A few days after Linden began to walk, she had a rough morning of falling quite a bit. At first, I couldn't figure out what the problem was. But then, I realized that she was falling because she was trying to pick up the pace. Having mastered walking, she wanted to run. It seems like that's how she functions. Once she has the hang of something, it's onto the next challenge.
For example, we recently had a playdate at our house with five kids under 5 (not including Linden). It was crazy, but fun. One of them was jumping around the living room and Linden was entranced.
Having just learned to walk, jumping will be the next goal. Linden pumps her arms a few times, then tries to jump. She can't get both feet off the ground, but she can regularly pick up one. The video gives you an idea.
As of tonight, she's progressed to a sort of shuffle-step attempt. I'll try to get another video that better reflects her ability. :-)
Laine made Linden a penguin costume for Halloween this year and it was perfect. Linden had just started to walk a couple days before Halloween, so on October 31, 2014 Linden had the perfect waddle for the costume.
It was one year ago that I wrote an entry about our first week with Linden at home. She'd been in the NICU for 40+ days before we were able to bring her home, and that first week home was amazing.
After so much time visiting our daughter in Peoria, we didn't quite know what to expect having her home. But absence does make the heart grow fonder and we absolutely loved that first week home together as a family.
One year later, it's incredible how much has changed. Not only is she no longer tethered to a monitor, she's no longer tethered to anything! When Laine came home from work today, Linden walked halfway across the room to give her a big hug.
She's constantly trying new things. Balancing and climbing are two of her favorite things to practice. Riding on her little pink car is fun, but so is balancing on top of it or using it as a step to climb higher. She's already reaching for doorknobs even though they're still a foot higher than her reach.
And boy is she stubborn. As illustrated by this photo, she naps on her own terms. If it means she falls face-first into the chair, still on her toes, that's just how it's going to be.
We've tried to take advantage of the nice fall weather and one weekend we visited Rader Farms' pumpkin patch. There were lots of activities and animals, but Linden most loved leaning on and climbing the pumpkins.
Last weekend, Linden served as the flower girl for our friend's wedding. She rode in a wagon because, while she could take some steps, she wasn't quite a walker yet. But she absolutely loved riding in that wagon. So much so that it helped her learn another word: GO. If we ever stopped pulling the cart for more than about 3 seconds, Linden would start saying "go...go..go.go...go" until we started back up again, bringing a big smile to her face.
During the actual wedding ceremony, she really turned it on. She pulled leaves out of the burlap purse that Lexy and Eddie gave her, which is exactly what she was supposed to do but had never done in practice. Linden knows how to perform when it counts.
When talking with family and friends who are familiar with Linden's story and this blog, one of the most common things we hear is how moved people were by the photo of Linden holding my wedding ring in the NICU. It's difficult to imagine how small a 2 lb. 13 oz. baby is and even though she didn't look very small to us, when I look back at this picture it's fun to see how much she has grown this first year.
Now, one year later, we wanted to be sure to re-create this photo in an effort to once again provide some illustration for how much our little bean has grown. Linden's eating solid foods and is very curious, so the trick this time was to figure out how to photograph her with my ring when she was least likely to pop it into her mouth. Not sure if that time would ever come, we tied dental floss to the ring so that if she did try to bite it we could end the experiment.
It's difficult to manually focus a camera on such a fast-moving object and equally challenging for an auto-focus camera to fulfill its duty.
We finally wised up and decided to snap a couple pictures right before we put Linden to bed, when she was too sleepy for any fast movements.
Laine and I took Tuesday off from work to celebrate Linden's 1st birthday. Though the weather didn't allow us to spend time outside like we planned, we still had a great time enjoying the company of our birthday girl.
Maybe it's because we knew she was about to turn one, but Linden seems to be growing up so fast these past couple of weeks. She's full of moxie and is always on the go. It would be exhausting if she weren't so much fun.
Linden loves drinking from a straw, so we knew just what to get her for her first birthday -- a straw sippy-cup. She absolutely loves it. We filled it with water and she stopped playing to sit and drink it all the way down.
Laine decorated the house with paper poms, which was another big hit. Linden sat back and admired them, giggling and pointing.
We took LB to the doctor this morning for her one year check up. She's in the 50th % of height, 60th % of weight, 85% of head size, and 87th % of cuteness. We had her dressed in pajamas for the visit, so we may have brought that last score down a bit.
Laine started a tradition of giving flowers to Linden on her birthday, but this year we decided to go with paper flowers that stuck on the wall so that she could play with them. You can just barely see them giving her bunny ears in this picture, where she's just fully accepted the fact that she's turned one year old.
Linden is one year old today! I'll be updating the blog with some fun pictures from her birthday celebrations soon. Shortly after Linden was born, I joined a Facebook group of families who were going through the same experience as we were -- having a child in the NICU. I was always uplifted by posts from other families who'd shared our journey, so it was fun for me to have a chance to share a fun update with the group today. Here's what I posted: Our daughter is 1 year old today and what an amazing year it's been! She was 9 weeks early and spent 45 days in the NICU. She was 2 pounds 13 ounces at birth and I hardly recognize the 21+ pound rough-and-tumble girl who lives with us now. It's been both the longest and fastest year of our lives. For those of you who are where we were one year ago today, know there will be great outcomes and a lot of fun in your future!
It's been too long since my last post but time was hard to come by these past few months.
Since returning from Canada Linden has mastered crawling and pulling up, which keeps us on the move. The evenings were long as we worked on teaching Linden to fall asleep for the night on her own. She caught on quickly though and now sleeps through the night consistently. Work has been busy these past few months but is slowing down now. I'm not promising that I'll post more regularly, but that's my goal.
Tired, red eyes from rubbing
As I mentioned, Linden is crawling like a champ, pulling up on things with one hand and she just started to shuffle walk while holding onto a piece of furniture yesterday. She loves holding onto the outside of her jumper and jumping up and down. I swear I've seen both feet leave the ground at the same time.
She sleeps hard at night but this may because she fights sleep all day long. Ideally, LB would sleep an hour in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. Yesterday at Dee's, she slept 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in he afternoon. Then slept from 4:30-5:30 and again from 8pm - 7:45 am. That's great for us since we can get a full night's sleep, but she gets crabby during the day without her nap.
Sleeping at Dee's
The reason she doesn't like to nap is because she doesn't want to miss out on playing. She is thrilled to go to daycare each morning. She literally shrieks with excitement when we open the door and she sees the other kids. She can't contain her excitement. One great thing about having daycare across the street is that sometimes when I go to pick LB up, she'll be sleeping and Dee just tells me she'll text me when she wakes up. But even when it's just us on the weekends, she only naps when we push her in the jogging stroller. The good news is that Laine and I are taking lots of walks.
So big
"So Big" is big, so we play that game a lot. She also flexes her muscles very aggressively from time to time but I can't quite figure out why she chooses to do that when she does.
As you can tell, Linden's hair has been growing as fast as the rest of her. At 10 months, she officially caught up physically. We'd been told that it could take as long as two years for her to catch up to her birth age, so we were surprised to hear that she was already in the 50+% of height, weight, etc. at 10 months.
Linden chats quite a bit but doesn't say many words. Two weeks ago she spent a lot of time working on "doo-aaa...dohhh-aaa" etc. Last week I heard her say "No!" clear as day. I had to remind myself that she doesn't likely know what she's saying (dohh-aaa doesn't mean anything), so we try not to react to it. That, or we try to turn it into another word. So when she says "no" we say "noel" or "nobody is home."
LB has always laughed but it's like she just learned to mimic laughter. Here's a video to illustrate what I mean.
We're having a ton of fun with our little bean and know that there's plenty more fun in our future.
It was one year ago that I wrote an entry about our first week with Linden at home. She'd been in the NICU for 40+ days before we were able to bring her home, and that first week home was amazing.
After so much time visiting our daughter in Peoria, we didn't quite know what to expect having her home. But absence does make the heart grow fonder and we absolutely loved that first week home together as a family.
She's constantly trying new things. Balancing and climbing are two of her favorite things to practice. Riding on her little pink car is fun, but so is balancing on top of it or using it as a step to climb higher. She's already reaching for doorknobs even though they're still a foot higher than her reach.
When talking with family and friends who are familiar with Linden's story and this blog, one of the most common things we hear is how moved people were by the photo of Linden holding my wedding ring in the NICU. It's difficult to imagine how small a 2 lb. 13 oz. baby is and even though she didn't look very small to us, when I look back at this picture it's fun to see how much she has grown this first year.
Linden's eating solid foods and is very curious, so the trick this time was to figure out how to photograph her with my ring when she was least likely to pop it into her mouth. Not sure if that time would ever come, we tied dental floss to the ring so that if she did try to bite it we could end the experiment..JPG)
Laine and I took Tuesday off from work to celebrate Linden's 1st birthday. Though the weather didn't allow us to spend time outside like we planned, we still had a great time enjoying the company of our birthday girl.
Maybe it's because we knew she was about to turn one, but Linden seems to be growing up so fast these past couple of weeks. She's full of moxie and is always on the go. It would be exhausting if she weren't so much fun.
We took LB to the doctor this morning for her one year check up. She's in the 50th % of height, 60th % of weight, 85% of head size, and 87th % of cuteness. We had her dressed in pajamas for the visit, so we may have brought that last score down a bit.
Laine started a tradition of giving flowers to Linden on her birthday, but this year we decided to go with paper flowers that stuck on the wall so that she could play with them. You can just barely see them giving her bunny ears in this picture, where she's just fully accepted the fact that she's turned one year old.
It's been too long since my last post but time was hard to come by these past few months.
