Milk please

Just thought I'd post an update on the milk situation. Yesterday I switched to 75% whole milk / 25% formula. It had been almost a week and the formula can was getting low...so time to make the change...and in a week or so we'll be ready for just whole milk...accomplishing my goal of being on milk and being done with bottles by Leah's first birthday.

And even with the change yesterday, Leah almost finished all 3 cups of milk. I'd say she took about 7 of the 8 ounces of each. And she's definitely become a pro at the sippy cup. For some reason she won't hold it herself when it has milk in it...but she also doesn't choke when drinking it. She will only hold it herself - in fact gets upset if I try to hold it - when it has water in it - but she must drink too fast or something when she does that because she does choke a bit on the water pretty frequently.

She continues to be a pretty big eater, too. This morning she had a whole packet of oatmeal, a Kraft American single, and 2 strawberries. And she still took about 6 ounces of her milk about an hour later. And for lunch she had a Yobaby yogurt (peach), 2 strawberries, a handful of Cheerios and a taste of the lemon pepper salmon and cous cous I made last night. She was not a big fan of the salmon - took a couple bites and then spit out a couple after that. She didn't seem to quite get the cous cous either - pretty much just spit it out - as well as she could anyway. I also gave her a taste of the leftover leg of lamb I was having - spit that right out. She doesn't seem to be a big meat eater, but she's getting plenty of protein through dairy and such.

She had fun exploring her friend Theo's apartment at playgroup the other day:

And she likes to sit on the couch with me and read a book - just like a big girl:
And she's getting more and more into the shape sorter...she doesn't put the shapes through the sorter yet, but she does enjoy taking them out of the bucket and putting them back in:

Where are your feet?

Yep - Leah's latest bit of observable comprehension - she knows her feet. I ask, "Where are Leah's feet?" and she grabs her feet. Such a smart girl.

Of course she doesn't do it every time. Much like her quacking and mooing, she has to be in the mood to show off her skills. But she's done it enough times that I'm confident it's not a fluke.

Today we went to Leah's friend Angelo's first birthday party. We all had fun. The kids played. The parents talked and ate and drank.

Leah had a front row seat for the opening of Angelo's birthday presents. And she checked out the cards after he opened them:


Angelo got some very cool presents:
And Leah had fun playing with the party favor after we got home:

Where's mommy?

Today you get two blog posts...because Leah just made my day! She brought Shafi her Busy Baby First 100 Words book. She loves this book because it has lots of big bright pictures. He pointed to the picture of the mommy and said "where's mommy?" I repeated "where's mommy?" and Leah turned and pointed to me! I gave her a big smile and a big high five!

We then asked her "where's baba?" and she didn't pay much attention. But hey...she knows her mommy!

Moo...beginning the switch to cow's milk

I decided that since we are only two and a half weeks away from Leah's first birthday and we are on our last can of formula that we should start the switch to cow's milk now. My plan was to give her milk in a sippy cup instead of formula in a bottle. I figured I'd replace the first bottle first - she takes that one before her morning nap - an hour or so after breakfast. And after a couple days I'd replace the afternoon bottle - which is before her afternoon nap - 1 to 2 hours after lunch. And a couple days later I'd replace the nighttime bottle - which is before bed - around an hour after dinner.

So this morning I poured 8 ounces of whole milk into a sippy cup about an hour before naptime, figuring that way it wouldn't be freezing cold straight out of the fridge. And I followed our normal routine. She took one sip and pushed the cup away. I tried getting her to hold it herself...wouldn't do it...and she normally holds the sippy cup herself to drink water. I tried warming it up just a little in the microwave (10 seconds and then shaking it well) - no difference. I tried giving it to her in the living room instead of the bedroom - no difference. I tried putting it on the floor for her to get and drink herself, just like she does with water - no difference. So I put her down for her nap - and she slept about an hour and 20 minutes.

Then I tried giving her the sippy cup of milk again. She took a couple of sips and pushed it away. I tried several more times and every time she would take a sip, shake her head and then either put the cup down or play with it - sometimes chewing on the bottom of it.

So I wondered whether it was the milk or the cup. I poured 8 ounces of milk into a bottle - right from the fridge, so it was pretty cold. She drank almost half of it. So I figured it's likely the cup that's bothering her - she thinks the cup is for water. Next stop - formula from the sippy cup.

Before Leah's afternoon nap I mixed 8 ounces of formula in her sippy cup. She drank almost the whole thing - at least 7 ounces of it - a normal amount for her afternoon bottle. So...it's the combo...she'll drink milk...she'll drink from a sippy cup...the two together was too much. Tonight I'll be trying half formula and half milk in the sippy cup.

And by the time we finish the can of formula...I believe we will have transitioned to whole milk from a sippy cup successfully.

Here was Leah's reaction to the milk in the sippy cup - she played with it:

She examined it from all sides:

And then she gave me the "aren't I cute? please don't make me drink this stuff. where is my bottle of formula?" look:

And maybe she decided to rebel after that...because she made it her business to empty every bin she could find at the Moxie Spot this afternoon...first the cars:

Then the blocks:

Tooth number 7

Yes that's right - Leah's 7th tooth has now broken through. It's on the bottom right - next to the middle right tooth. The one on the left is getting close...so I'm sure it won't be long until she's got 8.

And unrelated to that she is the princess of babble lately. She just goes on and on and on. It's adorable. We just wish we knew what she was trying to say!

Leah and her friend Avery had a lunch date last week. You can see they're already like an old married couple. He's ignoring her and she's yelling at him for it.

He did pay more attention to her at playgroup. They showed off their standing skills and chatted each other up:

We went Shafi's aunt's house in New Jersey over the weekend and Leah hung out and read books to her Uncle Razi:

Leah and Razi definitely enjoyed hanging out and playing together:And she enjoyed exploring the house:

Leah is 11 months old!

January 7...one more month and she'll be a year! She continues to grow at an amazing rate. And her physical development is amazing to watch. Her dexterity improves every day. She's really starting to imitate a lot - talking on the phone, reading a book. She is imitating the "right way" to play with her new toys as we play with them in front of her. Of course it's fine with us if she experiments with playing with them in other ways - turning them upside down, throwing the balls instead of putting them in the hole at the top, reaching in the top to try to get the balls instead of taking them out of the bottom, chewing on books instead of opening them. But it's fun to see how quickly she learns things now. Even older toys that she didn't understand how to push buttons on she is now trying to do on her own.

And most astonishing to see is her rapid increase in comprehension and verbal abilities. She tries to repeat a lot of what we say. And she understands more words every day. Now if only I could get her to say "Mama"!

Leah enjoyed talking to Sebastian while eating his Cheerios at playgroup on Monday:

She rediscovered her bouncy seat - while standing in front of it:

She seems to have finally figured out that a hood doesn't come off by pulling forward - and she is now able to pull it off by pulling it backwards:

Success!:

She loves shaking the roll-arounds that make noise - here she's got a bell in her right hand and a rattle in her left - and she's very proud of all the noise she's making:

Leah climbs stairs

We hosted this afternoon's playgroup...and as we were seeing everyone off in the hall Leah started climbing the stairs. There are 5 steps down from the elevator to the apartment. I had no idea that Leah knew how to climb them, but she got up on her feet and put a knee up on the next step - then followed with the other knee - stood up - did it again. I was very impressed. What a smart cookie!

She's also added a new "word" - she says "uh-oh." Now I'm not sure she knows the meaning of uh-oh, as she doesn't always say it at appropriate times. I've been saying uh-oh when she drops things or knocks things over or falls down, so she obviously learned it from me. But she just says it at random times as far as I can tell. It's still very cute. Her repertoire of sounds now includes quack (more of a qua sound), moo (which is really sort of a hummed b sound), uh-oh (she really enunciates that one quite well), and various sounds like bop and pop and dah-dee - none of which have we figured out whether she thinks they mean something.

She also recently figured out how to get down from the couch by herself. She turns around and swings her legs down. But she isn't quite doing it consistently. Sometimes she's in too much of a hurry and I pretty much catch her by putting a hand on her lower back until her feet are on the ground so that she doesn't crash backwards. And she's also not quite aware of her placement on the couch sometimes so that when she turns around to swing her legs off she's too far towards the edge, and if I didn't have a hand behind her, she would just topple backwards off of the couch.

And Leah continues to improve her finger walking skills. Her balance is starting to get a bit better. I think she may try to take a step or two on her own sooner rather than later...then again she still crawls awfully fast and isn't interested in finger walking very far since it's so much slower than crawling.


Leah loves sitting on the couch and reading - especially when Miss Monkey joins her:
Here she is on her way to get down from the couch...of course she had to stop to tell Miss Monkey a secret on the way:

Ahh, the face of the happy yet loud and ear-piercing squeal:

Leah welcomed 2009 in style

Well, of course she slept through the actual start of the year...and thankfully slept until just after 7 a.m. on the 1st. But she woke up quite happy to start 2009. She ate well, played well, napped well. And we let her watch the Rose Parade - she loved it - especially whenever there were song and dance numbers.

Some morning reading:

Enjoying the Rose Parade:
Today we're going to party like it's 2009:

Maybe 2009 looks better in purple:
Nope - the red was better: