Crawling

By all definition of the word Payton is crawling.  That is, forward movement with her belly down. 

Now, its not pretty.  In fact the first few days it looking like a slow version of the worm, bum up, bum down, etc.  Now she's got some decent determination and understanding of what she's doing which equals a bit more speed and more mobility.  So she's exploring a bit more which so far is just to the top of the stairs: Looking at freedom I'm assuming.

Last Saturday was the 1st indication that she was going to 'crawl' soon.  I put her on the bed with Livy and she managed to cover about a foot of our bed and grab Livy's hair.  I attributed her success to the uneven level of the mattress giving her an advantage to squirm forward.

But on Monday, March 26th she was on her belly making forward movement for objects covering several feet in one go.  The race is on.

For what its worth Livy's 1st official crawl was April 8th.  So as far as their gestation is concerned Payton is ahead 2 weeks in the crawling department.  Birth wise, they're about neck in neck. 

On another note, Livy was pretty good on her feet and was pretty much pulling herself up by now so while Payton is holding her own on the crawling stage, there's other areas she's a bit behind Livy in.  Partly because we don't have as many toys for pulling herself up like we did with Livy.  So that needs to change.  Yesterday she was trying to stand using the jolly jumper so we know its time to bring in some toys that are made for this next step before she gets too ambitious.

On another note today is the day we're taking Payton's soother away.  Livy was 5.5 months but it was in conjunction with traveling so it made sense and it made it easy for Liv.  At 8 months Payton no longer needs it for soothing rather its become a habit.  When sleeping she wants it for 30 seconds and then spits it out...this repeats about 8 times in the night so its time she learns to self sooth so we can all start getting full night sleeps.

Livy continues to grow and while she hasn't gained that much height since her last wall measument in November, it tells me that she's gearing up for a growth spurt in the near future. 

Summer is just around the corner and we're starting to see warmer/dryer days. I can't wait till the suns out and we can turn off the heat in the house (April is tomorrow and that is the month we try to turn it off completely though admittedly there's been a few April's where its had to stay on a day or two).

March's Update and some pics

I'm so glad I've kept this blog.  Its wonderful fun going back and remembering where Livy was in her development and seeing how Payton's holding up.  For a girl who had such a rough start, she's doing pretty good.

Payton's been working at standing and her legs are good and strong now.  She's not trying to get up on her own but unlike Livy, her play area doesn't have anything for her to try it with.  This last week she's been up on her knees a few times so the crawling stage is just around the corner.  Ironically she's within a week or two of Livy with this development and if Livy (and Wilma) didn't hand her toys so much I'm confident that she would be right on track with Livy.  Its good news because with such a slow start you just never know how its going to affect her.  Also, so many CDH babies take a few years to 'catch' up to their developmental milestones.  Considering Livy was walking before she was 10 months we're hopeful that keeping up to Livy within a few weeks means Payton isn't dealing with any developmental delays of if she is, they're minor.

Livy is pretty good now with her potty training and its only when we're out of the house that we have issues since she's afraid of the automatic flushers (whoever designed those didn't do it with a potty training toddler in their house).  I have to keep reminding myself that she's only 2 and its often so hard since she's so talkative, active and (in my mind) smart.

The month of February saw our family all dealing with big colds.  Payton ended up with pneumonia and desipte having to go on antibiotics she handled it amazingly well.  We're all good and healthy now and hopefully have gotten through Payton's 1st cold season with no huge issues.

Dwayne and I are doing well and while work keeps us super busy (our house is super disorganized) we're gearing up for the spring and we're loving the longer days.  Dwayne did his 1st mountain bike ride today (bonked) but it does mark the beginning of summer in our huse. Yipee!!