Meghan is 9 Months Old

We hit this particular milestone while we were vacationing in Ocean City, so you may notice the pictures are not occurring in the usual location. More about the amazing vacation in another post, but for now lets see what Meghan has been up to this month.
Meghan is currently in one of my favorite stages, crawling and creeping but not yet walking, she is just the essence of a "baby", not an infant, not a toddler, a baby and I love it! She is so much fun right now. She is very interested in the world around her and just loves to figure things out and explore.

Sleeping:Naps are really all over the place, but I mostly blame her cold and teething. If she takes good naps she only takes two but if they are shorter than 30 mins, she will squeeze in a third. The total time spent napping is usually 90mins to 2 hrs. With the elusive 2 hour nap always occurring when I have to wake her up to go get Colin. Overnight has good nights and bad, we were 6 hours from starting to sleep train when she spiked a fever (of unknown origin, likely teething) so we had to cancel, then we left for vacation and now she is sick. Her days are numbered through for sure. Mark my words on this one, she will not be as 'easy' to sleep train as Colin was. 1) She is younger, 2) she has a stubborn streak and 3) I'll probably have to go it alone so Sean can get Colin out of the house for the worst of it. He is very sensitive to her crying and I would rather he not be in the house when I "ignore"

Likes:

• Daddy Daddy Daddy! I am currently no ones "favorite" and frankly I LOVE IT! Meghan simply adores her father and it makes me happy.
• My computer. She was playing on the floor by herself happily until I pulled out the computer, now all she wants to do is try to get it... (6 hours pass)
• Finger foods. She is going through the stage where she doesn't want to be fed and wants to eat on her own. I remember this with Colin so I think it is temporary. 
• Anything we eat. Colin never went through this stage so its a new one for us, but she just wants whatever we are eating! Makes getting new foods into her easier, but also means she gets some other treat foods (like ice cream) earlier than I planned because how can you say no to her!
• Sand and waves. Sharp departure from her brother here! She got her first touch and feel of the ocean and she loved it! In fact she kind of ate it up, literally.
• Peak-a-boo. Always a hit with the kiddies!

Dislikes

• Having her nose wiped. She has a little cold right now and getting her nose wiped is a miserable process.
• Having her face cleaned. See above (or any month previous)
• Being left behind. She has a pretty strongly negative reaction when I leave her with someone other than her father. She seems to get over it soon enough but it breaks my heart to have to do it.

New and Notable:

• Standing unassisted. She can stand for a good stretch now (15-20 seconds) without holding on and without falling. She has yet to try to take a step but she is close
• Walking and Running assisted. Last month she was pretty awkward with walking with help, this month she can really cruise with assistance. She can also walk pretty well holding on with just one hand.
• Signing. It is really hard to tell if she is doing this with intent or not but she seems to sign milk and all done. She signs milk to mean both milk and water as far as I can tell so she may think it just means drink, or it could be completely coincidental.  While drinking out of a sippy cup she will hold up one hand and sign it, while I'm getting her ready to nurse she will sign it with one or both hands and occasionally while seated in the high chair she will do it. All done she seems to do when she is ready to get down from the high chair and looks more like arms in the air than the actual twisting wrists that makes up the real sign. A few other people have seen her do it and other people seem to think it is intentional but I'm still skeptical...
• "words" : ish, yesh, da, ba, la, ma, ya, hiya, hi. While her father really wants to believe she says da da with intent I'm not sure of this yet either. She does say it when she sees him but she also says it randomly so it is hard to say. She also says other things when she seed him...
• Her top teeth have been threatening all month but I haven't felt them break through yet. She spiked a fever and got very cranky on two occasions but they seem to move and retreat so they haven't popped through yet. Should be any day now.

Rebecca J Berry Ph.D.

My turn! Yesterday was my commencement ceremony. I defended on June 30th, 2011, deposited the final version of my thesis on Aug 17th, 2011 and my degree was conferred in September. But since there is only one commencement ceremony per year I didn't "walk" until yesterday.   We started the celebrations with a lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in Astoria. My ceremony started two hours later than Sean's did and we didn't arrive home until 9pm that night so Sean and I decided dinner afterwards would be way too late for the kids and for our out of town travelers.
Here are some pictures of our day.

Alright, whose idea was it to sit these three together?!?  (I should note, that I didn't take any of these photos, nor did my husband despite packing the camera, my mom took most of them and my sister took the rest)

Silliness ensues! What fun these boys will have with their grandpa in the years to come. So cute!

Meghan was a trooper all day. The poor thing is sick and teething but she held it together.  We unfortunately had a rather soggy day, raining on and off, mostly on while we were outside, yet mostly off while we were inside.

Cousins on the subway!

The ceremony was 2 hours long but the kids were really good. There were over 400 graduates and we all got "hooded", plus a couple speakers and honorary degrees. It wasn't exactly kid friendly, despite the fact that the audience was at least 25% children.

I was able to secure enough tickets for Sean's mom to come too. She is next to my mom in this photo, which is unfortunately the most she is visible in any photos from the night!  We were very happy to have her with us despite the lack of photographic evidence!

If you look closely you can see me both on stage and on the jumbo tron. This is right after I've been hooded and called "professor" for the first time (when it was actually true) by the man doing the hooding.

This picture and the next have been edited from their original version so they might look grainy.
This is me shaking hands with the president of the university.

And a hug from the program head of Psychology. I can't say that I knew her well but I guess she is a hugger and I'm cool with that.

After being reunited with the fam. It was too rainy for outdoor photos so we just took a few inside. Meghan was afraid of me until I took the hat off.  I have to say I have a couple of good kids. I was fully prepared for a major meltdown from at least one of them if not both after doing this rigamaroll for the second time, but they were good! (And I can tell you there were many kids who were not, I could hear them!)

My parents. The people who gave me wings and taught me to fly...I will be forever grateful for the strong foundation, their love and unending support. There were many times I'm sure that they had no idea what I was doing or why but they always encouraged me to do it anyway.  To follow my star wherever it lead.

My sisty. Though she probably doesn't realize it, and certainly didn't do it intentionally, my sister is probably a large part of why I am so competitive. Maybe it is just a trait of the younger sister, but in those early years everything she did I wanted to do too and I wanted to do it better (although I didn't always accomplish that I'm pretty sure she was better at soccer and softball). My competitors changed over the years but that drive to do better has always stuck.

My husband. We are one hell of a team! From the silly things like cleaning a vacation rental to the impossible task of completing both our doctoral dissertations all while tending to our two great kids.We move like cogs in a wheel, fitting seamlessly, being both supportive and supported at once. Thank you for always being there to pull me back from the edge and still push me to be better every day. My parents gave me my base, my sister helped me find the bar and you held my hand as we jumped over it. I love you, I'm proud of you and I'm thankful for you.

Sean L. Berry Ph.D

On Sunday we celebrated Sean's Ph.D. Convocation ( the official commencement is on Wednesday but they don't read everyone's name at that ceremony so we are skipping it).  It was a beautiful day and the kids were really on their best behavior, making everything that much more enjoyable. Here are some pictures of our day.

 Sean all dressed up before the ceremony. He wears the suit well if you ask me.

 A shot of us. It has been a long 10 years between finishing our bachelors and now. I could not have done any of it without this man beside me. He completed this degree while working full time and in the later years being a very involved father. Sean is without a doubt the hardest working person I know. I could not be more proud of him!

 The funny hat brigade.

 The set up was quite odd, there were three different tents, one with the stage and graduates and two more flanking. Between the tents were large shrubs, making it very awkward and hard to see much. However, I guess I should appreciate the tents since it was very sunny and the kids would have been miserable.

 "Applied Physics, Sean Lawrence Berry"

 Sean on the big screen in our tent.

 Sean was called maybe 15 people in so then we had to sit and wait for the other 100 or so graduates to be called.. Here are a few shots of the kids hanging out.

 I thought Colin would be tricky but I just kept feeding him snacks and he was happy to sit and people watch.

 After the ceremony we took some pictures with the family.

 Grandma Mo and Meggie Sue

The Berry's (minus Chris and Oana, Chris got sent to Alabama for two weeks so he couldn't make the ceremony)

 The Drs Berry and their progeny.

I think Sean looks so much like his mom in this picture!! I always knew he favored her but this picture really demonstrates it.

 Colin got in on the photo taking action, so the next few pictures are taken by him. People get pretty silly when a 3 yr old is manning the camera.

 Aunt Katie and Aunt Nin strike a pose.

Silliness!

 My angelic husband and his baby sisters.

Colin of course ate NO dinner after eating probably 2000 calories in snacks at the ceremony. He did however have lots of room for sorbet. We went to Pasticci's on the upper west side and Meghan and I shared some creamy polenta and we both couldn't get enough.The ceremony started at 3, we had a dinner reservation at 6 and didn't get back home until 9. Both kids were wide awake all the way home, so it was a long night for them. It could have been disastrous but it wasn't.. All I wanted for Mothers day was for my kids to behave all day, but I didn't even want to wish for it because I figured it was totally unrealistic.

Meghan is 8 Months Old

Eight months old! My goodness this has been the month of new developments, I hope I can remember them all! The biggest one is that she is now crawling!!

Height :
Weight :
(hopefully I will get this info at some point)

Sleeping: More of the same on the sleeping front. The month pretty much started and ended in about the same place but we went through a pretty nasty spell right in the middle. She is starting to transition down to two naps, but really only gets there on days Colin doesn't have school. His school pick up and drop off are prime nap time, but unlike her older brother, Meghan does not nap as well in the stroller as she does in the crib. Stroller naps are only 40 mins, while crib naps are generally longer. If the first nap is short she will likely take three naps, but if she takes a nice 90 minute nap at 9am then she will generally take another good nap around 12:30 and be done.

Likes

• Daddy. He walks in the door after work and she makes a bee line for him. Pretty darn adorable to watch.
• Balls. She really enjoys rolling a ball back and forth with a partner. The way she throws/rolls it back looks entirely unintentional, however she does it the exact same way every time so I guess it must not be. 
• Anything of Colin's. Yep this is starting to be a problem this month as she can actually get to toys Colin used to be able to keep away from her. He is adapting quickly though, and anything overtly dangerous has been put away for now.
• Eating with her hands. She is really trying to feed herself, but unfortunately her food is in puree form and not easily picked up (not for lack of effort on her part!). We do give her finger foods but since she hasn't had teeth until now I haven't pushed further than puffs yet. Her behavior tells me she is ready for more.
• Bath/Shower. Since she is officially too big for her bath seat and bouncy seat, I started bringing her into the shower with me in the morning and she loves it just as much as she loves the bath. She finds the stream of water very interesting. She has no problem putting her face right in the water (another sharp departure from Colin's behavior).
• Emptying Toy Bins. She loves to stand over a basket of toys and just remove everything from the basket. She doesn't seem to be too picky about what toys they are, she does it with her own bins as well as with Colin's bins of train tacks. 

Her expressions crack me up!

Dislikes:

• Having her face cleaned after meals. You would think I was washing her face with frozen sand paper she gets so upset about it.
• Getting jammies on after her bath. The time between coming out of the bath and getting to nurse is a bit of a challenge some nights, which generally has nothing to do with her hunger level as I have tried feeding her right before the bath so she isn't hungry. She just wants to skip right over the getting dressed part and go right to snuggling.
•  Waiting in the stroller. Sometimes she goes into the stroller a good five minutes before we walk out that door simply because I need to put her somewhere while I gather all the last minute things we need. She is patient for a few minutes but she lets me know when I've taken too long! In fact, she lets most of our floor know!

I think there is a picture of me as a baby making a similar expression... mom?

New and Notable.

• She is crawling and crawling well. This girl gets around
• She is pulling herself up! I think she could do this before she could crawl but since she was so rarely near something to pull up on we didn't really notice. Once she could crawl she wanted to crawl to furniture and stand up. This caused serious sleep disturbances as she had to check and see if she could still stand up ever time she started to wake up. It was just SO exciting.
• She has two teeth. The first came through on good Friday and the second came through on her actual 8 monthiversary. So far her discomfort is manageable, but these are the "easy teeth" so I'm not holding my breath for the big ones being easy.
• She can clap. She was clapping on command for a good two weeks, no she just waves her hands around when you ask her to clap...however if you catch her clapping she can do it again on command a few minutes later.
• She can say Da da. Not with any intention but she has the letter worked out.
• She is creeping along furniture and trying to stand without holding on. She is very very unsteady but she clearly wants to progress to walking sooner rather than later. 
• SHE EATS MEAT! We tried chicken for the first time (chicken, apple, carrot puree to be exact) and she ate it right up. Very encouraging for what is to come!

Still very cheeky.

8 month preview!

I took a lot of pictures of Meghan today because it is her 8 'monthiversary', but one in particular is pretty darn adorable, so rather than make you wait for the full 8 month post to go up I'm treating you to this adorableness now.

Right now I have to start preparing for class and then I will get to the real 8 month post.

Hoppy Easter

This year I had the kids pictures taken with the "Easter Bunny". They came out so cute that I just have to share them.

Yes, it is a real live bunny! No, we didn't do anything special to it to get it to interact with the kids, it just did! He was more than happy to climb all over and be 'loved' by the them. Colin was a wee bit nervous about it, mainly because it showed no fear of him but Meghan dove right in!  More pictures later of our Easter Celebration.

Favorite Things for Making Baby Food

I really enjoy making baby food for the kids. Babies are so easy to feed and so eager to eat that it is very rewarding to watch them enjoy food I've made. I used jars more often with Colin than I did with Meghan, which is likely because of the baby food swap I've had the good fortune to participate in (another swap tonight!) Here are a few of my favorite things for making baby food.

Mumi&Bubi Freezer Storage Trays: This are the best trays I've found. I do like the Fresh Baby trays too, but I make so many big batches these days that these work better for me. Plus they are much easier to remove cubes from and clean. I also find the shape of the cube very appealing.







Hamilton Beach 10 Cup Food Processor.Got to have a good BPA free food processor! Sean's Aunt and Uncle sent the kids a gift card for Christmas and I was able to purchase this for "Meghan". I used the glass blender for Colin since my food processor wasn't BPA free and it just wasn't an ideal solution. This processor is the perfect size, big enough to make big batches but not so big I can't make a small batch in it.




Good Spatulas: You don't have to have these particular spatulas but you nee some good spatulas in a couple sizes. The small ones help scoop food back into one cube if you accidentally over fill and have a few half filled cubes. The larger ones are good to smooth over the top of the tray and push the food back into the processor. These spatulas are also high heat which is not necessary for making baby food, but I use them all the time while cooking in my pans so I don't scratch the coating. My mom was asking about them recently so I figured I would kill two birds..

Steamer Pot: I don't have any idea how we ended up with this set of pots (actually if you remember I killed the base of this pot but luckily it fits on other pot we own). I really like this to steam large batches! My mom has one of those steamer baskets and I find it very awkward to use.





Libbey Small Bowls with Lids: I bought a different set of bowls first and they were just too small. These bowls are PERFECT. I love them! They are glass so I can use them in the microwave, and send the food to the babysitter and not worry about how she warms it.  They hold three cubes while the cubes are still frozen, or 6oz of thawed food. I also found out through trial and error that they fit into a typical 12oz hot cup so you can warm them on the go in a hot water bath and it won't float around and risk splashing boiling water on baby. Lids fit securely but I have one minor leaking incident when I didn't put it on quite right.

Blender Baby Food. I think I probably have about five (or eight) baby/toddler food cookbooks, and this is my favorite one for new ideas for baby 'meals' (pear, apricot, tofu anyone?). I just noticed it has a second edition now and I seriously have to exhibit some self control not to buy it, I'm sure it is largely the same but I would love to page through it. Another great resource is www.wholesomebabyfood.com. That is usually the first place I go when I'm not quite sure how to cook something.

That's all! Enjoy.