seem to mind and seems to have accepted her fate. She has yet to actually get up and move.

Tomorrow we may go visit Santa at the mall. Maybe.

Thanksgiving 2009

Thanksgiving was a big hit this year with Cleo. We went to Doug and Amy's house in Hanover and had a late lunch/early dinner with her family. Lots of older second cousins (I think?) in the 3- to 6-year-old range for Cleo to watch and play with. She didn't stop moving (she is quite the proficient walker now and is trying to run) and was especially excited to play with the big-kid toys they brought over. She was tuckered out by the time we got home (so were Jeff and I, who took 2 hour naps on the couch once we put C to bed). As usual Doug, Amy and her family put together a delicious spread and we stuffed ourselves to the gils.

We started the day off with a yummy home cooked breakfast made by Jeff. We had cinnamon buns, banana and scrambled eggs. Cleo's first official Thanksgiving meal (last year she was still getting all her food from Mommy) was a delicious combo of Uncle Doug's yummy brined turkey, corn, squash, mashed potatoes (which she didn't like) and pickles (she loves pickles). Her favorite was definitely squash! Although Jeff and I were still waaay too stuffed to eat dinner, Cleo had some peas, an egg and rice...kind of a fried rice thing going on there.

So much for a relaxing 4 day weekend...tomorrow we head to Nana's for Thanksgiving #2, Saturday we head out to western Mass with some friends to cut down our own Christmas tree (which I've never done before, but Jeff says is really fun), and Sunday we're having a couple friends over for a small holiday get together.

Plenty of fun for little Miss Baby Cleo!

Cleo's one year old pics

While we were in New Orleans this past weekend our photographer sent us the latest Cleo pics we had done a couple of weeks ago.

Here is a link to her blog with a few of the pictures...if we can get 15 comments on her blog we get a free 8x10. As of today we need 5 more comments...so get over there and make a comment if you haven't already!

Thanks!!!

Cut and paste this into your browser:

http://bostonbabyphotos.blogspot.com/2009/11/dahling-you-look-mahvelous.html

Cleo is 1!

I can't believe she has been here for a year already! Cleo's first birthday was last Friday and we held her party on Saturday afternoon, which was Halloween. We had a costume party with a few close friends and family that came into town. I think a good time was had by all and Cleo didn't disappoint with her baby antics.

Getting Cleo into her Snow White costume...she wasn't thrilled


Cousin Annabelle was a butterfly. They sized each other up and wondered why everyone looked so funny.




This is probably the best picture ever (incidentally I was Medusa, Jeff was a greaser)

We got BBQ takeout from around the corner for lunch!


After everyone chatted for a while and feasted on BBQ, it was time to get down to business. The business of opening birthday presents. She wasn't really into it, but I'm sure next year will be a different story. And luckily Mother Nature came through in a big way, so we were able to spend the day outside! (Yes, we are in short sleeves, on Oct 31st, in New England!)








to be continued...

Cleo and Lucy

Here is a little video Jeff took of Cleo playing with Mary Jo and Barry's dog, Lucy, while we were in Richmond in mid-September. We weren't sure if Lucy would like Cleo because she had never been around babies before (although we knew she liked other dogs) and she can be a little shy. But she has a super-sweet temperament so we weren't too worried. Lucy spent the first day pretty much just running away from Cleo. But Lucy ended up LOVING Cleo and vice versa. I think Cleo was a little bummed to come back to 2 lazy dogs that aren't really interested in playing with her.

Well I can't seem to upload the video after all. Sorry. I've tried 3 times and it doesn't want to work. :(

long time no see

This picture pretty much sums up why I haven't had the time to post much on here lately.



She is a busy girl.

slacking

I know I have been slacking lately. But we have been CRAZY busy.

Teeth count: 7

Word count: 3+ (Mama, Dada, something that vaguely resembles Daphne, but kind of sounds like Dada too)

Attitude count: 100% attitude, 100% of the time. And she is only 10 months old. We are bumming!

Here are Cleo, Doug and Annabelle last weekend:

A few Vineyard pics

Our cottage

Nothing like a day at the beach...covered from head to toe...in July (next year it's the Carribean).

A nicer day


The mighty Atlantic


Cleo's new pal BunBun...bought in Edgartown in Martha's Vineyard. She likes to hug him and chew on his face


Cleo and BunBun...on the ferry back to the mainland


We were tired and had Cleo drive us home...she looked a little worried as she hasn't had any lessons yet


I'll post more off of our real camera...these are all from my cell phone.

9 Month Check up

Cleo had her 9 month check up last week. She weighed in at 20 lbs, 3 ozs and was 27.5" long...which is still 75th percentile for weight and 50th percentile for height. This visit was much more traumatic than past visits because she actually knew what was going on and pretty much started screaming from the moment we got her undressed until the exam was done. She also had to get one vaccine and her finger pricked to test for lead and anemia. Boy, is she a bleeder! It was a mess. Luckily though, we haven't heard anything back from the doctor and no news is good news...I was a bit worried about the lead in our house.

She is crawling like mad and has a mouth full of teeth. She is also pulling up on anything and everything. Daycare says, "Wow, she sure is active."

No kidding.

She also says "MaMa" and "DaDa" constantly...along with other baby nonsense. She LOVES Daphne and Trixie and the dogs are finally excepting of her and pretty much either ignore her or treat her as one of their own. She knows who I mean when I say "Daphne and Trixie" and will look for them. She seems to prefer Daphne and tries to actually say "Daphne" sometimes.

I have lots of little videos of her crawling and generally being cute...I just need to find the time to upload them!

This is Cleo at Lucy Vincent Beach in Martha's Vineyard on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009.

Jeff and Cleo running around on Lucy Vincent Beach in Martha's Vineyard on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009. It was pretty foggy (everywhere else on the island was sunny though!).

This is Cleo reading the newspaper on Wednesday at our rental cottage in Martha's Vineyard.

I forgot to mention

In the last 2 weeks or so Cleo has accomplished the following:

o Learned how to sit up from a lying down position (and vice versa)

o Crawling

o Saying “Mama” and “Dada”

o Pulling herself up on everything

She is moving very fast and daycare says it is unprecedented!

She also has 2 upper teeth coming in, not one like I thought.

Another tooth

Cleo has another tooth coming in on the top. We knew something was up when, last week, she took a couple of two-hour naps at daycare. Over the weekend we noticed (and felt) her top left front tooth just barely poking through. Soon she'll look totally different with those additional teeth.

On Saturday we head to Martha's Vineyard for a week's vacation. We are psyched! We have a ton of pictures and video to get off our camera before then, so we'll try to get that done asap and post lots of them here.

Lunchtime yesterday

Cleo was being extra cute this weekend...

Going part time?

Today I talked to my boss about working part time. I have realized over the last couple of weeks that I really want to spend more time with Cleo. I don't want to quit working though, because I think I'd go crazy and we also need the money and benefits.

So I've asked my boss if I can start working 3 days a week only. He didn't say "no", but he has to run it up the chain to see what they say. Our department is in a state of uncertainty right now and no one is quite sure where we are going to land. So the timing is either really good or really bad. Either way, I am hoping we can work something out.

It will be tough though because I'll only make about 1/2 of what I make now. But I am confident that we can make it work. If not, I'll either try to come back full time or have to get a second job or something (yikes).

I am hoping to start this new schedule in about 3 weeks, but need to wait for approval from the higher-ups. Fingers crossed!

Busy weekend and Water Babies!

Mary Jo and Barry were in town this weekend and we had a birthday party for them up in NH on Saturday. Then yesterday Jeff's cousin Jamie came over and we went downtown for lunch. We were supposed to go to the aquarium as well, but the line was wayyy too long and we didn't have time to wait around. It was a super-busy weekend. Between going to New Orleans and this past weekend, Cleo has been quite the trooper. We've tried to maintain her schedule as best as possible, but have not been able to get her to bed on time consistently and I think it is effecting all of us. We are collectively exhausted!

We had our first water babies class on Saturday morning. Cleo did really well, although we arrived a couple minutes late and I felt a little lost for a bit. But soon we were getting the hang of things. We sang songs, performed different maneuvers with the babies to get them used to being in the water (flip from belly to back, float on back/belly, sit on the wall and "jump" into the water, get water sprinkled over your head, play with toys, etc) and generally had a good time. They packed a lot into the 30 minute class, but I think it is going to be a fun way to start our busy summer weekends for the next 7 weeks. Although, we'll miss one class while we're on vacation in late July and there is no class this week because of the holiday. Many of the babies cried, but Cleo seems to really really enjoy the water and isn't afraid at all.

Baby Annabelle

I almost forgot! Cleo got a cousin earlier this month. Annabelle was 2 weeks early and barely gave her Mom a chance to even get to the hospital! It took all of 2 hours for Amy to have her. She looks exactly like Doug and has lots of extra skin that she needs to grow into. She is sooo tiny and as of this past weekend was finally back to her birth weight. She is just the smallest little thing ever. Here are some pictures of her just a few hours old...







And a few more funny ones of Cleo...here she is trying to steal Uncky Doug's cake on Mother's Day a couple of weekends ago (Her face is so serious, as if she is calmly and sternly saying "You will give me your cake now."

New car

We spent Saturday at a Honda dealership buying a new (used) car. We have been in the market for a new car for quite some time, but we finally decided it was a good time to take the plunge and purchase. Jeff's car had been paid off for about 3 years and it was needing more repair work than it was worth and wouldn't have passed inspection. Plus we are getting ready to pay off the Audi.

We got a 2007 Honda Pilot that was a great deal and pretty much in mint condition. It's bigger than we wanted (we were thinking about getting a "crossover") but is a low-emission vehicle and gets better gas mileage than our Audi. It has all the amenities we like and even a DVD player for Cleo in the back.

We left the house pretty early and were at dealerships for about 5 or 6 hours. We didn't get back home until about 5 or 6pm. Cleo did so great! Which makes me think that traveling next week won't be as big of a nightmare as I'm anticipating.

Yesterday morning was beautiful and we were up at the crack of dawn and itching to get out of the house and drive around in our new (to us) car! We drove all over the south shore and ended up at the beach for a little while. It was fun to watch everyone trying to surf. We didn't stay too long though because we weren't really dressed for the beach and didn't have sunscreen. Cleo didn't seem to notice the water much, but was fascinated with the sand.

C's first Memorial Day

We had a BBQ on Sunday to celebrate Memorial Day. Unfortunately it fluctuated between sunny/extremely humid and torrential downpours, but we managed to still have a good time.

I was running around a lot and didn't get the opportunity to take any pictures, but a few friends got some really good shots of Cleo...

Looking coy


Hmmmmmm


Sitting with our good friend Jonah, one of her biggest fans


Here she is on Saturday sitting in the front yard while Jeff planted flowers


And yesterday taking care of business on Daddy's laptop


We head to New Orleans in about 2 weeks...it's a 4-hour direct flight. I am a little nervous it won't go well, but we'll see!

Latest pictures

Cleo turned 6-months-old on Thursday. Can't believe it! We are excited though because she is at a really great stage right now...she is super-fun, isn't mobile and is easily distractable. I know this will all change soon. Another great thing is that we finally have her on a schedule that seems to be working and she has slept the last 3 nights in a row from 7pm until about between 5:30 and 6:30am. YAY!

Here are some recent pictures from the last week or two...

Cleo in her new monkey hat for next winter


The 2 of us


With her Daddy


Trying on Mommy's sunglasses


Jeff's birthday was last weekend and we kept it mellow...bbq'd with just a few friends. Here is C being super-mellow in her new shades.


Loving her carrots


Having a bath


Playing and drooling