in these shoes.

July 2008 (at 16 months) will go down as the month Nina starting walking! To celebrate this accomplishment, Nina sports new Stride Rites (my right of passage as a mom) She's a size 4 and walks so well in them!

She is saying some funny words these days: chicken (ticken)and tickle (techal) are ones that come to mind at the moment.

eczema

blah...on her eye...blah...on her eyelid and under eye...blah...

It's worse in the morning and then gets less red as the day wears on. She's had this rash for the past 3 weeks so I went to Dr yesterday for a literally 2 second meeting with him and he said to put hydrocortizone cream on it. It does not seem to be bothering her. She's just her normal happy, groovy self. I read one of the triggers could be physical stress (her walking???) hahahaha!:)

I painted her an Elmo for her room. She loves it! Pretty good eh??

Gardening

Like a good little Italian girl, I have a veggie garden out back. I plant tomatoes, peppers and basil.
I plan to give a lot of the tomatoes to my 86 year old Grandmom so she can make sauce.

Beach Baby A Go Go

I say if a toddler can make it on the beach, she can walk anywhere! Walking on that sand is tough work! Here's the best I could get of Nina on the beach.
Nina had the most fabulous time at the beach on our (too short) mini Ocean City vaca with the Fox clan!
She LOVES LOVES LOVES the ocean! Just is crazy about it!

So yes Nina is walking now. After taking her first steps on June 23rd She's all over the place now. She learned how to go from crawl to stand to walk over the weekend so there is no stopping her now!

PS Does anyone know what causes that black spot in the video? It's on ALL my pics from vaca!!!

Trip to the beach!

Over the weekend we went to visit friends in Long Island and took Nina to Long Beach.
I must say she did pretty great! It was not her first time to the beach but I really don't count last September because she was still a baby blob.

Initially she was less than thrilled with the dry sand when I placed her in it, but little by little she was cool with it. Her favorite part of the beach was the wet sand by the water. Jason took her out into the ocean and she cried and cried. She is having mommy attachment issues these days so I am not sure if it was the water or if she was just crying for me.

Nina did enjoy eating sand (licking it off her hand) and managed to eat a dried piece of seaweed.

She really loves her little mobile self. She would rather walk/crawl than be in our arms(most of the time) She was fine standing in water as long as she was in it and not us holding her. She loves being around other kids too. At the beach there were two little girls playing in the wet sand and Nina went right over to them and showed them her little seashell she found. She wanted to just stay and play with the girls but the girls were less than interested in her seashell.

Ocean City, NJ trip is right around the corner so we are happy we had the opportunity for a dress rehearsal to the beach.

Lessons learned: Sunglasses: I just bought her those wrap around the head sunglasses Hopefully she will keep them on. We also learned that poop in a wet, sandy swim diaper sucks!!!!!!

Harmonica and other things I need to buy

Janet from Early Intervention came out this morning to evaluate Nina on cognitive, social, speech, fine motor, and self- help skills.

Nina is at age level (a 16 month old) for social, speech, and self- help! She's a social happy kid! Always engaged in play and loves to discover new things. No issues with her speech at this point which is a great relief b/c this is the age when a red flag could come up. (that's what the teacher said) Self- help refers to getting something for herself instead of whining for me to get it.(YOU GO GIRL!)

She is at adjusted(12-13 months) for cognitive (cause and effect and strength) and fine motor.
Janet wants Nina to work on pushing things down for strength. Nina needs to use her whole hand to push instead of one finger:) She needs to work on blowing (like a harmonica or bubbles) She said we could play tug of war with her for strength too. She wants Nina to work on that pincher grasp more with puzzles.

So yeah, great visit. no red flags...no ongoing therapy suggested. I don't know about you guys, but I am pretty pleased with her evaluation!

Updates

Yesterday at our monthly PT appt, Nina took 20 steps! Hopefully she will end July as a full time walker.

Tomorrow she will be 16 months. (where is the time going?! sniff sniff...)We are having Early Intervention come over for a "playdate" (consult) where Nina will be assessed on all areas of development. I think Nina is doing awesome so I am anxious to see what they say tomorrow.

She has finally hit 21 pounds after staying in the 20 pound standstill since May. I know that toddlers slow down so I was not freaking out. Plus she is getting taller so she is looking more proportional.

Last weekend we had some family pictures taken with all of Jason's side of the family. We were able to get some of Nina by herself. She had a great time! We can't keep her still for long, in this pic she was trying to make a break for it. I love the curl!

Playdates keep getting more fun!

Nina and Adelina were so happy to see each other yesterday. So cute!

They say it's your birthday...again

As my readers know, micro-preemies have two b-days-actual and adjusted. Today is Miss Nina's adjusted B-day...So she is 12 months old now and should be meeting the milestones of a 1 year old. Her Early Intervention people go by the adjusted age when assessing her development.
It's funny(confusing funny, no Ha Ha funny) b/c our peed goes by her actual age for everything.


I really thought I would have something profound to say about today, but nope...lost for the words.
I will leave you with her wobble walking behind a
toy!

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