One Month Old Girls!

Today, Cordelia and Estella turn one month old. Although it is hard for me to recognize it, I know they have both grown so much in the past month.


Estella spends a lot of time awake, just looking around with her great big blue eyes. (Yes, her eyes are still blue! They could still turn brown, but every day they remain blue gives her daddy a little more hope that he'll have a blue-eyed baby girl.) Estella's head and neck control has really improved in the past month and she can almost push her head up when she is laying on her tummy.

Newborn Estella


One-month-old Estella



Cordelia enjoys laying on her back, batting at toys dangling above her. Cordelia seems to sleep more than Estella does, but when she is awake she is active! Cordelia also has blue eyes, but they are darker than her sister's eyes and sometimes look almost hazel. With Cordelia's darker complexion, I suspect her eyes might turn brown relatively soon.

Newborn Cordelia


One-month-old Cordelia

Two Years Old

Adelaida is now two years (and one month, because I haven't had time to post anything in the past month!) old. She is growing up so quickly and turning into such a wonderful little girl. For the past six weeks we have been telling her that she's not a baby anymore, she is a big girl -- and now I'm beginning to realize that we are right! She really isn't a baby anymore, an any way!

I think these pictures, taken on her month-birthday each month, really show just how much she has grown in the past two years.

Her birth-day, December 20th, 2008. She has come so far from such a rough beginning!


Five days old, just home from the hospital and still too small for her clothes.


One month old, happy to be carried in the laundry basket.


At two months old, she was already so inquisitive, quietly taking in the world around her.


At three months old, Adelaida still liked to snuggle and could fall asleep with me holding her. I miss those days!


Here she is at four months old, with her thumb in her mouth. Surprisingly, she stopped sucking her thumb when she was about nine months old.


By five months, Adelaida would laugh at everything! She was so much fun and we just loved to hear her laugh.


Six months old and just a bit shorter than Pink Panther:


Such a happy seven-month old!


Her hair started laying down on her head around eight months :


Nine months old and mobile!


By ten months, Adelaida could really get around: she would cruise around furniture when she could, and crawl when she couldn't cruise. Getting her to lay still for this photo was tough!


Eleven-month-old Adelaida loved to "perform" on demand: clapping, waving, and repeating sign language back to us. She could also say "da-da" but didn't really add "ma-ma" to her vocabulary for another few months.


One-year-old Adelaida was so much fun! In just one year, she grew from a tiny infant who needed to much attention to an independent, beautiful, smart little girl.


At this point I started taking Pink Panther pictures once every three months instead of every month.

Fifteen-month-old Adelaida was fascinated by tags. And, she could say "ma-ma!" I was so delighted every time I heard her say my name.


Adelaida at eighteen months, with such a cute bellybutton!


Finally, by twenty-one months old, Adelaida was clearly longer than Pink Panther. She had about a nine-month plateau in growing where she didn't grow at all, but seems to have gotten back on track and is now gaining both length and weight, although slowly.


For her two-year Pink Panther picture, Dale had to take Pink Panther into the closet (where Adelaida was sure to follow) to get a decent photo of Adelaida next to Pink Panther!


It has been such a short two years, and yet Adelaida has changed so much. I am looking forward to the next two years with her!

21 months old ... and growing!

We celebrated Adelaida's 21-month-birthday this week (also known as the "one-and-three-quarter birthday"). If it has been more than a month since you've seen Adelaida, you might not recognize her -- she is growing more and more every day! The past few months have been a wonderful time, as Adelaida's vocabulary grows so quickly. She is more observant and much more talkative and more polite (we really work on "please" and "thank you" and being patient) than she was even a few weeks ago.

As usual, I took a few pictures of Adelaida with her Pink Panther (and she can now say "panther"!) and couldn't believe how long she has gotten (or how white her feet are -- I think she gets that from her Daddy!).


For comparison, here is the picture of Adelaida with Pink Panther at 18 months:


at 15 months:


and a one year:


Adelaida's first year flew by so quickly, with even more changes. This is what Adelaida looked like one year ago, when she was nine months old:


Six-month-old Adelaida was practically still a baby -- we even put her on a blanket when she was on the floor so she wouldn't get dirty!


Here is Adelaida at three months (her hair is so dark!):


And when she was just a few days old Adelaida was so tiny I could hold her in one hand.


I miss those precious days when Adelaida was so tiny and would sleep in my arms, but she is growing up to be such a fun, happy, smart little girl that I am excited to watch her explore her world and learn new things!

Getting taller

This picture, taken last September, has always been one of my favorites of Adelaida. She couldn't walk yet but loved to stand, and we often stood her up in front of this walker. I caught her looking at me, smiling, with her dress falling off one shoulder.


Last week, Adelaida was playing in the living room, in front of the same walker (she now walks well and was dragging the walker from one area to another so she could distribute the blocks throughout the house), wearing the same dress. I thought back to the picture from September and knew I had to get a photo!


Did you notice that her dress is ankle-length in September but knee-length in June? Adelaida is getting taller!

Adelaida is a year and a half old!

This is the most recent pink-panther-picture of Adelaida, who is now eighteen months old and unmistakably longer than Pink Panther!



It is hard to notice, day to day, how much Adelaida is growing. But, when I look at pictures of her as a newborn, I realize just how big she has become! Below are pictures of Adelaida from newborn, three months, six months, nine months, twelve months, and fifteen months:

newborn


three months


six months


nine months


twelve months


fifteen months


eighteen months

First Teeth!

Two Four Five Teeth!
This is another post that I intended to write several months ago, but am somehow just now getting around to it.

When Adelaida was about two months old, she began to drool. A lot. I knew that drooling was a sign of teething, and that most kids get their first teeth between three and ten months, so when Adelaida started drooling in February 2009, I expected to see a tooth within a few weeks. (I wasn't worried that she was only two months old when most kids get teeth between three and ten months, because of course she is an amazing little girl and was probably just going to do everything a little earlier than her peers, including teething.)

three-month-old Adelaida shows off her gums

I waited quite patiently for that first tooth, as February ended (and still no tooth), and then March passed by without any signs of a tooth, and suddenly it was June and she still didn't have any teeth! Well, in June she was only six months old, and babies get teeth anywhere between three and ten months, so I wasn't worried -- she would cut teeth when she was ready, and certainly in the next four months.

nine-month-old Adelaida has a toothless grin

The summer came to a close with Adelaida still toothless, and at her nine-month well-baby checkup, I asked her pediatrician if I should be concerned that she still didn't have any teeth. She told me not to worry, that most kids get teeth by the time they are ten months old, but even a little later than that was not unheard of -- so she would probably get her first tooth in the next month or so, and Dr. Anderson wouldn't consider her development abnormal unless she still didn't have any teeth on her first birthday.

eleven-and-a-half-month-old Adelaida: I see a tongue, but still no teeth!

September ended, October passed by, November came and went -- and still no teeth! (At this point we realized that Adelaida hadn't gained any weight in five months, so were much more concerned about her weight gain than her lack of teeth. But that doesn't mean I wasn't looking for teeth at every opportunity!)

Then, on December 14, just six days before her first birthday, Adelaida was eating tomatoes and had the tomato skin still in her mouth (remember, it's hard to eat when you don't have teeth!). I put my finger in her mouth to remove the tomato skin and felt something hard and bumpy on her lower gum. Her first tooth! After waiting nine-and-three-quarters months for this tooth to appear, I was completely unprepared for it! I thought back over the previous few weeks, and didn't remember seeing any of the teething signs -- she wasn't drooling more than normal, she wasn't chewing on things, she wasn't cranky, her gums didn't seem swollen. It was like the tooth just appeared out of nowhere. A few days later the second one came in, and Adelaida had two adorable little front bottom teeth -- just days before her first birthday!

February 2010 started, and again Adelaida started drooling a lot. Thinking we had just missed the drooling with the first two teeth, we were now prepared for her to cut another tooth or two. We waited, and waited, and waited, and finally, at the beginning of April, she got two more teeth -- her top front ones. Gone was the adorable little toothless grin, and here to stay was a big-girl, growing-up-so-fast Adelaida with four front teeth.

Now that I know she can cut teeth, I'm not so worried about her growing up to be a teenager without any teeth. We haven't really seen any signs of teething since the first of April, so didn't think she would be getting more teeth any time soon. Then, today, Adelaida was running in the bonus room and tripped, fell, and hit her face on a toy. She wasn't badly injured, but started to cry ... and as I looked down at her to see if she was hurt, I saw another tooth! This one is on the top, on her left side, pretty far back in her mouth, like it is a molar. I only saw (and felt) two points, so I'm not sure if it is a two-pointed tooth or a four-pointed tooth that hasn't come in all the way yet, but Adelaida now has five teeth.

Adelaida generally keeps her mouth closed, so it has been hard to get a picture of her teeth. In fact, I don't think we have any pictures showing her top teeth at all. But I did find this one of Adelaida's bottom teeth:

can't see the teeth? look closer ...

... and closer still: there they are!

Fifteen Months!

This past weekend, we celebrated Adelaida's fifteen-month birthday. I thought I'd take this opportunity to reflect on how much she has grown -- both physically and developmentally -- in the past fifteen months.

This is the first picture taken of Adelaida, just a few hours after she was born. She was stressed during the birth and hadn't had much oxygen, so was sent to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) immediately after she was born. We were told that she'd probably be in the NICU for five to seven days, with a ventilator to help her breathe because she couldn't breathe on her own. Just six hours after she was born, she pulled the ventilator tubes out of her throat and began breathing on her own! I never saw her on the ventilator, but Dale did and it was a pretty scary time. Fortunately, Adelaida's condition improved rapidly and within two days she was released from the NICU and got to go home with us.


When she was five days old, Adelaida celebrated her first Christmas. She was so little! We had so much to celebrate and to be thankful for that Christmas.


For the first month, we rarely let go of Adelaida. We just couldn't believe that this beautiful, special, sweet, loving baby was ours! Adelaida adjusted well by sleeping wherever she could, which was usually in our arms or on our laps.


When she was two months old, we began taking pictures of Adelaida next to Pink Panther. I love the expression on her face in this picture!


By three months, Adelaida was so aware of the world around her. She actually put Snuffles Jr on her chest by herself and was just looking at him, as if she were waiting for him to respond to her.


Adelaida started eating solids at four months old. Here she is eating with the spoon by herself! She has since progressed to the point where she gets a lot more food when she eats, but the process is still pretty messy :)


At five months old, Adelaida started swimming lessons, started school, and became a pro at sitting up.


While taking the six-month picture of Adelaida with Pink Panther, Dale and Grant wondered if she looked shorter than Pink Panther only because she wasn't fully extended. So, they (very carefully) fully extended her and we confirmed: she really was shorter than Pink Panther!


Adelaida spent her seventh months standing up almost all the time -- while holding on to something, of course.


Eight-month-old Adelaida was doing more of everything -- eating more, standing more (and pulling herself up), smiling and laughing more. She also started signing her first "word" -- nurse! What a great time we had with our little girl.


Adelaida's nine-month picture with Pink Panther is one of my favorites: she is smiling and just about to roll away, and doing what she did so much at this age -- sticking her tongue out!


This is our little flower at ten months old, with her proud Daddy in the reflection in the mirror. Aren't they so cute!


By eleven months, Adelaida really learned to love the independence she gained by self-propelled movement. She had been crawling for almost two months by then, but really preferred standing and walking to crawling. This picture is the first time Adelaida learned to walk around the wall (rather than furniture). She also started "performing" on demand: she could clap, wave, sign "nurse," and "be sweet" (lay her head down on something) whenever we asked her to. We really enjoyed showing her off!


After so many wonderful months with Adelaida, we suddenly realized that an entire year had passed -- she was one year old!! She was as beautiful as ever and (incredibly) becoming more fun every day. Our first year with her had flown by so quickly; she had somehow been transformed from a tiny little baby whose weak little finger grasp was so special, into a beautiful, smart, loving, kind, happy little girl.


By thirteen months, Adelaida was walking -- and she got so much enjoyment out of it! For the first month, she walked around with her arms up in the air, toward either Dale or me so that she could fall into us. It was adorable.


Fourteen-month-old Adelaida could sign several words (nurse, eat, more, all done, up) and was learning body parts, like head, ear, eyes, nose, mouth, and (her favorite) tongue.


Adelaida is now fifteen months old -- a whole one-and-a-quarter years! The time has flown by and we are reminded every day how lucky we are to have our precious little girl. Although she is small for her age, she has finally outgrown Pink Panther! (And as you can see, she still enjoys tags.)