Giggles, Grins, and Growth

June and July have come and gone. We are just a few days (DAYS!) from baby girl turning a year old! In the mean time, here are some 10 month old highlights:

Those eyes. Staaaaaaahp.

Loves: Camden looks at things from a different angle. Literally. Whenever she is sitting she tilts her head to each side, trying to see things upside down. She's even peered around a corner--her head almost touching the carpet--to get a good look at Will.

A little flour sensory play

Add water: make paste! And the most sticky, most tedious clean-up of mom's life...

Daddy is a favorite subject for looking at. When she's eating she'll often give him the side eye while sitting in high chair. Gotta keep an eye on him, make sure he's behaving, you know.

Trip to the National Mall with some UT friends

This month's favorite sound is "ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah" produced by yelling "ahhhhhhhh" as loud as possible while moving her fist across her mouth to break up the sound.

The one afternoon Quiet Time actually turned into a nap.

No new teeth this month, but lots and lots of chewing, so I'm sure more are coming soon. Camden likes to bite down on a teether and just hold it between her teeth, leaving both hands free for the important work of playing with toys or touching her brother.

A visit from Grandy. And an extremely excited Camden! 

A lazy Saturday with Daddy

Hates: Not being able to get where she wants to go. Why won't doing the superman and kicking vigorously get her anywhere?! She wants to move so badly, but just cannot figure it out. I've seen her several times pull her knees under her, but then she just face plants. She doesn't seem to have the knowledge, or possibly the strength, to push up on her arms while her knees are tucked in. Eventually she just collapses back onto her stomach and returns to her signature kicking frenzy.

Don't even know how this happened. Life was just too exhausting that day.

New Tricks: Camden learned how to use a straw this month. She's been confiscating my water bottle for a while now, but one day she wrenched the straw from my mouth, placed it in her own, and began to suck. Much to her surprise, she struck water. Now no one's beverage is safe. If Witten leaves his water bottle lying around while he's playing, and it's within Camden's reach, the next time he goes for a sip, there will be nothing left to quench his thirst.

Attempting to use the slide of his car garage from Grammy

While this may inconvenience him, he also gets to play big brother and "help" her by holding the sippy cup in front of her face while she's on her tummy and she sucks on the straw. He pulls it away every few seconds, but they just laugh and do it all over again.

We found an alligator snapping turtle on the way to the library one morning. Yikes

Backwards baseball cap, Daddy's dress shoes on the wrong feet, and Great-Grandma Horton's pearls.
Outfit Perfection.

Crawling may not be happening yet, but a few times while Camden's been sitting on the kitchen floor, she's pushed with her arms and backed herself into a corner. She even moved backwards on a piece of playground equipment. I don't think she knows exactly what's going on, but she likes moving.

Their preferred activity while Mommy showers.
Walking in on this scene almost every morning just melts my heart!

Sleep is better with a hippo

On the whole, she's a fabulous giggler and a total sweetheart. I can say without hesitation that she is the greatest girl born into the Davis family in 70 years.

Theme Song: My Girl, The Temptations

First Spring

Loves: Camden is turning into a little social butterfly! One of the highlights of her day is when Daddy comes home from work or tennis practice. She wiggles and smiles, and buries her face in my shoulder when the joy and excitement becomes too much to handle. Once she recovers, she's back to smiling and wiggling and chattering away. It is very sweet.

Witten is also an extremely important part of her life. Sometimes he will play peek-a-boo with her and she giggles almost uncontrollably. She may even laugh just because he walks by where she's sitting. He is also gradually coming to accept her increasing presence in his life, now that she's more vocal and mobile. He even likes to go into her room in the morning to say "Good morning, Camden! Have a good sleep?" (Side Note--Two is definitely my favorite age so far. Just about everything he does is the cutest.)

She is still such a happy baby. Smiling, playing, wiggling, splashing in the bath, "talking," life is just one big adventure!

Her easy-going nature has been a real blessing where the baby carrier is concerned. By eight months, Witten was done with being placed in the baby k'tan; it was just too constricting for his taste. On the other hand, Camden is perfectly content to be wrapped in it for hours at a time. She was quite happy, strapped to my chest, looking at all the people and trees along the tidal basin when we went to see the cherry blossoms this month. She is an especially happy camper when grocery shopping in the baby carrier. Witten sits in the grocery cart, directly in her field of vision, and she squeals and kicks with excitement the whole time. Hooray for big brothers!

Chilling in the Baby Carrier

Witten was pretty concerned about the noisy waterfalls in the FDR memorial.

"Wash DC," as Witten says, really wore them out

Hates: Mobility is a difficult thing right now. Camden is agonizingly close to crawling but still no forward progress and she finds it intensely frustrating. When she is on her tummy, she curls her toes under, rolls onto her side body one way and then the other, reaches out her arms, lifts her bum in the air...and she is no closer to her goal. Sometimes she pushes up on her arms with such force that she moves backwards, especially when she's on the kitchen floor, but that isn't her intent and it makes her angry. She is very good at rotating around at least, and can access a wide array of toys, and keep an eye on Witten, no matter where in the room he happens to be.

Showing off one of her new outfits that Granna made for her! And drooling. Always drooling...

Camden is also experiencing some frustrations around food. Lately Mom hasn't been quick enough to accommodate her when she decides it's time to nurse. Her mouth is open, and nothing happens for a full five to ten seconds. The horror!! As soon as the situation is resolved she is just fine, but it is one of the great struggles in her life right now.

As far as solids go, she is a champ. She has eaten every vegetable I have offered, as long as the puree is perfectly smooth. She insists on a silky texture and any time I have tried to add a few lumps to the mix she refuses to eat another bite. Girl knows what she wants.

Spinach, broccoli, and prunes. The dinner of champions.

We are on the cusp of Camden enjoying reading books. Sometimes she'll actually look at all the pages for an entire board book before getting distracted. She does still spend a lot of time looking at mom or dad as they read or grabbing at Witten. We'll get there.

New Tricks: Camden continues to experiment with her vocal chords and noise making abilities. She has learned how to blow raspberries and hums and "aaaaahhhhhhs" whenever she's playing with toys. She is also into growling--very low, guttural sounds that sound pretty funny coming out of her angelic face. Her tongue continues to be very important in her life, twisting and turning all day long. She has even started to "da-da-da-da" occasionally! Hooray for tongue control.

Witten's favorite quiet time activity

She has also made some impressive progress in the sitting up department. Camden's core is rock solid and I'm confident having her sit and play without a pillow to catch her. However, a few weeks ago there was one day where this became a problem. Camden figured out that she could fall back onto the pillow and then roll over to grab a toy she couldn't reach while sitting up. Then, one time I forgot to put a pillow behind her, and she slammed backwards. Poor baby.

The plus side of that incident is that she has learned a more safe variation. She falls from sitting to the side and slightly forward, landing softly on her tummy and forearms so she can get on with the important business of reaching whatever toy was previously inaccessible.

Tooth #2 popped through this month!

Camden is also improving her motor skills. She loves to wiggle her wrists back and forth, both while holding a toy and not, and I think it's vibrato preparation for when she becomes a concert violinist! She has also finally mastered passing a toy from one hand to the other, and remains a huge fan of banging two toys together as noisily as possible.

Her poor fingers are starting to scab from all the sucking.

Theme Song: April Come She Will, Simon and Garfunkel

Sweet Siblings

[February 2017]

Loves: Surprisingly, eating. We started solids this month! The first food we tried was rice cereal. Camden was a big fan of grabbing the spoon, even directing it into her mouth, but wasn't enthusiastic about the actual taste. She is still uninterested in rice cereal, though oatmeal is occasionally tolerable, just not in large amounts.

First Time in the High Chair

First Tooth!

However, on the whole, Camden is a terrific eater. Avocado, carrots, butternut squash, broccoli, sweet potatoes, zucchini, yellow squash... Shockingly she's not very interested in sweet fruits. Getting her to eat pears, apples, bananas, or prunes is an uphill battle. I used to hide Witten's vegetables under the pears on his spoon, I now have to hide Camden's pears under her broccoli!

She always sleeps with an arched back

One of Witten's more unorthodox sleeping positions: hippo on head

Camden is great about opening her mouth nice and wide for each bite of food, but once the spoon is gone her two middle fingers immediately fly back into her mouth. Creature of habit.

Both kids were sick at the same time with RSV this month. No. Fun.

RSV Breathing Treatment

She has also been enjoying looking at her hands lately. She lies on her back, one hand in her mouth (obviously), one hand stretched out in front of her face, and rotates her wrist back and forth, studying her hand from all angles. Is there anything more fascinating?

Chubby Baby!!!

Enjoying that mild ...February... weather

While all these things are fine and good, the greatest thing in Camden's life, much to Witten's chagrin, is still her big brother. Witten has to be careful about his proximity to Camden when they're both on the floor because she just might roll from back to tummy to get closer and touch him. This is possibly the worst thing that's ever happened in his young life. When we read I like to have Camden sit with Witten and I for a book or two so she can start to enjoy reading. Unfortunately, she spends her time leaning across my lap to touch Witten's face instead of listening to the story. So Witten's current great struggle is how much physical contact from his sister can he tolerate to simply enjoy reading books with Mom.

Visiting Frying Pan Farm. Witten has not stopped talking about the "amnals" in the "bahn" since.

Hates: Rolling from her stomach to her back. Almost the second Camden is placed on the floor she flips to her stomach. Then after a while she's done pushing up on her hands and doing the superman, but she can't remember how to roll over to her back to take a break from all that work. Once she is returned to her back by a parent, she immediately rolls to her stomach and becomes frustrated once again. Being seven months old is tough.

New Tricks: Rolling over may be difficult, but Camden is so close to crawling. I am really excited about it. If she sees something on the floor close by that she wants, especially if it's off limits like a phone or a ball point pen, she stretches her arms out and pushes her toes against the floor. Her bum lifts into the air and she is starting to pull her knees under her body, but she hasn't really made any forward progress yet.

Witten started speech therapy and his vocabulary is exploding. But I'm not convinced that those two facts are actually correlated. He started talking within days of the pediatrician telling me to schedule a speech therapy session, before even meeting his therapist.

Sometimes she hangs out on the kitchen floor to practice rotating to different toys while on her stomach. The other day she was a little too far from her rattle so she repeatedly pushed up on her arms trying to get closer. Instead she slowly backed out of the kitchen and ended up on the living room carpet. Whoops.

Laundry Basket Sledding

Theme Song: We're Going to Be Friends, The White Stripes