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!

Purse

A girl has got to have a purse, right? I gave Teagan a little purse to play with since she loves to put things in and out of bags. She is so cute playing with it. Sometimes she will drag it around by the strap. I thought it was so funny when she brought it with her over to the window and hung onto it while she stood looking out the window.

Pointing

Teagan's babyhood seems to be flying by as she acts more and more like a toddler every day. She is able to communicate so much now, and shows us that she understands a lot of what we say. She can do so much for herself now. Recently, she was pulling things out of her diaper bag, found the snack cup that I keep O's in, opened it up, and helped herself to a snack! I didn't even realize that she knew how to open that container! She pulls up on everythings, cruises, and stands on her own for a few seconds at a time. About a week ago, she started pointing at things. Pretty quickly, she figured out that she can point at something to indicate what she wants. Most of all, I think she just enjoys the power to direct our attention at something. Such a fun stage, but how did my baby grow up so fast?

First Word

Okay, so maybe she didn't exactly say her first word, but she did sign it! We have been consistently showing Teagan the sign for cup every time we give her the sippy cup for the last few months. Yesterday, she actually started signing it herself! We do the ASL sign for cup, but Teagan has kind of come up with her own sign, opening and closing her hand, which is actually more like the sign for "milk". We've never even shown her that sign. Now when I ask her if she wants a drink, she does the sign. When we walked into the kitchen this afternoon and she saw her cup on the counter, she did the sign. I don't think she was necessarily asking for her cup, but just pointing it out to me. She seems so excited to be able to "say" something and have us understand it. At dinner I was telling Paul that I had the video camera out so I could tape her asking for a drink. She started doing her sign as soon as I said the word "drink."



And just for fun, here is also a video of Teagan "dancing" tonight.

Little Valentine

Although we only went out for a short time on Saturday, Teagan had to wear her special Valentine shirt for the occasion. She gave me a special little Valentines "present" by spending a few extra hours with me in the early morning. We have had some rough nights lately, and she was up from about 3am to 5am. The most recent teeth that are coming in really seem to bothering her. After I finally got her back to sleep, she woke up around 8:30am happy as can be. It is so sweet when she wakes up smiling and laughing.

Teagan Crazy Hair

Now that Teagan's hair is starting to get longer, it sure can look crazy! When she wakes up from her nap she always has a pretty good poof either on the top or on one side. It can also be funny to "style" her hair while it is all wet in the bath. We may have to change her nickname from Teagan Cutie Pie to Teagan Crazy Hair.

Teagan went to her first Stars game on Sunday, but unfortunately she was not impressed. I think she just felt very overwhelmed whenever we went into the arena. I tried several times to sit with her in our seat, but she immediately started crying. So, I spent the whole time walking around with her or sitting at a table and letting her play with toys. At least for part of the time I was able to sit in a lounge area that had TV so we could see the game. The Stars won, so at least Paul, Steve, and Connor had a good time.

Spinach

I had been trying to think of how to prepare spinach in a way that Teagan would be able to eat, since I usually just eat it as a salad. While looking through a cookbook, I got the inspiration to lightly steam it and then chop it in my mini food processor. It was the perfect texture and size and she ate it right up mixed with some rice. She looked so happy that I just had to take a picture. So far, she will eat just about anything as long as she can feed it to herself. She lets me "help" with yogurt by handing her the spoon, but that's about all the assistance she will tolerate! It's actually quite nice to be able to just put her food on her tray while we eat our meal at the same time.

I recently got a cookbook called Deceptively Delicious, and it has a lot of great recipes that use fruit and vegetable purees to add extra fruit and vegetable servings to your diet. I can't wait to try some of them out. They all look really good! A big part of Teagan's diet is still mainly fruits and vegetables, but now that she is also eating some pasta, breads, and rice, I can see how it gets harder to still fit all the fruits and vegetables in that we all need each day.