Birthday Party

Teagan had her first birthday party today. I think she did pretty well considering that she tends to get overwhelmed with groups of people. She really liked all the toys. I'm sure she'll have a fun day playing with everything tomorrow. I think she had fun making a mess with her cake, but I'm not sure how much she actually ate! She looked a little disappointed when we blew out her candle.

Three steps!

Teagan beat her previous record of taking two steps by taking three steps to walk to Daddy this afternoon. She was so cute, smiling as we clapped for her, and then she joined in clapping for herself. We had a fun day hanging out since Paul took the day off.

She has also started giving big kisses to Mommy, Daddy, her stuffed animals, and today she tried to kiss the cat! Sometimes when I tell her "I love you," she grabs my face and gives me a big kiss. I guess she is imitating me since a lot of times I kiss her and say "I love you." It is really sweet.

She escaped!

While we were playing in the living room today Azzy went over to the screen door, slid it open a little bit with her paw, and then went outside. Teagan watched very closely as the cat made her exit and then crawled over to the door to try it out for herself. She sat looking at the cat on the other side of the door for a few minutes, contemplating her next move I think. Then she opened the door a little wider and crawled out herself!

Poor Teagan has been having a little bit of a rough week. She came down with a cold last Saturday night and has been having a really hard time sleeping and nursing with her very runny nose. Then on Monday she fell by a kitchen chair and bumped her face right under her eye. I really thought she was going to have a black eye, but luckily it mostly just looks like a scrape.

Teagan and I are both very happy to have Paul back. He actually made it home in time tonight to go for our nightly walk with us. We walk down by Duck Creek every night and a bunch of baby ducks hatched within the last few days. They are so cute! I really want to scoop one up and take it home.

Favorite food

I think if you asked Teagan what her favorite food is, she would probably say "messy." She likes a lot of things, but if it is messy, she really likes it. Especially now that she insists on spoon feeding completely on her own. She no longer accepts being handed the spoon with food already on it. When the spoon gets too slow, she just tosses it and takes over with her hands. This is how she eats yogurt, applesauce, cottage cheese, and even butternut squash soup!

Egg hunt

Teagan attended her first egg hunt with her cousins on Saturday. She liked picking up the eggs and putting them in her basket, and really liked discovering that there was fun, crinkly, candy wrappers inside! Lucky for her and Audrey, there weren't many kids in the under 3 category so they had plenty of eggs for the younger kids to take their time finding them. Once Connor's age group had finished getting their eggs, he put Audrey to work for him helping to add to his basket with the abundance of eggs still available in the under 3 section.

Woof!

I'm starting to notice that a lot of the "words" Teagan says have to do with animals. Either we spend a lot of time talking about animals, or she's just really interested in them! Her latest animal word is "woof". We were taking a walk yesterday afternoon when someone walked by with a dog. Teagan pointed and said "woof." She also pointed to a dog in a book yesterday and said "woof." Today while we were out at the store I realized that she has generalized her recognition of dogs to other situations where we have never seen or talked about dogs before. When we walked by a dog food display with a large dog picture, Teagan pointed and said "woof." Her other animal words are cat, duck, sssss for snake, and she will sometimes imitate me signing fish.

And since we are talking about animals, here's a cute pic of Teagan in her animal print diaper cover.

Water Table

I haven't had much time to post lately because Teagan's bedtime has been very unpredictable. I think it may be related to Paul's busy schedule and I remember this happening last time he was working crazy hours. If I try and put her to bed at a normal time, she will either fall asleep and then wake up within an hour and stay awake, or she will just not go to sleep until really late. It seems like she is waiting up for Paul. When he was home more on the weekend, she did much better with going to sleep. Just a few more weeks until Paul's schedule gets back to normal, so hopefully bedtime will improve also.

Teagan made an attempt at her "first steps" yesterday. She does really well with standing, but hadn't really tried to step forward yet. Yesterday she was standing and decided she wanted a toy that was on the floor in front of her. She stepped forward with one foot before squatting down to get the toy. Normally she would just squat down and crawl forward. So maybe she's getting the idea that you can go forward standing up!

Tegan got a new toy this weekend that she really likes. It s a water table. She has been having a lot of fun splashing in the water and putting all the water toys in and out of the bucket. Sheould be a fun toy to enjoy outside this spring and summer.

Into everything!

If you want to keep Teagan busy, just give her something to take apart, take out, or put in a bag. She just loves to get into everything! She can stay quite busy when I give her my wallet to play with. The challenge is to round everything up when she's done. She sure can scatter it around. Up until recently I hadn't let her play in the pantry. We kept the door closed, and she'd crawl as fast as she could whenever we accidentally left it open. Then one day I realized, I always let my nieces and nephews play in the pantry, why not Teagan? She has been enjoying unloading everything off the shelves and shaking the boxes of Mac & Cheese.

Yogurt as a finger food!

Teagan is so determined to do it all herself with feeding and makes her wants very clearly known! Instead of just having the food on her tray, she wants the bowl, spoon, and food. She wants the whole piece of bread, not just pieces. She wants to drink from my cup instead of her sippy. And even if we are eating the same food, the food on my plate certainly looks more appealing than what is in front of her. Last night she wasn't too happy that I was trying to feed her yogurt, even though that consists of me putting the yogurt on the spoon and handing the spoon to her. That wasn't good enough. She wanted the whole bowl on her tray. I knew it would be messy, but it sure was funny! Although she is mostly just playing in the video, she actually ate the whole bowl of yogurt with her hands and wanted more! She did feed herself a few bites with her spoon but decided it was just more fun with her hands. When I cleaned her up, she actually had yogurt on her eyelashes!

Big Helper

Teagan loves to "help" with laundry. She stands by the drier whenever I put the clothes in or take them out, and if anything falls on the floor, she will get it and throw it back in the drier. But nothing beats unloading the laundry baskets. When I am actually trying to fold clothes, it is kind of like a race. I fold as fast as I can, and she pulls things out of the basket as fast as she can. Once the basket is empty, she goes for my folded piles. I accidentally left a basket of folded towels on the floor and as soon as she got a chance, she went for it!