Games and Food - that's what it's all about

Addison likes Elphie's bed. She will run, which isn't really a run, but a very pronounced bow legged fast walk, and just fall on it. She'll then giggle and roll around a little, sometimes Elphie will come check out what she's doing. But then Addison gets back up and runs away from the bed to the couch, then turns around and does it again. She also makes the horrible growling/screetching sound while she's doing this, which is funny for like the first minute and then it seems so high and shrill that you beg her to stop.

She still doesn't have teeth. The two bottom teeth have broken through, but they're kind of stuck, just little white nubs sticking out of her gums. The top teeth are just little bumps, yet to break through. Addison doesn't realize she doesn't have teeth and wants to eat everything that people with teeth can eat. When we're chopping her food up into little pieces that she can easily gum and not choke on she gets extremely impatient. She'll fake cry until the plate is put infront of her, at which point, like a switch the fake crying ends and the shoving food in her face commences.

Her favorite foods, beans - like black or refried, pizza - especially pinapple she really likes pinapple, mandarin oranges, pears, peaches, apple sauce, tortillas and bread of any kind, pasta, potatoes, most veggetables, sloppy joes.

This is generally how Addison looks during and after eating refried beans.

What's new with Addison?

Sorry I've been slacking in the blogging department.

She keeps me busy...

She has her spots - we volunteer at the Jr. High Youth group at our church. So we're there on Sunday mornings and Tuesday nights. The stage at the front of the room has 4 steps to get up to it and then 2 levels of the platform, with 1 step between the levels. That step between the levels is Addison's spot. She will go all the way across the room up the 4 stairs and go sit on that step. Just sit. She'll kick her feet if the music's going, and clap but she's perfectly content to just sit there. She's also learned to high five. She's kind of done it for a while, but now she does it consistently if the kids at youth put their hand up she knows what she's supposed to do. At home on our bed John's pillows are her spot, she'll go sit on his pillows. In the kitchen she has a cupboard she's allowed to play in, a lot of times she'll go sit next to it.

She loves the dogs. Elphie loves her. Socks, not so much. She makes a back of the throat growly sound at Elphie that causes to go nuts, she'll run in laps around the table the come running back to Addison. Addison squeals and tries to chase her. It's a fun game and good entertaiment for all.

Addison has become very aware of her head/hair. She's always putting hats, headbands and bandana's on. Now she's got more hair so she's always playing with it. Especially when there is food on her hands.

Addison is a Poser

If she knows a picture of her is being taken she will immediately strike a pose. We have very few pictures of her in her natural state of just doing whatever we're trying to catch her doing. From the time she was just a couple of months old she started looking directly at the camera. This picture is rare, she's not looking at the camera, shockingly.

Even better though, when you play peek-a-book with her and she covers her eyes with her hands, when she takes her hands off her eyes she throws her hands in the air (like "tada!") and smiles. If she's standing at the coffee table or window (which is about her chest level) she puts her hands on it, crossed over each other and often puts her head on her arms, looking like she's waiting for someone to take her picture. Unfortunately by the time I get the camera out she's moved on to other things. Perhaps I just need to have my camera at the ready ALL THE TIME, to catch such moments.

Speaking of pictures, I have pictures going back to Easter that need to be uploaded. I'm such a slacker.

What sound does a dog make...

...most kids would answer this question as woof, or bark right? Yeah, not Addison. Whatever you ask her, what sound does (insert animal here) the response is the sound of an elephant. Which is AWESOME!

We're going to the zoo

We took Addison to the zoo. I don't remember ever having so much fun at the zoo. She's at an age where she doesn't "get it" yet. But she's starting to be so aware of things. Don't ask if I took pictures, because I'm angry at myself for not checking the batteries on my camera before I left the house and the gift shop at the zoo was out of batteries of course, so we'll go back again soon and pretend it was the first time around.

They've just redone some of the stuff at the zoo, they have a new black bear and bobcat exibit. Addison saw the bobcats, pointed and said "cat" she's brilliant. When she got excited about stuff she'd say "OOOOO!" She was just facinated by everything. We went into where they have salmon and trout and sturgen, she would just point and look at us like "do you see that?"

There is a petting area with goats and sheep, she saw the goats and said "dog." Close enough I guess.

While she was still in a good mood we took her to see the elephants. Since I like elephants consequently she's recieved a lot of elephant gifts, which is great, she really likes elephants. Devion and I make the elephant noise (you know where you purse your lips together and blow) she tries to do it too...it's so cute! When we saw the elephants she was so excited. At the zoo there's 3 areas there's the front, where usually the baby and the females are, then inside is usually one of the big males, and then the back, where there are usually more males. Inside there's obviously glass between the elephant and us. She had to get down and walk along the glass, hitting her hands against it trying to get to the elephant, all the while making the elephant noises (or trying). We took her the back and I put her on my shoulders. She couldn't even sit still she was so excited.

The rest of the time she was more tired, but never fussy, just quite and sitting still. But she stayed awake the whole time had to observe everything.

It was so fun, we'll have to take her again soon.

Things People Never Tell You

There are things about babies that you hear over and over again, certain things that are just common sense if you've ever been around kids. Then there are the things no one tells you and you find out on your own, this is a story about one of those things. The other night after soccer I put Addison down in her crib - she was close to being asleep, and I went to shower. I came back to check to make sure she was asleep and that she had enough blanket, and she was staring up , I said "Hi" thinking she was awake, but her eyes were glazed and she didn't move at all. I panicked, completely freaked out that she was not moving, and laying there with her eyes open I plucked her out of bed, thinking that there was something seriously wrong. She kind of startled awake and started crying. I cozied her back down and got her back to sleep. This was not just eyes kind of open a la Owen, this was full on eyes open, deer in the headlights stare that made her look dead. Well come to find out that sleeping with eyes open isn't that uncommon in babies 12 to 18 months, they have much longer deeper REM sleep than adults so eye open sleeping isn't abnormal at all. No one told me this! Maybe it's not a common thing in our family, but I know lots of people with babies, I would think that I would have heard about this at least once before. Anyway, there's my story about how I almost had a heart attack - Addison probably did too considering how quickly she was pulled out of bed.

Night-Night

Yesterday at nap time Sarah (Addison's Daycare provider) told Addison to say Night-Night to the kids. So she crawled to each of the kids and gave them a hug and said "Nigh" she then went to the door and said "Nigh Mom." AWWW! That's the stuff that makes me miss her during the day.

Yesterday my friend from work Jan's nephew came into our office. Ian is 3 weeks old. He was cute and tiny and they're so cute like that, but I'm totally loving my 1 year old little monster who is chatty, and all over the place, and a ball of personality. When I got home and Addison wanted to sit in my lap and then get down and then back up and then back down, a newborn who just lays there seems so boring (but that would be welcome at times).