10 months and FIRST STEPS!!

The other day I posted about Morgan doing stairs and totally forgot to mention that she was 10 months old. Sigh. Double digits. What a big kid!! Real quick highlights b/c it's getting late and after going to bed at 8:55pm last night (woo, big Saturday night, right?) and getting quite a bit of sleep (thank you Morgan for cooperating overnight, but up at 6am? ugh), it felt really good to be us today. I'd like a repeat for our 2nd of 3 all-staff meetings tomorrow.

Morgan. took. her. first. steps. today!! We knew she was getting close, but today we were at the Coralville Mall (Iowa City, for you WI-ites) and to kill some time while Adam was shopping at Scheels, we went to the kid play area. Morgan was dazzled by the oodles of kids running around so we hung out, watched, and avoided being squashed. Adam came, Morgan got all excited, so I helped her up to walk to him. She only held one of my hands and we mutually let go and she took the last 2 steps to Adam alone! She repeated it one other time while we were there, but I think that might count, ladies and gents! If it doesn't, well, it's really close. :)

Today in Target, Morgan purposefully hid from me (in her stroller) and played peek-a-boo with me. She's always loved to play, but I'm usually the one hiding. For her to take that initiative and realize that she can be the funny one instead of the one laughing was pretty great! Speaking of silly, on the way home today, Morgan (who had all sorts of daddy love this weekend), would say Dada...dada...dada...I'd model mama, and get dada. It's almost like she knew and was being a stinker b/c she could. It's SO fun to watch her grow and learn. Makes weekends all the better now.

Bathroom update (I think I mentioned this in a previous post, right? Cosmetic update for the first floor bathroom?) - Paint - check. Towel/TP rack installation - check. New shower curtain and towels - check. And it's BEAUTIFUL. I wouldn't have thought we would have picked something like that but I love it, and Adam does now too. I'll post pictures soon but again, it's late (later, now!) so you'll have to hold your horses. I'll post 10 month pictures too.

Dear God, thank you for my family. Thank you for all the blessings in my life and thank you for leading me on the path I've traveled. I'm SO truly blessed. Amen.

Bring on the week of meetings and organization! Adam has class M/W night and I've got class TH night. Should be busy!

Stairs!

Funny you should ask why this post is titled "Stairs..."

So yesterday morning we're running around the house doing the morning thing, getting ready, running a little behind (ok, that's just me), making sure all the ducks are in a row for the day. Morgan was playing with her toys in the living room, Adam was brushing his teeth, and I remembered I wanted to send wipes with Morgan to daycare since she hadn't brought any in a while. So I race upstairs to her room to grab some out of the giant Sam's Club sized wipes stash but of course it took me an extra minute to wrestle the new box open so after I got it open, I left her room, turn the corner to come downstairs, and realize there are two big blue eyes staring at me from the second (4th overall) step above the landing!! When I left her, she was on the far side of the living room and suddenly she'd made it up 2 stairs, around a large landing, and up another 2 stairs! We've never even exposed her to stairs...needless to say, we were pretty surprised! I came down the stairs relatively slowly so as not to startle her since I had no idea how she'd react on stairs. I asked Adam if he'd placed her on the landing or something and he had no idea she was even on the stairs. We have a speed racer baby. Who now likes stairs. Tonight I chased her up 1/2 the stairs and then she started crying b/c she realized she was stuck - didn't want to go up anymore but had no idea how to get down. :)

I'm pleased to report that Maddie is significantly better. She actually begged for her dinner tonight and ate almost all of the 2/3 of her regular dinner I gave her. She has lots of energy again and now it's just a matter of continuing her meds and fattening her back up to normal again. Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers - we were really worried about her for a while. It's amazing what the power of prayer can do.

While I was typing the last paragraph, we heard the tiniest little "dada..." from the monitor. Apparently someone was dreaming about her daddy and was telling him stories in her sleep. Aww...

We've started the cosmetic bathroom overhaul in the first floor bathroom. On Saturday and Sunday, I spent some serious time taping, pulling trim off the wall, taking down towel racks, and prepping for paint. We primed the bathroom on Monday, took off Tuesday, painted Wednesday, and put the second coat of paint on tonight. At first we were a little overwhelmed with the color we bought back in April, but now that I see it on, I LOVE it. The best way I can describe it is that it's like a robin's egg blue with some green thrown in. It's quite bright and somewhat out of our box, but I think with the right decorations it's going to be stunning. We chose dark brushed bronze fixtures and things to decorate and plan to put white trim in the bathroom. The doors are going to stay the ugly dark brown that they are since we are going to gut and redo that bathroom when the funds are available. So anyway, painting - check! Yeah! I'll post pictures when we're closer to done or done.

I'm SO excited to be going to bed and likely asleep before 10:30 tonight. That's not been the case for so long I can't even remember the last time I went to sleep before 10:30 so woo hoo! Nighty night!

Pray for Maddie

Something's seriously wrong with Maddie. We're not sure yet what it is, but she's not herself. She's losing weight, not eating (likely, hence #1), and lying around SO much more than she normally does. She's sad and not herself and the next step after all these antibiotics is bloodwork tomorrow. That said, she just ate her 2nd treat in the last 1/2 hour so perhaps we're turning a corner? She even refused HAM earlier this evening. Straight up, human people person ham. And wouldn't eat it. That's one. sick. dog. Poor fuzzy baby. :-(

Morgan, on the other hand, is doing fine. Fabulous, even. She continues to practice her walking and standing independently but no major moves as of my last post. When I pick her up from Mary's now, I physically pick her up and she instantly starts waving bye to everyone in the room. She's thrilled to do so. It's not like she's had an awful day and wants to leave. She just knows that that's how we roll when we leave places and I will thank everyone involved with her on Ross & Kristen's wedding weekend since she was exposed to "bye" every other hour there with all the people she met.

Morgan is growing and I don't care what the height at the doctor says. I'm thisclose to pulling out 12 month onsies...actually, I will be doing that tomorrow. I had to do some serious yanking/stretching to get the onsie she wore to bed to fit. :)

Morgan and I also had some serious luck at Kohl's on Saturday after SS. We spent around $150 between the three of us and saved $250. I. heart. those. shopping trips. :-D

Alright, off to finish a small seated project. :) Can't say in case someone reads this. Speaking of projects (real quick), we're in the middle of a cosmetic update of our main floor bathroom. We plan to completely gut and redo it someday, but a few things need to happen first - 1. We need a working shower/tub somewhere else in our house per me, and 2. we need to be debt free. Only a few short years to go! (Thank you Dave Ramsey and giving us the groundwork to do our very own Schmidt family version of your amazing program.)

Project. For real this time. Adios amigos.

Wanna trade?

As in, wanna trade backs? :) Pretty soon Adam and I are both going to break in half from walking Morgan all over the house, through the grass, and down the road to Mary's house. She LOVES it. I know I've said this a million bajillion times already, but this kid is hilarious with her walking. She had another long time free standing last night before her bath, for 8 seconds. It's so funny too b/c she really isn't paying attention when she does it and all of a sudden she's standing at length.

I hope she isn't getting a cold. She's been sneezing all morning and her nose was a little runny. Hopefully it's just the fact that there are super high pollen levels and it's just bugging her a bit.

This really hot stretch is almost over, thank goodness. It's almost so hot and humid that I'm not so sure I should take her outside, especially for any length of time. Maybe we'll hit the pool later? We'll see how naps go. And I have a project this afternoon that I'd like to get done so we'll see.

Ok, off to shower while she's napping. I have to drop off our bassinet at a friend's house so they can use it for their little one soon and then Morgan's going to Mary's for lunch while Adam and I meet with our financial adviser to take care of a few things. Later gators.

Holy babies!!

We now know at least 5 couples that are currently preggo...that's a lot. I hope the water they're drinking doesn't get to me for a while yet. :-) I don't think Morgan's ready to share.

I had a normal work day today of a huge day-long meeting that could have been completed in half the time it took to take place. Sigh. Great job must have some down turns, I suppose. :-/

Morgan had a FABULOUS time at daycare today. I still can't tell you how much it makes my heart be at ease knowing how happy and well cared for she is there.

Morgan is SO excited to walk. I'm not even kidding. Morgan finally rode with Adam on the lawnmower (on the flat parts only) for all the flat parts tonight and loved it. It was really cute to see her turn her head to look where he was going next (she picked up the pattern quickly) and then smile and wave her hands when she saw me watching. Then while Adam was doing the hilly part of the lawn (2/3 of the yard), all she wanted to do was walk in the grass. She went back and forth and back and forth following Adam on the mower. When I picked her up b/c it appeared her legs were about to give out, she screamed and wiggled and tried to get down to walk. So we walked some more. And then more. And so much that her little legs even gave out a time or two but she was RIGHT back up and walking even more. Sometimes when she'd get really excited (when Adam got close to us) and she'd almost RUN and laugh and giggle the whole time. She's so great. :)

One more day of work this week (tomorrow) and then off for 4 days before it's full time. It was really nice to see some of my coworkers that I haven't seen all summer (Denise! Wendy! and more!) so there's always an upside to working. :) More later. It's Adam time now.

Huge Update - wedding, new things, and more

Wow it's been a while since my last post. No real reason...just busy, tired, not much to say, out of town, soaking up last days off with Morgan. Sigh. Here goes. Feel free to put your feet up and get out your reading glasses. It's a long one.

Let's start off with Morgan's new things (that I can remember), shall we?

1. Morgan *just* learned how to put things back IN a container instead of taking them out only. Uncle Tommy and his girlfriend Carrie put the finishing touches on teaching Morgan this Sunday morning (Aug. 8th). That's great! Now we can practice "clean up!" ("Clean up" song starts singing in my head...can you tell I work with the 0-3 y/os?)
2. Morgan would walk everywhere if she could. Let me back up. Morgan has, to my knowledge, stood on her own for 4 seconds on 2 occasions. Yesterday at the gift opening, I wasn't looking but she was with Adam and stood alone while playing with the car keys for about 10 seconds. Wow! Back to the beginning - at the wedding reception, I walked Morgan around the dance floor after they made it dark but before the dancing really got going and her cousins were running all around her. She LOVED it. When I finally thought my back was going to crack in 2, I picked her up to go find Adam. She SCREAMED and screamed and cried so we went for a few more laps before I finally called in the daddy person to take over. She. Loves. Walking. I have no way to tell how long it will be before she's independent but she sure seems to be on the right track. She also pulls up on everything and creeps quickly along furniture.
   
3. Words - Morgan now has the following words that she uses on a relatively consistent basis: mama, dada, no, bye (bah); she is sort of saying "up" (not always meaningfully but sometimes yes) and "ah dah" while signing all done, usually with her bottle in hand. She's imitating more sounds too which is always exciting. REALLY excited that she has that many words and she's only 9 months old (SLP in me swoons just a bit). :-D
4. Morgan. kisses. everyone/thing. She kisses her cow. She kisses her babies. She kissed about a million people over the wedding weekend and was completely willing to do so unless the recipient had a picky (whiskery) face, but she'd do it anyway and then make a funny face. Silly child. The sweetest thing is that sometimes she'll seek me out independently and kind of cup my face in her hands (or pull with all her might) and give me a kiss. Those make my heart melt just a little.
   
5. Morgan is really starting to understand many more things. While we were driving home to WI on Thursday, she learned "clap your feet." She grabs her ankles and starts clapping her feet. She also does hands. If I tried to list what she all understands now, I'll go crazy trying to remember it all and if I do, this post might get even longer than it already is going to be.
   
6. Morgan sleeps through storms. :) Maddie (our older of the two dogs; 3 years, 8 months) does not. Of course, it's been the two weeks of storms and we've been up lots with her. I think today, however, that we pinpointed it to being the lightning that bothers her the most. She was fine this morning after it was lighter outside and there were some pretty hard rumbles of thunder. We'll keep you posted or next summer we might have to put her on meds. :-/
7. Morgan is now a front-facing little girl in her carseat. She meets the height and weight requirements, but not the age ones. Since she can't sleep in her current carseat rear-facing, I asked Adam to turn it around while we were in WI and sure enough - the child slept almost 2 hours in a row on the way home and it was lovely. Her head wasn't falling forward and it's fun to be able to see her so well now. Yeah!
8. Adam update - he's got one day left of his current MBA class which is a semester-crammed-in-a-week class and then only TWO more that he is taking together this fall. November 15th! Last day! Yeah!!!!! We are celebrating by taking a weekend with just the two of us in Chicago. Perfect.
   
9. I start work tomorrow for 2 days, off for a 4 day weekend, and then I'm a full-time employee once again. I have a love/hate relationship with this right now. I like having another purpose (worker person) but enjoy my time with Morgan so much. Like it or not, here it comes!
10. That's all I can think of right now...more if I remember!

So this weekend...Morgan, the dogs, and I headed back to WI on Thursday morning for the wedding weekend for my brother, Ross, and his (now) wife, Kristen! Adam had class and couldn't get out of it (had his weekends mixed up) so he came up after his exam Friday evening. It was scary, interesting, and not at all as bad as I thought it might be traveling alone with 2 dogs and a baby, but we did it in 6 3/4 hours which went well. We stopped for lunch and Morgan and I usually are able to share a chicken tenders kids' meal with mashed potatoes (I get the ice cream) with no problem. She even had a ton of grapes. And I ended up having to go back in (we ate with windows open in the car b/c of the dogs) and get myself something b/c she ate so much of the kids' meal!! She doesn't get the breading on the chicken but she took care of at least 2/3 of everything there. Piggy piggy growing pants. :)

And I'll finish this up tomorrow. Suddenly it's 9:30, I have to work in the morning, and I'm tired b/c of all the things listed above. Hopefully I can stay awake for this day-long meeting...but I get to see Denise after a WHOLE summer away so I'm sure I'll be having a great time "paying attention" to whatever's going on up front. :)

Screaming. Greeaaatt.

Ok, that subject line sounds negative. Well, that's b/c it is. Morgan has now perfected a scream that means it's NOT ok, I DON'T want to listen, I WANT it right now, I'm TIRED, I'm HUNGRY, I don't WANT to wait for my diaper to be put on, and DON'T tell me no. Perfect. Am I shocked? No...just wishing it had been a bit closer to when she was...I don't know...50? :)

Meant to post this before leaving for Ross & Kristen's wedding weekend...here you go.