Or, subscribe via email
Supporting
Lisa Mitchell
Miss Anna Banana is 10 months old! That’s right, my baby, who it seems like was just born yesterday, is a mere 2 months away from her 1st birthday. Holy crap! I thought time went by fast with Maya, but seriously, Anna’s first year is going by at lightening speed.
Apparently, she decided that 9 months of getting her picture with her age displayed nicely in front of her was enough. I could not get her to leave the letters and numbers alone long enough to snap even one picture. She just laughed at me and shook her head “no” every time I told her to leave them alone. She is a stinker 
Weight: approx. 18lbs
Height: approx. 28in
Just as with every month so much has changed, so many new things have been learned. This girl is a talker. I never would have guessed she would be a talker given how peaceful she was as a wee baby. But, boy can she chatter. She isn’t just babbling anymore either she is starting to connect sounds to objects and people, starting to copy sounds when you say words to her, and starting to accurately communicate in other ways as well. One of her favorite things to do is shake her head no, she does it because she knows we think it is cute. But, she also knows how to use in proper context as well. If I offer her more food at meal time she’ll shake her head no if she is all done and doesn’t want any more. Anna is one smart cookie Her new favorite game is the sharing game. She’ll pass a toy to you that she is playing with and say “Hee” (as in here) and when you pass it back to her she gets excited and says “Ta” (as in thank you). She will play this game endlessly and it is cute every single time she does it. She also likes to copy sounds so if she shows me something she is playing with, like a ball for example, I’ll say “Ball” to her and she’ll repeat the “ba” sound. She associates “mama” with me and “dada” with Lorne (although she still uses dadada and mamama as babble sound as well). She can say her own name, and I’m pretty sure she is doing it on purpose. And, the other day I swear she was trying to say peek-a-boo. She covered her face with a book, and as she brought it down she said “ee-ooo” and giggled.
Our super chill, relaxed little girl still isn’t crawling, although she can get around a room on her own terms. She gets around by pushing herself backwards, pivoting on her tummy and rolling. She can always get what she wants, and if it is something she knows she isn’t supposed to touch she can get there pretty darn quick too 
Every day I swear she is going to start crawling as she spends at least half the time she is on the floor on her hands and knees, she just won’t move forward. She can even get up on her hands and feet. One of these days she is going to book it across the room all “What, I could totally do this all along I just didn’t want to.”
In the past month Anna has decided that she would much rather feed herself real food than eat purees. She still gets purees, mostly because I finally found a food that is high fiber and helps keep her regular so I give it to her every day to keep things moving along. Her favorite food is cheese, she powers through it when I put a few pieces in front of her and squeals for more. She also hasn’t met a fruit she doesn’t like. And, she loves her some carbs. This morning I made french toast for the girls and she squealed with delight when I placed those little pieces of bread on her tray. She is still breastfeeding like a champ. She eats about every 2-3 hours during the day and then sleeps through the night. She seems to like waking up at about 5-5:30ish to eat and then goes back to sleep for another hour or two, which works for me. My plan is to continue nursing her into her 2nd year just as I did Maya. I nursed Maya until she was just shy of 20 months old and I’ll likely shot for something similar with Anna.
With each passing day, each passing month, I swear Anna becomes sweeter and sweeter. She is always full of smiles. She adores her big sister and the two of them play together so nicely. The other day at dinner they were really getting each other going, it was adorable. I can already see the mischief they are going to get into.
I love you to pieces sweet Anna. You are a joy each and every day. I love snuggling with you, giggling with you and watching you grow. Can’t wait to see what this next month has in store for you.
This year I get to do something on Mother’s Day that I’ve waited 4 years to do. I seriously can’t wait. I get to open my very first Maya created Mother’s Day gift! This past week at school Maya and her classmates got to make gifts for their moms. The gifts were sent home yesterday wrapped in tissue paper and tied up with a bow. Maya could hardly contain her excitement about having a gift to give me that she had made all by herself. She kept wanting to tell me what was in the wrapping, but I convinced her to just whisper it to her Daddy so that it would still be a surprise for me.
I remember making little crafts, cards and pictures for my own Mom for Mother’s Day at school. I remember being so excited to give her my little creations. It is truly awesome to now be the recipient of those lovingly made little creations.
I hope all you Moms out there have a very wonderful weekend celebrating being a Mom. Happy Mother’s Day. I’ll be spending my day with these two so I already know it will be wonderful.
This week is Teacher Appreciation Week at Maya’s school. Today is National Teacher Day. Around the country, around Maya’s school, kids are saying “Thank You” to the people who make a giant impact on their lives. Saying “Thank You” to the teachers who help shape and mold them into the adults they will eventually become. Parents are saying “Thank You” to the teachers who care for, educate and help shape their beloved children.
Right inside the doors of Maya’s school there was a table filled with crayons and little paper flowers so that the kids could create a little something for their teachers. As we walked the halls, passed the doors of the other classrooms, we saw dozens of paper flowers taped to the doors. Each flower was brightly colored in the scribbles of 3 and 4 year olds and donned with the name of one of the students in the class. The little flowers a cheerful symbol of how loved each one of the teachers in Maya’s school is.
When I chose Maya’s preschool I knew it was highly rated and confident it would be a good match for Maya and our family. I had no way of knowing just how amazing this school truly is. The teachers are all very highly educated and love, LOVE, their jobs and the school. They are passionate about children, learning and are creative too the core. The school is extremely well run, the administrators just as wonderful as the teacher themselves. The parents are friendly, involved and supportive. Walking the halls of the school every where you look there are children smiling and enjoying every bit of their day at school. The school is everything I could have dreamed of and more. Maya’s teachers are a big part of making that so.
I sent Maya to school today with strawberries and cream muffins for her teachers to say a big “Thanks”. Her teachers, especially Mrs. M, have been absolutely amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better first teacher for Maya. Mrs. M is outgoing, fun, loving and creative. She brings out the best in Maya. Maya has grown in leaps and bounds this year. She has come out of her shell and isn’t held back by her shyness anymore. I have Mrs. M to thank for that. I don’t know if Maya will remember Mrs. M years from now, but I will be sure to remind her of her truly wonderful first teacher.
Thank You, Mrs. M. Thank You.
Turns out life with two kids, especially when one of those kiddos is a 4 year old in all sorts of activities, is pretty busy. Between school, trips to the library, dance class, t-ball and swimming lessons I feel like we are hardly ever home. We always either on our way to or on our home from one activity or another. Maya is loving all her little classes so it makes the business worth it.
Unfortunately, all this craziness has meant I haven’t found a lot of time in my day to update this little old blog. I’m going to return to writing posts at night after the kids go to bed so I can get back into a better, more frequent post, groove.
Anna has been busy too, growing and trying with all her might to figure out this crawling thing She can get up on all fours and rock but hasn’t figured out moving her hands and knees once she is up on them. Today she even got herself up on her hands and feet!! Perhaps she’ll just go straight from pushing herself backwards and rolling to get where she wants to go to walking. I really can’t believe how big my little baby is getting.
She enjoys our busy schedule, well at least the opportunity it presents to watch a bunch of 4 year olds running around. I’m guessing she could probably do without the constant nap interruptions, but she handles it well. She watches her sister partaking in all her little activities in style
Living in the midwest strong, violent storms are pretty common place. Spring rolls around and brings with it the thunder, lightning, heavy down pours and sometimes even tornadoes. A late afternoon darkening of the sky with the rumble of thunder off in the distance is a fairly frequent occurrence once the daytime temperatures begin to rise. I’m used to it. My kids are used to it, and aren’t afraid of a little thunderstorm. We take weather warnings seriously, as tornadoes are scary, but we enjoy a good thunderstorm every now and then.
A few weeks ago Maya’s class learned all about weather, specifically spring weather. And, since we live in prime thunderstorm/tornado territory that meant a little discussion on those types of weather activities. They have fire drills and tornado drills at her school from time to time. She knows what the tornado sirens going off means. Up until recently the sounds of the thunder crashing, the trees blowing in the strong winds and the distant sound of the tornado siren didn’t cause any unrest. A few times we’ve found ourselves in the basement as a precaution but it didn’t bother her. Until this past weekend that is.
This past weekend saw some strong storms in our area. There was a lot of property damage and sadly someone lost their life as a result of the storms. We were lucky as the bulk of the violent weather was to our north and we didn’t get much more than some loud thunder and heavy rains. For the first time since Maya learned about tornadoes and has had tornado drills at school we heard the sound of the tornado sirens. She was in the bathtub at the time covered from head to toe in shampoo and soap. As the sounds began to register with her she quickly went from playing calmly in the bathtub to having a full on little panic attack. She was breathing funny, crying and shaking. I spoke calmly to her and quickly rinsed her off. After checking the weather on my phone I decided we’d better head downstairs for a bit. So down the stairs I went carrying a fussy baby who just wanted to go to bed already and holding the hand of a little girl in a panic. Fun times.
By the time we got downstairs the sirens were no longer sounding and after checking the local radar on my laptop I decided we were fine to head back upstairs. Maya had luckily calmed down and the weather outside was much calmer, just a few faint rumbles of thunder and some rain remained. I settled Maya on the couch with her blankie and a movie while I put Anna to bed (Lorne was out of town enjoying a boys weekend). Later we spent some time talking about storms and tornadoes and why we head downstairs when we hear the sirens. She was much calmer and seemed to understand, mostly anyway, she did ask several times if a twister would cause our house to be pulled of the ground and blown all the way to Oz!
Turns out if a child learns just a little about violent stormy weather and that knowledge is coupled with what she learned from watching the Wizard of Oz it can turn her into quite the chaotic, panicky mess when the tornado sirens go off! Who knew :/
Off to the library we go to learn a little bit more about storms and to hopefully calm her nerves a bit.