Another great weekend!

Oh, Tuesdays are a bummer. I hate having to go back to work for the week, but we did have a stellar weekend!

Saturday when I got home from work Mabel was sleeping and Zack filled me in on how the two of them had a great day of playing and visiting with Zack parents. It is nice that Mabel and Papa have their day too, even though it is every other week. We all enjoyed a nice walk around the neighborhood together. Mabel loves when Papa comes on our walks!

Sunday we decided to check out the playground not too far from our house. Mabel had a blast in the swings. Look how little she looks in the swing! She just couldn't decide and kept asking to try another. I guess she wanted to see if they were all the same. My mom speaks to her in french during the day, so she says more in french. It is pretty cute. So she points at everything and says "encore". Very sweet. I had to explain that to our physical therapist since Mabel kept saying it. So she tried all the swings and loved the slide. It is a bit hard since she can't walk and I know she really wanted to crawl around, but she did great. We saw ducks - she quacked! We sat down by the river watching the birds too. All very fun stuff. It is great seeing her do stuff like this, I keep remembering when she was in the spica and couldn't fit into anything. I do wish she were able to walk, seeing all those babies her age and younger than her being able to really enjoy the playground broke my heart a bit as she watched pointing saying baby all excited seeing them climb on the toddler area, but she'll get there too.

Monday Mabel and I had to hit the store so afterwards she and I enjoyed the park again since it was so nice out. She wanted to stay in the swing and point at all the other babies. She stayed in there for 45 minutes! She was starting to fall asleep! She did not want to go for a stroller walk at all, just swing. We headed home and ate lunch then she enjoyed an amazing nap. We had a great day of playing on the floor afterwards and laughing. She's so much fun!

Well, back to work today! This weekend we are hoping to try out an indoor playground that is in the area. I think she'll love that since she'll be free to crawl around and climb things and yes they have swings!

Another week...

Well, it has been another great week. Mabel is really trying to stand - actually she allows us to help her stand. If we hold her hips and tell her to get ready she can free stand with out holding on to anything for about three seconds. She really doesn't want us to help her "walk" much since she realizes that she can get there herself and so much quicker if she crawls. That's OK though, I know she'll get it soon.

Her physical therapy went well this week. She tolerated lots and lots of stretching and walking and standing. She wasn't allowed to crawl this week, only be upright and she did great. It seems like she's really locking her knees so we have to work on that and she still isn't really using her hips. It will come in time, her physical therapist said she just has to learn to trust her body and that her left leg is a strong as the right. She's a smart cookie so I know she'll get it!

Overall I'm happy with her progress every week. I think she really is learning well and she is now taking risks with her standing and stepping. She can use her little walking cart without assistance! Her physical therapist said she'd like to see her until she can walk since that is where she should be at. I'm fine with that - plus Mabel loves going there since there are tons of toys!

Oh, yes, the picture. Mabel playing banjo with papa. She's so funny and loves making music! She always uses her piano that Santa brought, her xylophone and drums. Actually everything to Mabel is a drum! She also dances if you say "dance" or if she hears any music of any kind. She'll even dance to the blender or food processor! That funny girl!

Music to a Mama's Ears...

We've had a great weekend and yesterday the nicest thing happened. In the morning instead of waking to Mabel's crying for me I heard, "Mama" then a minute later louder, "Mama" and then slightly louder, "Mama?" It was so great to wake up to that, it would have been greater if it were later than 5:20am, but I won't be picky. Mabel has been waking up early this weekend, it is a funny thing, I think she has ESP. When I think about sleeping in a bit she will wake up around 5:00 but when I get up at 5:00 like this morning she keeps sleeping, I don't get it. I sometimes swear that nobody in this house wants me to sleep, not Mabel, not the three cats...OK maybe Zack since he lets me take naps, but besides that anyone who knows me as Mama won't let me sleep! All weekend if Mabel didn't wake me up the cats did, but I digress...Look at how excited she is to be sitting next to two of her fuzzy siblings! It isn't every day that she has two sleepy cats willing to let her touch them!

We had a great weekend. We went out to eat on Saturday. There is a little restaurant about 45 minutes away that shares Mabel's name. She of course fell asleep in the car about 10 minutes before we reached our destination so Zack and I sat in the car while she finished her nap. It was actually nice to have down time to sit and talk and sing to the radio and when she finally woke up the plus was she was in a great mood! She got to taste the forbidden fruit of french fries and then some ice cream for dessert, of course as a good mom I filled her up on her applesauce, blueberries and mixed cereal first. She's a funny girl when we are out and about, she is very serious and quiet when someone tries to talk to her, but when she thinks it is the three of us she starts talking and hooting and then when someone is drawn into watching her cuteness an tries to approach she clams right up. Not that I blame her, I mean I wouldn't want strangers coming over and trying to talk to me either!

Well, today is our Monday...I guess I could have slept in! She's still asleep and it is almost 7:00, oh well, at least I got the checkbook balanced and my blog updated!

That Spica...

So it has been an amazing week watching Mabel cruise around the furniture standing up all big and tall. Her cart that I ordered for her arrived on Wednesday and it was like Christmas when I got home from work as I put it together for her - she was so excited when I came in with the box! As you can see she loves it, although it is misleading from the pictures, she can't use it unassisted, she can however stand up on her own and look like she's using by herself! I know in the next couple of weeks this cart will really help her as she learns to take some steps. She's a cautious girl and this will give her the support she needs as she takes the leap to trying to walk.

I was so excited to go to physical therapy and show the doctor Mabel's new moves of cruising. I was waiting to hear the excitement and praise that she would have for Mabel. She was quite excited, but she also noticed that Mabel is really turning out her right foot and not moving the hip joint. She said that right now Mabel is swing her whole hip to move her right leg instead of using the hip joint and it is still because her lower back is so tight. She said that the spica really did a number on her lower back and hip alignment when it comes to her stance. I have to say I was disappointed, I really thought everything was all moving forward and it is, but that darn spica is still haunting us! I'm glad she's in physical therapy this way we can work out all these "kinks" now so it won't cause possible problems in the future. I had noticed the foot thing (you can kinda see it in the pictures) and of course tried to look it up online, there isn't much about it in hip kids, just the basic stuff you read on baby websites and it can be a normal thing with kids learning to walk. I asked the doctor about that and she said it is something you see in kids that don't have hip problems, but in Mabel's case it is a bi-product of that cast and she's going to try to correct it. Our homework this week is holding Mabel a special way to help her walk and try to get her to move that right hip. She doesn't want to do it though, just keeps saying "down" and wants to crawl - as the doctor says it isn't worth trying to argue with a one-year-old, so we keep trying it.

Tuesday comes too fast...

My week begins again, but at least it isn't a long one. We had such a great weekend. It started out a bit rough, I had to work Saturday, but Zack and Mabel had a great day and it got even better later in the afternoon Zack's parents came over with Issac, Mabel's older cousin. Issac is one year and three days older than Mabel. Mabel was so excited to show Issac her piano and toys. They both sat on Zack's mother's lap and looked at picture books. She would ask them "where's the elephant?" Issac would point and Mabel would look at him like, "I think she was asking me!" After a few minutes Mabel was getting really quick with the pointing since she realized she had to act fast or Issac would answer all the questions. She kept up pretty well considering the age gap!

Sunday was a nice quite family day, although I'll admit I had a hissy-fit because I had to clean the house and had a ton of stuff to do, but the day came together well. We went to the Irish Ceili to watch the dancing again. This time they totally made us dance. It wasn't as bad or as embarrassing as you would imagine. Mabel met a little girl that was 10 days younger than her. This little girl was walking up a storm - I think it gave Mabel some ideas because yesterday Mabel cruised around the ottoman! The day started with my step-sister and her 8 month old coming over in the morning. I think Mabel was confused as to why he didn't do much, but she seemed to like him just the same. She did get fussy and fell asleep about an hour into the visit but that was fine - you can see how wiped out she was in the picture above. After they left she did not want me to hold her or take another nap in the afternoon. After a heated argument on her part about not wanting to nap I put her down standing at the ottoman, and she took a step sideways! Then another and and another. You and see the video below. I was so proud I emailed the video to Zack and bought her a cart to walk with, originally I planned on buying this cart for her first birthday, but obviously didn't because of her being in the cast, but now she'd love it...can you tell I'm excited?! Oh yeah, I'm also terrified by the thought of her walking, but still excited!

"B" is for Baby...

Ok, I know that everyone thinks their baby is a genius. I think it is because you watch them go from being a little blob that does nothing to learning and doing everything so you just can't help but feel they are the smartest baby that ever crawled the earth...so with that said...Mabel is soooo smart!

Mabel does a lot of amazing things, but the other night when I was settling her down for bed (bedtime is another story all together) she didn't want to go to sleep. She was all excited so she and I sat her room by her night light reading books and quietly playing it an attempt to induce some kind of sleepiness. She crawled over to her basket of alphabet blocks rummaged around and pulled out a block and showed it to me and said "B". To my shock it had the "B" embossed on it in yellow. I said "What?" She looked at the block and said "B" and handed to me. I said, "B?" she nodded and said "Baby!" and smiled.

Ok, so we read a lot to her, she LOVES her books. She loves her books so much she begs me to read to her. She has some picture books that go through the alphabet and two book have pictures of babies among the items for the letter "B". I thought that her connecting the meaning of the letters to the word in such an abstract way was beyond amazing and I stand by my statement that she's so smart for a 15 month old! I did pull out other blocks to see. She identified the "M" and I asked her what "M" stands for and she pointed at herself. She knows "M" is the first letter of Mabel since she loves it when I spell her name. She also knew "A", "C", "R", "E" and a couple of others.

Now bedtime...well, since the surgery and cast Mabel has really had a hard time with falling asleep. I mean when she feels herself drifting off she screams, she jumps and cries. It is really hard watching her fight her sleep. Before the cast she was the best she had ever been with going to sleep. Most nights we could put her in her crib and she's settle herself to sleep with out a tear - that took work mind you, but she did it. After the surgery and the twelve weeks in that cast her sleep was totally messed up. The brace added another few weeks of sleepless nights to the mix and now that she's standing up - well, lets just say she doesn't accept bedtime well. I'm trying to really work on it to make it a more natural transition, but she really hates falling asleep. Overall once she falls asleep most nights she stays asleep through until 6:30 or so. On that note she's waking up! Got to run!

The Perfect Weekend...

So this weekend was the best! Saturday we headed out for a nice walk on the island. Mabel has never really been for a walk in the "woods". It was a beautiful morning and since we were up bright and early we headed out and got there before the parking had filled up. Mabel loved seeing all the trees and birds. We sat on a swing and she snacked on her banana and then fell asleep in her stroller. She took a nice long nap as we finished our walk and slept in the car so Zack was able to run into a couple of stores on our way home to complete our errands as I sat in the car watching that little angel sleep!

Easter Sunday was so much fun. I had painted and reupholstered an antique rocking chair that my grandmother had. My mom had brought it over about two weeks ago and I've been working away on it. We also...I mean the Easter Bunny also "hid" some eggs (in plan sight, she's one!) for Mabel with toys in them and got her a stuffed fairy doll, a onesie with a cupcake on it and put some candy in her Easter bucket for Mama and Papa (again she's only one)! So we had a very fun and exciting morning watching Mabel find the eggs and open them and discover her bucket and doll. She was so excited. Her little PJ's are courtesy of my Brother, his wife and daughter. It is a little union suit with Mabel's name and some Easter Eggs on the Bum - so cute watching her crawl around. Later that morning we visited my mom at her house where the Easter Bunny also visited and then enjoyed a great brunch just the three of us. We were worried that a restaurant may be a disaster since Mabel only slept about 20 minutes that morning, but she charmed everyone in the restaurant blowing kisses and saying "hi" and then in the afternoon after Mabel's nap Zack's parents stopped by.

Yesterday, also known as Mabel & Mama Monday was also wonderful. We had such a great day. Since it was so nice we blew bubbles on the deck. I made the realization that she is so mobile that relaxing on the deck is quite different than last year and in the fall when she was in her cast. I'm considering one of those baby gate pay yard things...we'll see. We read books crawled around tons and Mabel discovered that she could go up about five stairs (under Mama's supervision of course). Mama then put up the baby gate! We took a wonderful afternoon walk since Mabel said she didn't need a nap and then Papa came home. I love Mondays!

What a difference a week makes...

Ever since Mabel was born I've marveled at how quickly things can change from one week to another. In those first few weeks of life just watching the changes as she grew and changed was such an amazing and wonderful time. That amazement just hasn't stopped for me, I'm still in wonder of her as I watch her now just as much as in the earlier months. She's so interested in learning and so focused on it too.

So this week Mabel has really worked on her crawling skills. She's moving now, she's also more daring with her standing abilities, "Look Mom no hands" type of standing, not free standing yet, but standing with her belly against the ottoman and playing. She's also amazingly sweet with her stuffed animals trying to feed them her snacks or bottles and playing patty cake, itsy bitsy spider and other games with them. Right now her favorite is her stuffed cat Mineo. She's sooo cute! When she wants Mineo she meows.

Physical therapy this week went so well. Mabel showed off her new crawling and standing skills and our physical therapist was beyond impressed and happy. The therapist is still working on those tight back muscles and trying to get her to stand with more weight on the left leg, but overall Mabel had a blast "playing" on the giant yoga ball and blowing bubbles. She had a great nap in the late morning and now that I'm back to my part time work schedule I was able to be home at my usual 3:45 and have some fun playing time with my girl both Thursday and Friday! That makes a Mama happy!

Speaking of happy, look at this baby move!