Sadie’s First Year
Month-by-Month Photo Retrospective
Sadie Starr Richardson was born February 24, 2004. She weighed 6 lbs 9 oz.
8 Weeks: Sadie is smiling and cooing these days. She likes to say “ah-goo.” This is generally a happy noise. She also likes to lie on her back (either on her changing table or play mat) and bat at toys hanging above her. She’s better at this with her left arm. When we put her on her tummy, she can lift her head well and has also gotten good at lifting one hip, in preparation to roll. Yesterday she rolled downhill from front to back while lying across her daddy’s lap. She has been sleeping well at night, usually waking up to feed just once, around 4:30 (although this varies a lot). Today she celebrated her 8th week birthday with a morning bath and then by napping more in the daytime than she has since she was a newborn. She took 2 3-hour naps plus some catnaps here and there. We visited Mossy’s workplace and then went for long walk around Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield. On the walk we met another baby, Celia, who was also born on 2/24!
10 Weeks: Sadie had her 2 month doctor’s appointment yesterday. She now weighs 12lbs, 10oz and is 23” long. The doctor says she’s doing great (yeah, we agree). The nurse gave her 4 immunization shots. She screamed about that, then slept all afternoon, and seems back to normal today. A few days ago, I retired all her 0-3 month clothes. The 3-6 month size fits perfectly now. I should have tried those clothes on her earlier. While a few weeks ago she would bat at things with her arms, now she is using her hands more to grab. Last week she grabbed grandma’s glasses. She’s got smiling down pat now. Favorite smile times: before getting out of bed in the morning, while having her diaper changed, when playing with daddy, and during or after a good meal. She’s also made progress on her vocal communication. There’s the squeal of delight (or sometimes frustration), an “ooh” and an “ah” sound, lots of varieties of intonation with her favorite “ah-goo”, the raspy-chest noise of excitement, and the “ay” pre-cry noise. Feature of the week: everybody is commenting on her long eyelashes.
12 Weeks: An eventful 2 weeks! Sadie met her great-grandmother Richardson and her great uncle Dave and great aunt Judy. Sadie was introduced to great-grandma in Winchester at her grandma and grandpa’s house. She was asleep when we arrived, but soon awoke and gave great-grandma a warm smile. Unfortunately Sadie got a miserable case of diaper rash that later week and great-grandma got a cold the following week. One evening, to calm Sadie’s fussing, Dave danced Sadie through more than ½ of the Philadephia Chickens cd in hopes that he could dance her to sleep. Sadie won the match; Dave tired first. Another charming instance was when Sadie was fully entertained for over an hour just sitting on various laps and watching a family game of Mah Jong. In addition to meeting many relatives in the past 2 weeks, Sadie had some major breakthroughs at home. On Saturday the 8th we read Sadie Goodnight Moon before bed, as we have been doing every night since she was about 3 weeks. I was nursing her but when Ransom started reading, she popped right off so she could look directly at the pictures. When we got to the page that says “goodnight moon”, she gave a big smile (like, “wait till you see what I’m going to do, mom and dad!”) and said “goo goo”. 2 syllables, 2 double O sounds, she was obviously trying to say “goodnight moon”. Her first words! On Mother’s Day her gift to me was taking an unusually long daytime nap (4.5 hours). This was accomplished by finding her thumb and sucking on it to go back to sleep every time she partially woke. It also helped that she was on daddy’s comfy lap. When she finally woke up, her thumb was all pink and wrinkled. She’s caught her thumb before for brief stretches, but that was probably the first time she’s been able to keep it in her mouth long enough to be soothed by it. Last Thursday, I think Sadie rolled over. I thought I put her on her tummy on my bed. When I looked back at her seconds later after I had fetched a toy, she was on her back. She didn’t look the least bit surprised, as if nothing unusual had happened. Had I placed her on her tummy? I think so. Ransom and I both got to see her roll on Sunday morning.
14 Weeks: Sadie sucks her thumb. She’s been working on this since she was about a month old, but now she’s really got it down. She can control her hand enough to get her thumb to her mouth, keep it there, and derive some comfort from it. This has done wonders for her already good sleeping habits. It has become usual for her to sleep through the night, and by that I mean she sleeps at least 8 hours and sometimes as long as 12 hours straight. Sometimes I think she is about to wake and then I hear her slurp, slurp, slurp on her thumb and she’s back to sleep. She sleeps so long that I’m starting to suspect that she has become self-sufficient and that her thumb is actually producing milk!
Sadie met her great aunt Marty and great uncle Paul a week and a half ago. They got to join us in celebrating Sadie’s child dedication at the Unitarian Church on May 23rd. Sadie looked like a little angel as she slept through the ceremony in the delicate white gown made by her great-great grandmother. Her preference is to sleep through religious events. She attended her first wedding on Sunday and she slept through that, too. At the wedding Ransom and I enjoyed introducing her to many of our college friends. She was suffering from her first cold. Considering her discomfort, she was a real trooper.
She seems to have forgotten how to roll from front to back; she hasn’t done it again. Now she’s working on rolling from back to side. Holding onto and shaking a rattle is exciting for her these days. She’s starting to grab big objects (like her soft blocks) with both hands. She’s also exploring different textures by scratching. She scratch, scratch, scratches at the couch pillows, the peeling stickers decorating her buggy, the sides of her blocks, and my skin (ouch!).
16 Weeks: She’s getting a tooth. In the sunlight, when her mouth is wide open, you can see a little white dot of tooth on the bottom left. The teething does seem to be bothering her sometimes and she likes to gnaw on everything. Now that Sadie sleeps so well, she started requesting an earlier bedtime. After several night of her conking out around 8:00 we finally got the idea and started doing her bedtime ritual then. When she’s really happy, Sadie makes this open-mouthed humming noise – her laugh. She does this sometimes when we swing on the hammock or when we play airplane. She has learned to play the most simple version of “peek-a-boo.” When she’s not looking at you, you can start saying, “Where’s Sadie?” and pretty soon she’ll look and give you a little grin when you say “peek-a-boo.” She did roll over from tummy to back again the other day. (Incidentally she was wearing a trim disposable diaper at the time. Maybe those bulky cloth diapers have been weighing her down!) We celebrated Sadie’s 16-week birthday with her first trip to the beach. She and I went with her godmother Lauren and Lauren’s (pregnant) friend Kitiri. I shared Sadie’s birth story with Kitiri (at great length). We dug out a chair in the sand for Sadie to sit in. She enjoyed that briefly and then did some fussing and then some napping. I’m sure it will be weeks before I get all of the sand out of all of her little creases.
18 Weeks: Sadie found her voice. “Ah-goo” is out of style now. She’s moved on to “vowel babbling”, making lots of “ah-ah-ah-ah” noises as well as screeches and sounds that seems to start with h, like “hi” and “hawah.” She also seems to have realized that she can vary the volume of her voice and likes to experiment with that. Great-grandma Richter came to visit again a week and a half ago and Sadie gave her some charming smiles. Ransom celebrated his first Father’s Day. We spent Father’s Day afternoon at Tom and Kathy’s playing the board game “Ticket to Ride.” Sadie refused her nap in favor of watching the game (and bringing mommy good luck). A few days later I took Sadie to Acton to see her Shamel great-grandparents. Papa kept commenting on what a “husky” baby she is. Sadie turned 4 months last Thursday. I cleaned off her hand-me-down exersaucer and let her try it on Friday. She loved it. She’s so happy when she is upright. She loves to stand while holding someone’s hands or in the excersaucer. She loves being upright and facing out in the sling or the Baby Bjorn. Every day she is getting better at sitting. I can prop her up in a sitting position with pillows and she’ll stay put for a little while now. If there are toys in front of her she’ll keep reaching for them until she eventually slumps over onto her tummy. I’d say it’s official now that Sadie won’t take a bottle. She prefers to have at least one parent in view most of the time. This isn’t really a problem for us, but it does make the pleasure of holding and playing with Sadie harder to share. Finally, forget sleeping through the night. Sadie’s sleeping habits are unpredictable lately. The past few mornings she has woken up around 4:30 intent on practicing her new vocal skills.
20 Weeks: Sadie experienced her first trip to Contention Pond over Independence Day weekend. I was hoping for the best but prepared for the worst. Turns out our girl seems like she’ll be a good camper. She liked being out-of-doors with all the trees and chipmunks to look at. She slept well in the tent with us. She tolerated her first swim very well and learned the fun of splashing. The only thing that didn’t go well was our attempt at a first canoe ride for Sadie. She despised her infant life preserver. The Pond was such a success that we returned again the next weekend. Tom and Kathy joined us for the day on Saturday. We gave Sadie some watermelon to gum on Saturday evening and then let her try some cantaloupe on Sunday. These were her first flavors other than milk and infant Tylenol. She didn’t seem particularly excited by either melon, but she must have liked them okay because she kept returning the pieces to her mouth. When we returned from the Pond this past Sunday there was a package waiting for us containing Sadie’s first set of blocks. She tried them out before we put her to bed. Knocking the blocks off Ransom’s hands and onto the floor was just about the funniest thing she’d ever seen. She laughed and laughed. So did Ransom and I. Sadie had her 4 month check-up last Wednesday. She weighed 15 lb 1 oz and was 25 inches long. As for Sadie’s nighttime sleep schedule, let’s just say that she figured out that her thumb does not make milk. During the day, she is napping more regularly.
22 Weeks: Learning to sit has been Sadie’s main project over the last two weeks. Now she can reach for and play with toys from a sitting position for several minutes before she eventually topples. We got Sadie a high chair and she has been sitting in that during our meals over the last week. Usually she just plays with toys, but we’ve also given her a sippy cup with water. She doesn’t really get the drinking concept, but she loves to use the sippy cup as a toy/teether/pacifier. She’s really interested when I drink water out of a glass, though. She reaches for the glass and when I bring it to her lips she loves to explore the water with her tongue. On her tummy she can straighten her arms and lift her whole upper body so that she is just resting on her hips. Then she’ll get her legs going in alternating kicks. She’s still has a ways to go, but I can see that she can’t wait to be mobile. She learned to blow “raspberries” with her lips. Once she gets started with these she really gets on a roll and her whole little face gets covered in a rain of saliva. Over the weekend she started making a loud whooping noise on an in-breath. I was joking that she had whooping cough without the cough. Another funny habit is that she likes to pull things over her face. She’ll pull dresses, burp cloths, blankets, and stuffed animals over her face. She might be trying to play peek-a-boo because she seems more excited than distressed by having her face covered. I have to be careful not to leave her unattended with anything but the thinnest of blankets because pulling the covers off of her face seems to be more of a challenge for Sadie. Her little laugh is such a treat. We had her in stitches last night by singing “All around the mulberry bush” and then jumping when the song says, “pop! Goes the weasel.” Sadie had her first (!) stroller ride yesterday. I took her for a jog in the jogging stroller. She didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as being carried, facing out, in the baby Bjorn (snugly), but we took a long enough jog for me to be sore today.
24 Weeks: I’m writing this more than a week late because we spent last week on vacation at Contention Pond. Sadie survived a whole week in the woods without running water, heat or electricity. Sadie is writing a book about her experience entitled “A Week in the Woods: A Modern Baby’s Survival Story, by Sadie Starr Richardson.” Until the book comes out in adult English, you’ll have to take my word on the details of the vacation. My parents were at the Pond for the week, too. With daily grandparent exposure Sadie seemed able to remember and enjoy “Mossy” and “Pa” more. We bought Sadie her first pair of shoes for the trip in hopes of keeping the bugs off her feet. During previous trips we have also tried to keep her head covered, but this time she learned a new trick: taking her hat off and eating it. Sadie is now able to get into a true push-up position with her hips off the floor (for a brief time). She can also get onto her hands and knees (again, very briefly). She can rotate her body when on her tummy or her back ands she is just starting to slowly (and accidentally) scoot backwards. Her feet are a new discovery and provide her with great entertainment during diaper changes. Sometimes she rubs the soles of her feet together. This seems to indicate frustration, as in “hey, I’d like to sit up or get moving, but I can’t.” She has been working on “em” noises. She has said “ema” several times. She’s close to “mama”, so I’ve been coaching her on it. If that doesn’t work, I may change my name to Emma. The other night Sadie was really into her “Goodnight Moon” bedtime story. We gave her the book and she held it open over her head just as if she were reading it for a minute before she tried eating it. Unfortunately the camera wasn’t nearby.
26
Weeks: Ms. Sadie Starr Richardson, star of this site, is 6 months
old today. How quickly she has aged and
grown and become so much more interactive!
These days she is a social butterfly.
She loves to get out of the house and see other people, especially other
kids. If I carry her shopping or for a
walk downtown she waves her arms with excitement, makes little monkey noises
(“ah-hoo, ah-hoo”), and smiles at everyone we pass. She has a strong, pinching grip.
Two Saturdays ago Steph joined my mom, Sadie, and I at a yarn store and
took care of Sadie while mom and I shopped.
There was a very fluffy cat in the store and Steph took Sadie over to
let her see and feel the cat. The next
thing we know the cat meowed and ran away and Sadie had a huge clump of fuzz in
her hand. In the talking department,
these two weeks have been exciting.
Sadie has said “ma ma”, although I’m not sure she knows what it
means. We’ve heard some “da” sounds so
now we are working on “dada” as well.
Most remarkable of all, Sadie said her own name on Saturday! I was trying to get her to repeat after me,
saying “Can you say ‘ah?’ …can you say ‘oooh?’.” Sadie was making plenty of noise, but was definitely not copying
me. As a grand finale, I said, “Can you
say Sadie Starr?” With 2 fingers in her
mouth, she said “Thadie Thar.” I
couldn’t believe my ears! She said
“thadie” twice more after that but no one else got to hear it to back up my
story. Sadie officially “started
solids” on 8/17. She has eaten some
mashed potato (from our CSA share) most nights since then. Tonight: zucchini. Welcome to the family dinner table, Sadie!
28
Weeks: We took Sadie to another wedding the weekend of August 28th
and 29th. She was the life
of the party at the reception! Ransom
and I and friends took turns holding her and dancing with her. She had a blast. I kept thinking, “after this song we’ll go outside and take a
little break,” but before I could exit with Sadie the next song would start and
she’d get this huge smile, like “Oh!
This song is my favorite!” So we
danced and danced. After the excitement
of the wedding and staying up a few nights with us to watch the Olympics, Sadie
seems to have learned that nighttime is fun-time and has been refusing to go to
bed (or stay asleep long) at 8 pm. I think she is gradually getting back on
schedule, but we had a few frustrating nights.
Trying different foods has been another fun activity. Sadie loved the zucchini. She has also tried rice, banana, and egg
yolk. Remember that tooth I mentioned
was coming in the week 16 update? That
seems to have been a false alarm, but now Sadie does has a tooth that has
broken through. It is her bottom left
front tooth, and it feels like the right bottom might be coming in, too. Several other exciting things happened in the
past 2 weeks: We purchased and
installed Sadie’s new car seat; we had some professional portraits taken; Sadie
woke up one morning with matted down-hair (the first time her hair has been
long and thick enough to look messed up); 11-month-old Julia made a bee-buzzing
noise at Sadie and Sadie laughed (the first time someone her age has made her
laugh); and (today) Sadie used her crib bars to pull herself from sitting to
standing.
30
Weeks: The past 2 weeks Sadie had the opportunity to visit with
many friends and relatives. Sept 9-11th
we went to Round Pond, ME to visit with Ransom’s childhood friend Tucker and
his wife Victoria and daughter Ruby (12 weeks). Ruby and Sadie really hit it off. They spent some time on the floor checking each other out. Then they locked hands for a little
while. Sadie also enjoyed patting
Ruby’s head (Ruby didn’t seem to mind).
We (the adults) played several games of dominos. The just-out-of-reach domino tiles proved a
most motivating goal for Sadie. She
learned to move from sitting to a full crawl position and back to sitting in
order to grab the dominos. This past
weekend we went to NH for Ransom’s step-cousin’s wedding. Sam flew in for the occasion. We also saw (Ransom’s) Aunt Marty and Uncle
Paul. Sadie had a tough week leading up
to that weekend. She didn’t want to be
put down at all. Around Thursday
evening the symptoms of a cold became obvious.
I bet she had been feeling lousy all week and that’s why she was so needy. Unfortunately Sadie’s cold continued through
the weekend. She was a great sport
considering she must have been feeling lousy.
Sadie had her six-month check-up on the 13th. She was 17 lb. 10 oz. and 27 inches
long. We started parent-and-baby swim class
at the Y on the 16th. Sadie
loves the opportunity to splash. She
still has the instinct to kick her legs and paddle her arms – amazing to
see. The instructor said that she’s
young enough that I could let her swim underwater for an instant, but I haven’t
been brave enough to try it. Sadie’s
friend Julia (now 1!) is also in the swim class. We started doing baby sign language with Sadie about 5 weeks ago. It has been clear to me for a few weeks now
that she understands the sign for milk.
About 3 times over the past week I think she may have performed the sign
for milk. The first time we were in the
car driving back from Somerville. The
drive is only ½ an hour so I felt it unnecessary to nurse her in the car
(leaning over the car seat – very uncomfortable for me). I was trying all my other tricks for
soothing her fussing. Then she rather
vehemently signed “milk”, as if to say, “forget the singing, mom, I want milk
and nothing else will do!” For some
reason this early communication was even more amazing to me than her attempts
to say “mama” and “dada.” I suddenly
saw her more as a unique individual with her own wants and needs and an
emerging ability to communicate them effectively.
32
Weeks: September was the busiest month for us! On 9/25 Sadie and I flew to Ohio to visit
great-grandma Hazel (my mom’s mom).
Sadie slept through most of her first plane ride and received many
compliments for being a “good baby.”
When we arrived, she greeted great grandma with a smile. At great-grandma’s house Sadie was
fascinated a wind chime hanging in one of the doorways. She also got used to going to bed late. We returned on the 29th, were
home for 2 days, then headed to Burlington VT to visit “Auntie Rae” and go to
the VT Sheep and Wool festival.
Saturday I showed Sadie all the sheep, alpacas, and bunnies at the
festival. Sunday we went jogging along
Lake Champlain and Carrie served as the honorary stroller pusher. On the way home we stopped at Colby Sawyer
College and had dinner with Auntie Steph.
Yesterday we unpacked and did some laundry, then went to the Topsfield
Fair with Diana and Julia to see more animals.
While we were in the poultry barn I got the impression that Sadie was
trying to imitate the roosters. From
now until Thanksgiving our calendar is pretty empty. Hopefully Sadie can get back into some sort of sleep/wake routine
because at this point I have no idea when to expect her to nap or go to bed and
I fear that most days she has been sleep deprived. Enough about our schedule, here are some of the neat things that
Sadie has been up to lately…. On Sunday
morning she had a lot to say, including “hi dada” and something that sounded
like “I did it.” Sadie still loves to
practice standing. Sometimes when we
want to sit her down to play (or strap her in her car seat) she simply won’t
bend. Ransom discovered a trick for
this: if you lie her down you can then help her pull herself to sitting. She also loves to play peek-a-boo. It seems that she asks 2 questions of any
new object she encounters (this observation courtesy of Uncle Sam): “can I play
peek-a-boo with this?” (raises it above her face with 2 hands) and “can I tear
this apart?” (pulls hands apart).
Mirrors are another exciting thing.
Sadie knows the location of every mirror in the house. We’ve been giving Sadie baths often since
eating is so messy and she enjoys playing in the water.
34
Weeks: We have started giving Sadie finger food. Cheerios broken in half were the first thing
she tried. The first few times we gave
them to her we were surprised that she didn’t try very hard to put them in her
mouth (everything else goes straight to her mouth). It was Mossy who finally taught Sadie to eat them. Mossy’s Cheerios were stale and perhaps
easier to gum. She fed Sadie several
and then Sadie got the idea. Sadie kept
making this sweet little closed-mouth grin like she was so pleased with
herself. When she gums the Cheerios
Sadie curls her lips under until they are barely visible. It’s the cutest! The Cheerio eating actually came in handy on Saturday when I went
out for an hour and a half and Sadie got hungry. Now that Sadie can feed herself some she usually eats 2 meals a
day: breakfast and dinner. If we get up
in time, we have breakfast with daddy.
I now feed Sadie her dinner earlier, around 5, so that she can be ready
for her new 7pm bedtime. Ransom and I
did a little reading about infant sleep and decided that Sadie might benefit
from an earlier bedtime and more of a bedtime ritual. Her bedtime ritual is scheduled to start with a 6 o’clock
bath. This was working fairly well
until she started teething again a few nights ago. I mentioned last time that Sadie said “I did it.” The day after I last wrote I discovered a
fun game to play with her. When she’s
in a babbling mood I can ask her very expressively, “Sadie, who did it?” and
sometimes she answers, “I did it.” Our
first verbal conversation! (I’m not
exactly sure what she did, but that’s beside the point.) Sadie demonstrated this perfectly when Mossy
was over last week. Tonight Sadie sat
herself up from a tummy position for the first time. She was sitting and reaching for one of her little play mirrors. She had to slide onto her tummy to grab it
and then the pushed herself back up to sitting.
36
Weeks: Guess who is crawling?!?!
Being able to sit herself up must have been the key, because Sadie began
crawling just under a week afterwards.
Sadie gets less frustrated when she is playing now that she can go after
toys she wants and sit herself up to play with them. She still hasn’t crawled all the way across a room in one
go. Her maximum distance covered so far
is about 6 feet. This is a relief
because we still have some more baby-proofing to do. The letters of the week are “L” (Sadie flicks her tongue against
her top gums and says, “lither, lither, lither”) and “G.” Sadie continues to enjoy finger food and has
started showing signs of being truly hungry (for solids). Avocado is a favorite.
38
Weeks: Sadie is crawling all over the place now. She has learned where her toys are kept on
the living room and will crawl right over to them and take them all off the
shelf. She pulls herself to standing
anywhere she can get the leverage to do so.
She has also learned to sit herself back down. Each morning as soon as she wakes up Sadie does a sun salutation,
pulling herself to standing to peer out the east-facing window. On Sunday we installed the gate at the
bottom of the stairs and a gate around the hearth. The stair gate was just in time because on Monday I followed
Sadie to the stairs and joined her as she climbed right up. She has started to do some cruising along
the couch and the fireplace gate. I
found her a standing activity table toy where she can stand and play. She is crazy about it and hardly wants to do
anything else. The table is plastic and
is easily pushed along the hardwood floors or even on the rug. A few times Sadie has gotten it going and
walked behind it. She just started
crawling but she is clearly eager to walk.
One new hazard of crawling is that Sadie tries to eat any little thing
she finds on the floor. A week and a
half ago Sadie had her first sickness with fever. She was cranky and sleepy.
We skipped all our scheduled activities and rested. She was better and on the move again in 2
days.
40
Weeks: Sadie and Ransom have developed their own bedtime
routine. With the help of an electric
toothbrush (!) placed on her tummy, Sadie will now fall asleep in Ransom’s
arms. Ransom and I now try to take
turns putting Sadie to sleep. The
electric toothbrush has changed my life!
And Ransom and Sadie seem even better bonded than before. From 11/20 – 11/27 the three of us were in
California with grandma, grandpa, and great-grandma visiting Dave, Judy, Uncle
Sam, and Robin. Sadie was good during
the flights. It was helpful to have
many laps available to hold her. During
the vacation she really got to know her Richardson relatives. When Sadie saw Sam for the first time this
trip she looked back and forth between him and daddy. She must have noticed that they look alike. Grandma got a huge smile each morning. Sadie shared her meal for the first time,
feeding grandma some Cheerios. Sadie
and great-grandma discovered a delightful game of hiding together under a
placemat. When grandpa tried to play
this game with Sadie the next day she looked over at great-grandma and gave her
a smile, as if to say “this is our game, remember?” On Thanksgiving Sadie met a dog named “Chica”
(who belongs to her 2nd cousins).
She was captivated watching Chica play catch with Sam and Robin. She heard Chica’s excited growling and
started imitating her with her own open-mouthed growling noise. When we asked
her, “What does Chica say?” she responded with her growl. Now she does this growl whenever she sees or
hears a dog (and often when she sees any other 4-legged creature). There were other babies and kids to visit
with in California, including relatives and friends. It was stimulating and fun.
Sadie ate well and slept well.
I’m sure she enjoyed the vacation as much as we did.
42
Weeks: Sadie’s crawling has gotten faster and more
determined. If I pull her away from
something she is not supposed to play with she gets really mad, arching her
back and kicking her legs. In
California a friend asked us if Sadie throws tantrums. I remember saying, “oh, no, I don’t think
she’s at that stage yet.” I think it
was the very next day that I first noticed her new arching and kicking behavior
and realized, yes, she throws tantrums.
Changing Sadie’s diaper and getting her dressed have been major
challenges lately. She often manages to
crawl away half-dressed. She hates
being put down on her back. Sadie has
been doing a lot of knee bends lately.
She has incorporated these into her morning sun salutation. She stands at the windowsill and goes up and
down, up and down. I think I can guess
what she is training for. She can stand
unsupported for several seconds (I think 15 is the known record). The playgroup that we attend on Fridays has
suddenly gotten a lot more exciting now that most of the babies are
mobile. Sadie and Summer pulled
themselves to standing on the same chair and spent a few minutes laughing at
each other. Grandma has noticed that
Sadie often laughs to try to make friends with other kids. Sadie has cut her two top front teeth (just
in time for Christmas). She now eats
solids three times a day. She still
loves avocado. New foods she likes
include spinach and yogurt.
44
Weeks: Sadie had a
doctor’s appointment on 12/15. She was exactly 19 pounds (or as the nurse
said, “18 lb and 16 oz.”) and was 27.5 inches long. Sadie’s language
acquisition has taken off like a rocket in the last few weeks. Grandma
was watching her one day and quoted a line from one of Sadie’s book, saying
“three signing pigs say ‘la, la, la.’” At the mention of it, Sadie crawled off
and retrieved the book with that line. Sadie is fascinated by lights and
ceiling fans. She has learned to turn them off and on. One day we played
with a fan and I was said “fan” and blew in her face to illustrate how the fan
creates a breeze. Then we left the room and when we returned to the
kitchen a few minutes later she said “more” and then made a blowing noise and
extended her hand toward the fan. “More fan.” Her first
sentence! In addition to communicating with her voice, Sadie has been
using the sign language that we taught her. On 12/22 she said “more ball”
and then later, “more milk.” These verbalizations might have been hard to
understand but given the context and the fact that she signed “more” and “milk”
when she said them, it was very clear what Sadie meant. Sadie has
demonstrated that she understands many more words, including: book, light, up,
eat, clap, elephant, dog, duck, and quack. We celebrated Sadie’s first
Christmas. She got the hang of things and started signing “more” while
opening presents. The wrapping paper was especially fun for her.
46
Weeks: The week between Christmas and New Years Sadie got to spend
a lot of time with her Richardson relatives.
Daddy and grandpa were on vacation and Uncle Sam and Robin stayed at our
house. It was great fun to have
everyone around (too bad there was a flu circulating). We got a big snowstorm on the Sunday, 26th. The following Tuesday we took Sadie out to
the park in her new sled. She hated
it! We tried again on Friday when the
snow had compacted more. That time she
thought it was great fun. During the vacation,
Sadie ate with us at the family dinners.
When she was done she would cruise around under the table and play
peek-a-boo or unpack all the teas from the tea basket. On New Year’s Eve Sadie managed to open the
instant coffee in the tea basket and was just about to eat a handful when dad
stopped her. I guess she was hoping for
a little caffeine to help her stay up and ring in the New Year. No luck for her; she went to bed around
7:30, as usual. On New Years day (which
was unseasonably warm) we took Sadie to the Franklin Park Zoo. Her favorite animals were the ducks. They quacked. She quacked. We all
quacked. She also got right next to
(with only the glass in between) a grandmother gorilla named Gigi. It was a fun trip. Sadie loves animals. She
also loves books about animals. One of
her favorite books is “From Head to Toe.”
Each page has an animal that performs an action. Sadie loves it because she has learned to
clap her hands like the seal. We didn’t
teach her to do this. One day she just
started clapping at the appropriate page.
It is amazing to see how she learns.
Sadie got a new baby doll for Christmas. Once she was reading a “touch and feel” book with daddy and
helped the baby doll touch some of the pages.
Mossy reports that she saw Sadie take a step on Christmas Eve. This past Sunday I saw her take one or two
steps. Sadie loves it when we hold her
hands and help her practice waking.
48 Weeks: Sadie has a full course load this month. On Mondays we often get together with my friend Diana and Sadie’s friend Julia. Tuesday is library day. We attend the books and babies story hour at 9:30. On Wednesday morning we are taking a baby sign language class. Wednesday afternoons we have church playgroup. On Thursdays daddy and Sadie attend Kindermusic. Fridays we have another playgroup with babies all born within a few weeks of each other. In addition to all these activities, we usually see each grandma once during the week. Sadie continues to learn new words. She loves to look at pictures of herself and refers to herself as “Dee.” She learned to say “baby” and uses it appropriately to point out babies in books or when talking about her baby doll. The baby doll also goes by the name Sadie gave her, “Bam.” Other new words Sadie says are “clap”, “clock”, “O’s” (for Cheerios), and “teeth.” Sadie continues to be interested in animals and animal noises. We’ve been having fun lately singing “Old MacDonald had a Farm” during car rides. Sadie chimes in with as many of the animal noises as she can. We have read the book “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” so many times that Sadie has it memorized. I noticed one day that Sadie makes the sound of the animal on the next page before I read the name of the animal or turn the page. On 1/19 Sadie took 4 steps while we were at church playgroup. She still prefers to cruise around furniture or turn household items into walkers (chairs, bean bag, play tables, riding toys). She stands well now and can clap, sway, or even dance without holding onto anything for support. Sadie’s new favorite food is broccoli.
50 Weeks: Sadie continues to acquire new words and signs. She says “bup” for “up” and uses it when she wants to be picked up. She can say “keys”, “sock”, and “blue.” Her best multi-syllable word is “cock-a-doodle-doo!” I recently started feeding Sadie this snack food called “Veggie Booty.” One morning we were having brunch with friends and Sadie signed and said “more, more.” “More what?” asked Ransom. “More booty?” “Booty” she repeated. We startled Sadie a little with our sudden uproarious laughter. We have noticed signs of Sadie’s growing imagination. One morning Sadie’s baby doll was nearby while Sadie was eating breakfast. Sadie pointed to her and asked for “Bam.” I helped Baby Bam join Sadie in the high chair. Soon Sadie was trying to jam Cheerios into Bam’s plastic smile. Sadie has instigated games of hide-and-seek now that she has learned to sign “where” (with both palms upturned). She plays “where are Mossy’s keys”, “where’s the page with the picture of the cat”, “where’s the bib (that I just took off and hid under my tray)”, etc. Ransom and I learned recently that Sadie knows all the major parts of the face. She can point out eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, chin, and forehead (except she can’t point out her own). (One downside of this new facial knowledge is that Sadie learned to insert her finger in her nose.) The gross motor report of the week is that Sadie can walk. The maximum number of consecutive steps we have seen her take is up to 8. It used to be that she mainly walked only when forced (stand her in the middle of the room then back away and say, “walk to me”). Just over the past few days she has taken several steps voluntarily. Her favorite means of locomotion continues to be crawling … or being picked “bup” and carried by an attentive parent or grandparent. Ransom, Sadie, I, and grandma and grandpa just returned from a short xc ski vacation in Jackson NH. There Sadie got to try riding in a pulk behind us while we skied and she enjoyed a swim in the hotel pool.
52 Weeks: Sadie is walking! She has taken at least 28 consecutive steps and she chooses to walk about as often as she crawls. This new skill seems to be tiring her out and is resulting in longer naps. Sadie is giving daddy a harder time now when he puts her to bed. (Except for one night when she relaxed on her teddy bear for him until she was almost asleep then asked to be picked “bup” until she fell asleep.) We have found she does better if I leave the house. Otherwise she wants to look around for me and becomes more angry when she finds me and proves that I can hear but am ignoring her cries. Sadie has learned the word and sign “no.” Now she says “no” before she does something that she is not supposed to (like play with her dirty diaper pail). Then she attempts the no-no anyway. Sadie has learned to say “bye-bye” along with her wave. If I ask her if she is cold, she says “brrrrr”. If I ask Sadie if she wants to eat, she says “noodle.” We held Sadie’s first birthday party on Saturday. All Sadie’s grandparents were there as well as her two aunties, Julia and family, and second cousin Ella with her mom and nana. Sadie was great at the party! She visited with everyone. One funny and cute moment was when she was standing and grabbed onto Julia’s shirt for support. Julia started walking away, so Sadie followed, still holding on. They walked several steps and around the corner of the couch together. I made Sadie a gingerbread cake with no egg whites and no dairy. She was so disgusted with it that she spit it out and wiped off her tongue. The adults liked it, though. A year ago today, the 22nd, is when my labor started.