Teeth - finally!

Eden didn't get her first tooth until around 13.5 months!

Here she is brushing her teeth for the first time.  She loves the Elmo toothbrush & toothpaste, and always insists that either Mommy or Daddy brush their teeth along with her.

Winter Vacation to Virginia

I'm a little late posting this, but here are some pics from our trip to Virginia.  We had a great time, mostly relaxing, and being with family.

Eden's first headphones to listen to music.  She liked it - briefly :-)

snoozing on the flight

WILLIAMSBURG:

We watched a fair amount of Sesame Street - Eden is now a huge fan of Bert & Ernie, Grover & Big Bird.  Elmo too, unfortunately :-)

A typical morning at Grammy & Grampy's house over the holiday.

 CHARLOTTESVILLE:

Riding a little car at her friend Jeremiah's birthday party.

That evening Eden wasn't too fond of Jeremiah participating in book-reading before bed :-)

RICHMOND:

After we visited Charlottesville for a day, we went to Richmond to visit the great grandparents.  The Pucketts had the family over for dinner. We started the evening by playing a game on the front lawn.

We got Eden a Virginia sweatshirt when we visited Charlottesville.

Great grandma Puckett boogeeing with Eden.

High Fives with Aunt Laura and "ut" (up)

Eden's first milk through a straw at a nice restaurant.

We saw about 50 different brands of hot sauce with hilarious names.  When Becca read this aloud, Eden laughed loudly.  One of the store clerks looked it her with a cocked eyebrow :-)
(The brand-name and slogan are "Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally - The Slap Heard Round The World!")

We visited Grandpa & Grandma Smylie and Eden enjoyed her new remote-controlled car:

WILLIAMSBURG:

Willamsburg has a festival every New Year's Eve called First Night, with several bands, magicians, dancers and more.  Eden had a ball!

Eden loved the pirate band (a family oriented band with lots of participation).  She rushed right up to join the bigger kids!

Notice her waving to the pirate lady at the very start of the video.  Followed by clapping and then trying to get Daddy's phone/ camera.

Chillin' on her baby couch watching the game.

Honking Aunt Becky's nose:

Happy new year!

Welcome Eden's new cousin!

Eden is so lucky to have two cousins near her age!  Cousin Matthew is only a few months older than she is, and now she has a little cousin James!

Thanks to Bubbe for making this great picture of their newborn photos next to each other!

13 Month Panda Photos

I'm posting this a month later - I forgot to upload them before!

Eden loves books. No panda can keep her away!

I love this pic - she looks like a real rocker here!

14 Month Panda Photos

Here's the latest batch of Panda photos...

Grapes and books and words

Eden turned 14 months yesterday, and we're behind on panda pics.  We will get you our 13 and 14 month pictures soon!  Most of the recent Eden pics are on Daddy's camera, so here's one from a couple of weeks ago, in a Trader Joe's shopping cart.

You can sort of see my two teeny teeth that finally came in!

Lately we have a picky eater on our hands--Eden is extremely particular and lately her favorite food seems to be grapes.  She will eat as many grapes as you will let her have.  We have been giving her grapes for dessert and trying to get her to eat her real dinner first, but she's wise to our tricks.   She will usually eat just a couple of bites of the main course, refuse to eat any more, then we give her carrots, she'll take a few bites, refuse to eat any more, then we'll give her grapes and she'll eat them ravenously and ask for more and more and more.

She also likes complex carbohydrates and will reliably eat Cheerios and bread products.  She especially loves challah, which she can even say (sounds like ha-ya).  This is a problem because our usual method of getting her to eat her least favorite food first when she's hungriest doesn't work on Shabbat - we do the motzi, she gets challah, and then she won't eat anything else.

Eden loves books, particularly pointing to things in books.  We try to read to her but often she'll skip the pages so she can look at and point to something else.  She can find many things you ask her to find.  Lately she is fond of pictures of ducks and pigs.  Eden is learning more and more animal sounds - her latest is an elephant (to add to her repertoire of monkey, dog, lion, and owl).  She loves pictures of animals and is great at recognizing them.  Her current favorites are the Sandra Boynton books, Noisy Peek-a-boo, Playtime Hide and Seek, and My First Words board book.  She loves to look at the back cover of the book where they advertise other books.  She is a bit sick of Pat the Bunny, Eric's Bedtime at the Nut House, and some others.

She loves her touch and feel books too - one book has a little picture of stuffed animals that appears a total of four times (front cover, on a page, back cover, and spine) and she loves flipping to it as fast as she can and pointing to the duck circled here:

Another book has this picture in it, which always makes her laugh!

Our Eden is turning into a curious, spirited, passionate, mischievous, delightful child and we are loving this phase.

Health update - 14 months

Eden's ear tube surgery seems a success - she hasn't had any infections since but has had drainage, which means the tubes were preventing an ear infection.  She also seems to hear a lot better and is making more sounds.

Until this past month, Eden had only really been sick sick (as in can't go to daycare sick) twice - once when she was first introduced to daycare, and once when she got her first ear infection.

She got sent home with a fever which we thought was nothing/teething, but she started seeming pretty sick that afternoon, and was still feverish and sick the next day so we took her to the doctor.  She tested positive for flu!  She likely got it from Grammy, but we don't know that for sure.

We gave her tamiflu and we all started taking tamiflu preventatively, and the flu was actually relatively mild for Eden and nobody else caught it.  I experienced very mild stomach discomfort on tamiflu and no other side effects, and Eden experienced no discernible side effects.  So here's a very strong vote for tamiflu from me!  Grammy unfortunately started tamiflu too late for it to significantly reduce the length of her flu.

A couple of days after she seemed better from the flu, she puked in the car on the way back from a holiday dinner at the McWilliams' - major puke, all over herself and the car.  The carseat still smells like puke after a very thorough cleaning!  She puked again that night but was feeling better enough to keep our flight to Virginia the next day.

A few days later, I got sick.  Then Grammy got sick.  Then Michael and Becca got sick.  Then Matt got sick.  Finally, Grampy got sick.

So... to Virginia family - Eden's very sorry, and hopes she's worth all the trouble and vomit!

So far, 2015 has been very healthy for Eden!

Speech update - 14 months

Eden is communicating a lot these days!  It's adorable.  She is starting to say more consonants - we hear her babbling "na" and "ma" and "va" and "ba" sometimes (not really any "g" or "k") yet, but when she is trying to convey meaning she usually sticks to the "d" and "t" consonant sounds.

Here is her vocabulary so far:

"uh oh" = "I dropped something," "I fell down," "I have purposefully thrown something," "I am about to purposefully throw something," "I am currently falling down" or "these look like stairs, which I might fall down on"
"ut" = "pick me up" or "I know you are currently holding me, but you need to stand up," "I know you are currently holding me while standing up, but I want to go somewhere else" (aside: we put a lot of effort into teaching her this one because she was previously using whining very often to communicate!)
"dat" or "da doh?" = "what is that?" or "I want that" or "I want to eat that NOW and not what is on my plate"
ROAR!!! = the answer to "what does a lion say?"
"ah oo" - the answer to "what does a monkey say?"
"mama" = ??? (she's started babbling this more, but it doesn't seem to be used to mean "mama")
"dada" = daddy, mama, and everything else (she seems to be close to using this meaningfully, but she likes to walk around saying "dada" in various intonations without meaning)
"wa" or "wa wa" = water (we think), or "wow" depending on intonation and emphasis
"dod" = dog (maybe...based on context clues)
"dut" = duck (maybe)
"deedat" or something like this = kitty cat (maybe)
"hat" = hat
"hot" = hop (for a bunny)
"hoo" - the answer to "what does an owl say?"
EDIT: how could I forget - "ha" = hi

She still uses sign language too - limited signs but uses them very confidently.  She uses the conventional signs for "milk" and "all done," and she uses a modified "more" sign (index finger pointing vigorously at other palm) to mean "I want a specific food item that you are not currently giving me (even if you are currently giving me other food items)."  She has also gotten pretty good at shaking her head "no"!  E.g., "Eden, it's time to get out of the bath [after 30 minutes]"  ---> vigorous head shake

Eden loves singing and dancing - when she hears a song she knows, she'll drop whatever is in her hand and start clapping and often bends her knees and shakes her little butt.  Here are some songs/stories she knows the motions to:

If you're happy and you know it
Itsy bitsy spider
Sticky bubble gum (we hadn't heard of this song but she learned it at school)
Bim bam Shabbat Shalom
Bedtime at the Nut House (Mr. Eric's book)
Five little monkeys
Row Row Row your boat
Number Dance (TLG)

Catching up on Eden

Check out these cute videos of Eden in Virginia -





Eden has grown a ton in the past month.  We have lots to say but for now enjoy the videos above - hopefully we will catch up more soon!