****Sad Note****
I don't know how many people have been following the progress of Dawn's conjoined twins, linked on my sidebar under "baby blogs," but there is a sad update today. Following a prolonged chain of serious health issues, they passed away last night. I am in tears for them, and for their family, and just pray that they are somewhere wonderful now. Nobody will ever understand why their short lives had to be so troubled, but I don't think anybody can dispute that their troubled lives touched so many other people it was incredible. The fact that they got to live at all, and know the love of their parents, siblings and incredible doctors is simply a miracle.

Say a little prayer today, if you do such things, for them and for their family. Such innocence, lost so young. :( I really believe a loving spirit had wide-open arms, welcoming them to a pain-free, euphoric eternity.

Edited to add: Below are links to major news stories regarding the twins today. If you want further information about them, there are some good details in these.
CNN
Fox News
ABC News
MSNBC
Reuters
Salon.com
Associated Press

+ Sicko +
You were sent home from daycare yesterday for coughing. Bah. We went to the doctor, and your lungs are fine, you're not really sick, but you do have a borderline ear infection. The doctor gave us antibiotics for that, and I am giving you some Simply Cough for the cough (which is probably from drainage). We shipped you back off to school today, so hopefully you stay there and feel better.

+ Fun morning +
I did an interview with a reporter doing an article for TIME Magazine about baby blogging this morning. Wheee! It was interesting, and I hope I had some good answers for her. It was interesting to think in a more detached way about this journal for a while. I forget some of the reasons I started it, and some of the wonderful things that have happened and people I've met along the way. It was a nice chance to reminisce and hopefully provided some useful material for her article. It'll be online and in subscriber copies of the magazine, so you can rest assured I'll link it here when it's published.

Anyway... I installed the car seat last night. It's definitely bigger than the one we were borrowing from Grandma. But I like it. I hope I have it in tight enough. There's a free car seat clinic on Saturday Feb. 7th and we're signed up for an 8 a.m. appointment to inspect it. I really want them to tell me I did a great job with it and it needs no modifications. That would make me feel great!

A couple more steps last night, but nothing monumental. You were silly and playful, though. And PICKY. You will no longer eat diced pears. What's up with that?! You had some more cow's milk, so that's getting better too. You also have a bit of a cough going on that's driving me pretty crazy.

+ So sweet! +
You've been hugging your stuffed animals - and us - for a while now. But I just read this in your weekly development update on American Baby, and it really did almost make me cry. You are so lovey-dovey with most things, I guess it probably does reflect how we handle you. Daddy and I both shower you with hugs and kisses constantly:

"Moms, dads, and siblings aren't the only recipients of baby's love at this point. She'll hug or lie on top of other toddlers, and will even behave tenderly toward her favorite toys. The capacity to love and nurture is a direct imitation of your behavior toward her, so take it as a compliment--it means you're one heck of a mom."

+ These jammies were made for walking +
Indeedy, my little walking baby, you took a handful of little steps last night. And you did it from daddy to me, so we got to see it together! Hoorah! We practiced several times, and one time you took almost 3 steps. It was terribly exciting and you were showered with praises and kisses (not that that's anything unusual of course). It was wonderful. I think for sure you'll be walking little bits by your birthday. Amazing!

Your two little outside teeth are currently being blamed for some of your crankiness lately. Something has to be the culprit, and they seem worthy of blame. There are little pointy spots there, and I can't investigate closely unfortunately. Every time I try to look you either flip your head back and out of reach or clamp down and bite me! Ouch!

But you did sleep through the night last night for the first time in about a week, so thank you for that. Considering I went to bed with a near-migraine, you picked a good night to sleep through. I woke up feeling much better.

You also willingly consumed cow's milk (whole milk) last night for the first real time. You sipped a little a week or so ago, but last night you were actually interested enough in it to keep grabbing the bottle and genuinely sucking/drinking. I'd say you drank about 2 oz. or so. No adverse effects, so far. I'm hoping to get you used to it, then put it in a sippy cup in a week or two and start getting you used to that. My goal for no more formula ASAP still stands. We'll see!

+ More pointing +
Yeah, the pointing has taken on new dimensions already. You played a fun game with daddy last night. It involved pointing in succession at each and every toy on your toy-shelf in the living room. Daddy dutifully took each toy down, handed it to you and helped you play with it. Then you would point to the next, which he would retrieve, and on and on. It was really cute.

I just heard from daddy, and checked the UPS website and it looks like your Britax Marathon has arrived! Ohhh, I can't wait to get home, open it up, play with it and install it. Why oh why am I so excited about a car seat? Crazy!

Of course, I'm battling a borderline migraine so I might just open it, drink a glass of water and fall asleep. We're supposed to go to Mommy & Me tonight, so I hope I can shake this headache or it's not happening! Pooh!

+ Dah-Dee! +
Yeah, I don't know if you mean it or not, but you definitely say it. I think you mean it. And if I ask you "Where's Daddy?" or "Where's the doggie?" you will point. Not 100% of the time, but often enough that I know you know what you're doing. You like to point, and if you are being held and you see something you want, you will point at it until we put you down and let you go for it. Cute!

You're standing, but only if you don't realize you're doing it. You get carried away with toys and before you know it, you're not holding onto anything. Once you look at your hands and the table (or legs or whatever you were supporting yourself with), and realize you're not holding on, you fall right down. Silly girl. You can walk quite well with only one hand of support now, and no hand-support is surely right around the corner.

You were super-cranky yesterday, and very clingy. I hope you're not getting sick, but you slept on me a grand total of about 2 hours during the day yesterday. And I have to admit, I love it when you sleep on me. I get nothing done, I can't even pee... But to have you cuddle up on my shoulder, cradling your butt in my hand and your pretty sleepy face "looking" up at me... Well, that's just about the sweetest way to pass a day I could think of.

+ Eleven months old +
I'm still failing at regular updates. Sorry about that.

You're eleven months old now. You can stand without holding something, as long as you don't realize it. When you're standing in your crib (crying, usually), and I lower the side rail, you continue to stand without holding on. It's brief, but it's still an accomplishment! You can walk better all the time with just one hand of support. Walking completely is RIGHT around the corner.

We're having some issues with sleep lately. You used to go down for naps or bedtime so easily. Not anymore. We're working on that.

You're eating all kinds of fascinating things now. And I gave you cow's milk for the first time on Tuesday night. You weren't so sure at first, but later I think you were starting to like it. We're still working on the sippy cup too, so the combination of two had you a bit confused.

Last weekend you got to meet Uncle Scott and Auntie Jen! You seemed to like them, but we were all just a little fragged from the drive. You did fairly well, all things considered. You slept for at least the first half of the trip, and part of the second half. Things went downhill about 1/2 hour before we got there, and you were screaming your way through Los Angeles. Woo hoo! You had fun there, though, and Jackson got some wonderful things! I can't wait to meet him and I sure hope you two get along, since you're already engaged and all. ;-) The drive back was horrible. Horrible. You knew exactly what was coming every time we got back in the car, and at one point I had to sit back with you and rub your head for almost 1/2 hour until you fell sound asleep enough for me to stop. Yikes.

Let's see. What else is new...? Your birthday is coming up. You're outgrowing all of your 6-9 months clothes (go figure), but everything else seems too big! Your 1-year hip appointment was cancelled for late February, so I'll have to reschedule that. No new teeth yet, but still teething. You're still nipping at me when nursing, but not TOO bad. We bought a new entertainment center just to keep your prying little hands off the DVD's/CD's/tapes/TV/stereo equipment, even though those are actually all your favorite toys. It should arrive via daddy-mobile tomorrow. Daddy's been picking you up at daycare every day for the last two weeks; I think you enjoy the 1/2 hour or so you get to spend with just him, usually playing the piano or chasing the doggie. I still don't have your new car seat. Soon, I hope.

+ Moooooo! +
Oh, yeah, and your sleeping last night yielded another unexpected bonus. I didn't notice it, but apparently my right boob was quite full. Truly, I didn't notice a difference. Well, since I nursed you on the left this morning, it hasn't been, uh, tapped since 8 last night. I got a full four ounces out rightie at 11 this morning. One out of left and we had 5 oz. in one sitting. For my history, plus considering an 11-month-old baby (they nurse less, trust me on this), that is a monstrous amount of milk. Go me. We'll see what I get this afternoon to add to it!

+ Car seat and growing up +
I don't think I mentioned the car seat. Yeah. Can you say, "Sticker shock?" I broke down and bought the Cadillac of car seats, the Britax Marathon. I got it for a great price on eBay for a new one, but I won't even say here how much I paid for it because it makes my head hurt. On the plus side, it will hopefully be the last car seat we'll ever need for you. It goes up to 65 pounds, and I have very high hopes for it. I ended up getting it for about the same as I would have gotten the Britax Roundabout, which only goes up to 40 pounds. The reviews are similar, but the Marathon seems to be the best of the best. So, I got notification that they are shipping it via UPS ground today. By the seller's revews, people seem to be getting them in a week, so maybe next weekend you'll have a new car seat! Wahoo.

All of this is good timing. At the mommy & me group (which was SOOOO much fun - pictures of new friends Allison and baby Trevor are in her current album), we weighed you. Now. Granted you were fully clothed, but your diaper was brand-new, so no weight there. With clothes on, you weighed 19lbs 1 oz. So I'm guessing you're probably around 18.5-18.75 pounds. Of course, you're relatively tall, too, so your current car seat is probably not really sufficient, even now. Well, that's okay. Your Marathon is on its way. I might borrow Grandma's car seat for this weekend's journey, but I haven't made up my mind about that yet.

Only drawback? The car seat I bought is brown. Our interior is gray and our exterior is white. Even Daddy's car is gray interior and blue exterior. So. Brown car seat it is. Oh, well. Daddy says he doesn't care and if it bothers me THAT much, I'll buy a new cover. They sell those on eBay too.

+ More updates +
Okay, tomorrow we're going to see Auntie Jen! We're totally not packed, but that will be our fun for this evening.

Daycare said you took two steps yesterday. I'll believe it when I see it. As I've mentioned before, I almost wish they wouldn't tell me these things. Now I feel like I missed your first steps. Oh well.

You're biting me while nursing now. Not my favorite.

You slept from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. last night. And at that, I had to wake you up! You woke up cheerful and refreshed, though, so you seem fine. I like all this new sleep. You sleep regularly now for the most part. As long as you get an evening nap (usually between 5 and 6 for 30-45 minutes), you sleep just fine through the night. Amen!

Okay, busy at work. I'm off. Hopefully you're playing at daycare right now, practicing your "mamama"s and "dadada"s. :)

+ Updates +
I don't actually have much to update, but feel like I should since it's almost been a week! Well, let's see...

Last weekend was a bit of a blur. We spent Friday night entertaining Uncles Chris and Mason. Saturday, we went shopping and ended up with 4 pairs of shoes for you - for $2.00! Now, I'm not a huge second-hand-store maven, I'm really not. But when I was putting your shoes on that morning, I noticed they are getting a tad snug. Well, I got 2 boring pairs, 1 pair of almost-brand-new Stride Rite tennies (white with pink flowers - hooray!), and 1 pair of size 8 almost-brand-new tap shoes. Okay, the tap shoes were silly, but I couldn't resist. I pictured a little 3-year-old you tapping your way down the driveway. They'll go in storage with the pretty green velvet size 5 dress your grandma bought you before you were born. Maybe you'll wear them both to your first day of Kindergarten. :)

Sunday we had a lovely morning. You, Daddy, Grandma and I took a stroll to watch the first ever Phoenix Rock & Roll Marathon. It was running by not even 3/4 of a mile from our house. We strolled down, sat at Starbucks to enjoy beverages, and strolled the long way back to watch the runners and cheer them on a little. We are fantasizing about doing this next year. Daddy says he'll jog with Uncle Chris and Unkie Thomas, and Grandma and I are thinking maybe we'll enter and walk it. Who knows? It would be fun to say I completed a marathon, even if it means walking.

Your six teeth are wonderful! You can chew now, and having teeth that actually meet has opened up a whole new variety of foods. I think you were going through a growth spurt last week and the week before, and this week you seem to be back to normal. Almost none of the extra food I'm sending to daycare actually gets eaten, and yesterday you even came home with a full unused bottle. But you were obviously happy enough, and after a bowl of yogurt, a jar of corn casserole and a thorough nursing, you slept from 7:45 p.m. to 5:45 a.m. Ahhhh, bliss.

Tonight we're going to a Mommy & Me class again. I'm looking forward to this one! We're going to meet Allison and her baby Trevor, who turns one today. That will be fun.

And Saturday, the fun really begins. VERY early (probably 4 a.m.), we'll wake up, load up the car and drive to Los Angeles to see Auntie Jen and Unkie Scott. Oh, yes, this will be sooooo much fun. Jen's having her baby shower on Saturday, and then we'll hang out and visit with them on Saturday. Sunday morning we'll do breakfast and visit a little, before hitting IKEA (looking for a stupid entertainment center you CAN'T get into) and heading home.

Your birthday is rapidly approaching, and that just blows my mind. It can't have been 11 months since you were born. Just not possible.

+ At last! +
Praise God, Jahweh, Allah, whomever is responsible for the arrival of tooth #6! Ceili and I are really most thankful!

Yep, it popped through at daycare yesterday. And apparently you've been SO entertaining at daycare, they've been taking pictures of you almost daily. They call you "Miss Hollywood" now, instead of "Movie Star" and tell me every.single.day that you will be in the movies. Cute, really, but I get it already! I bear witness to your dramatics daily, I promise.

You went with a variety of foodstuffs today. We'll see what works. In addition to your normal three big bottles of milk and formula and your normal 2 jars of baby food (1 fruit, 1 veggie), you went with an additional: 4.5 oz. of applesauce, 5 oz. of pear juice and a cup of gluten-free animal crackers. I told Maria she can give you the juice as-is or mix with rice cereal if you seem more hungry that thirsty. Whatever. We'll figure it out. I also gave them a detailed, individual listing of what you can and cannot have based on our celiac presumption. That was becoming necessary. Erin, the new manager who replaced Vicki, understood but Sylvia the asst. manager told Maria you could have anything. Um, no. So it's posted in detail in the baby room now.

BTW, have I mentioned you know two (ish) words? First word = "bye-bye" which was discovered during a bath one night about 2-3 weeks ago. It's more like "bah bah" but it's only when you're waving so it's pretty obvious. And more recently, you are saying "Dog" which is more like "Dah!" You said it pulling on Uncle Chris's doggie Mahlie, and a couple of days ago when you were playing with Princess you pounded your hands on the french doors and said it about 3 times. She was tormenting you, running in and out of the doggie door to taunt you. One of these days I'm sure you'll follow her right out that doggie door (and onto your head), but I'm praying you don't figure that out just yet. It's bad enough I caught you GNAWING on the doggie door last weekend. *sigh*

+ Enough +
This tooth is killing me! I am not sure if it's just the one remaining front one that's causing all of your suffering or if it's compounded by one of the more rear teeth coming in also, but something is driving you crazy. You were outright screaming last night, with one fist shoved in your mouth and the other trying to fit. I tried Baby Orajel, which did finally work, but not after much discomfort and unpleasantness. Poor thing. You were in good spirits again this morning as always, but I was saddened that the stupid tooth still hasn't popped through.

I'm getting lectures now at daycare about how you're always hungry. Again. Didn't we start going through this, oh, about nine months ago?! I had to explain to everyone again what you can and can't have, on the presumption (possibly erroneous) that you have Celiac Disease. They have the green light to give you fresh fruits and veggies, or even cheese, so we'll see how that goes. Apparently, you've been crawling over to anyone eating other solid food and staring at them. Disconcerting, that. I'm going to try sending you with some extra bite-sized fruit if possible, or something similar. I don't know. I might ask around about what others do, since this is all still new to us.

+ Baby Mozart +
I almost forgot - the piano! Your newest trick, about a week old now, is to crawl full-speed across the living room to the piano. You stop just shy of it, reach up to the piano bench and pull up to standing. Then you reach carefully, one hand at a time until you have both hands up and onto the piano keys. Then you play! Yes, you do. The first time you did this (on the upper keys), I thought it was cute, but a freak occurrence that would likely never happen again. Wrong. You do it a couple of times a day. You love it. You even pretend to be playing the piano on every flat surface in front of you now. Boy, I hope this piano love sticks around!

+ Christmas pictures +
Incidentally, photos are in the ofoto.com album. Not many, but still... If you don't have access or lost the password or whatever, just let me know. :)

+ Christmas and 2004 +
I don't know why I've never gotten around to updating on Christmas and the week before/after with its developments. No, nothing all that exciting, but still worth of chronicle I suppose.

Let's see. You're clapping now, and I don't believe I mentioned that. Around Christmastime, Daddy decided to teach you how to clap and that was it. One part-day of example, and now all you want to do is clap and wave and laugh. It's endlessly cute. We usually say "Yaaaaaaaaaaay" when you clap, too, so recently you've begun saying "Aaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaay" when you do it yourself.

Your favorite pasttime is biting, particularly the nose of whoever is holding you at the time. This occurs quite frequently because you are absolutely in the throes of attachment anxiety. I cannot be in the room or within earshot, or you are demanding to be held. By me. Only by me. There are times when this is not true, but it is usually the case and it gets very old, very fast. I always thought it would be handy to have a sling and now I am cursing myself for not buying one. Your future sibling will reside in a sling, I can promise you.

Sleeping is going much, much better. Most nights you sleep through or nearly through the night. A quick nip on The Boob and you're back to sleep for even longer. You're doing a lot of growing, I daresay. Your favorite food is currently Brown Cow vanilla yogurt. I could feed you two whole bowls and still have you demanding more! I don't, though. I usually give you one full baby bowl and then if you're still hungry you get some cereal mixed with juice. We're still working on introducing more finger foods, but the fault for the slow introduction there lies solely with me. It'll come, it'll come.

I'm shopping for your new carseat now. I think we'll get lucky and go straight from your infant seat to a front-facing carseat since you'll be 20 pounds right at around a year (the two requirements to go forward). Having said that, the more research I'm doing, I keep finding that it might be better to have you facing back a little longer, in a convertible carseat. Either way, your current carseat maxes out at 20 pounds so it's getting to be an urgent issue. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing you're currently in the 18-18.5 lb. range.

Christmas was wonderful. You got a wonderful assortment of clothes and toys and gifts. You are so blessed to be surrounded by such a wonderful extended family. You absolutely got the idea that there were new and interesting things being handed to you. Of course, the wrapping itself provided quite a lot of entertainment. But you were able to assist with the unwrapping and were rewarded with all sorts of fabulous gifts. I can't even begin to list them here, but rest assured if it's out there you probably have it now. We had to put a shelf in the living room to hold your medium-sized toys because we just had no place to put them all!

I believe you will be walking soon. You already have all the concepts, it's just a matter of believing you can do it without assistance. You cruise like crazy, and can balance without your hands holding on (but something else must be touching, like your elbows or your belly). You go from one thing/person to another with ease. You even want to climb things (already!). If you encounter resistance at your feet, you pick your feet up to climb the object in the way. Yikes! Thank God for baby gates. I think we'll have to lower your crib to its lowest setting too, soon. Where did my little baby go?

I was pondering that the other day, and I decided the real turning-point for a baby is being able to push up and stay up. Coupled with the ability to sit, that's just the beginning of the end of pure baby dependency. No baby is able to see the world from a new perspective and recognize the use of its own muscles without wanting to do more, see more NOW!

Anyway, long update but that's how it goes. We're in 2004 now, with new fun on the way every day. I am more in love with you than ever, and I can't wait to see what this year brings.