Bridget's 9-month check-up

Yesterday, Bridget went with Mommy to have her 9-month check-up at the doctor. She got to see Dr. Lagrand this time around. She weighted 20 lbs 6.6 ounces, and was 28-1/2 inches long. Her head size came back into the normal range. Both her height and weight continued along the 75 percentile. Fortunately for all of this, there were no shots during this visit. So, Bridget was a happy girl throughout. Mommy did ask about a rash that Bridget had on her shoulders; the doctor said it may be due to dryer sheets, of all things.

Bridget Loves Water Too!

Just like big sister Jillian, Bridget looks like she going to love playing in water.  When I put her out on the deck, finally after it turned nice, she went to this little table and it still had water puddles on it.  She had a fine time splashing until all the water was gone.

Swim Lessons #2

I tried to post this picture earlier but no luck but I really liked this one as it shows her getting to the Rainier pool and how excited she is to be there.  She was ready to smile her biggest smile.  Today at lessons she was moving faster in the water by putting some of her face in the water and kicking out behind her.

Standing Up + First Steps

Here's a photo of Bridget standing up by herself. She can do it for about 10 seconds or so, before deciding she's tired of it and dropping to the floor so she can crawl around. We've been standing her up more lately, and giving her lots of cheers if she stays up. She likes the cheering, because she'll stay up longer to hear more of it.

Funny thing is, just after standing Bridget up, we asked her to come to us ... and she took a little step, and stayed on her feet! She did this a couple times, before getting tired of it and seeing that crawling would work faster. So, it looks like Bridget is primed and ready to start cruising around on her feet. Her big motivation is to keep up with her big sister.

Swim Lessons

Jillian loves her swimming lessons.  She is always eager to go and she gets worn out from all the water time.  She is very comfortable in the water and now will spend a lot of time on her back.  She still doesn't want to get water in her eyes but that happens a lot with all the time in the water so hopefully she'll get past that.  One thing she hasn't warmed up to is the boy instructors.  She has made some improvement there too. 

Summer Dresses

Jillian and Bridget went for a walk this morning with Mommy, Auntie Greta and Cousin Adam. They both got all dressed up in their cool and colorful summer dresses. The plan was to go the "new park" today. Earlier, Jillian was telling Daddy all about some boys that were teasing her and Adam, and that they ran away from them.

New Stuff XLIV

Since it's been awhile, some of this might seem more like old stuff. But here goes:

1. Scary Talk : Jillian doesn't like it when Daddy uses his "scary" voice when reading a story to her. She says "Daddy, don't say that, it scares my little sister."

2. Monsters and Ghosts : For whatever reason, Jillian has started telling us about monsters and ghosts, and that they scare her. Usually, the monsters and ghosts are somewhere in her room, but we haven't seen any yet.

3. Putsy the Puppy : The puppy talk has reached all-new highs recently, with Jillian saying that she is going to name her puppy "Putsy". She's still asking us to think about it.

4. Clever Talk : Recently, Jillian was asking Mommy a question, and when Mommy responded, Jillian said "That's so clever."

5. The Meaning of the Razzy : It's apparent when Bridget is done eating solid foods, or if she doesn't like what she's eating. She does a full-out razzy, sometimes with food in her mouth, which makes an incredible mess. It looks like we need to work on baby-signing for "all done".

6. Stairs Curiosity : Grannie's house is one of the places that Bridget plays at that has stairs. Bridget has checked them out many times, and even gone ahead and tried to go down (with someone waiting for her), but this ended up as a head-first dive down the stairs.

7. Jillian's Shadow : With Bridget's speed at crawling, she does a pretty decent job at keeping up with Jillian wherever she goes. And Bridget loves to follow her big sister around. Rarely does Jillian get to play alone, since Bridget is right on her heels and wanting to play with her.

8. Briarcliff Pool : We changed directions a little bit, and decided to take Jillian to swim lessons in Rainier at the Briarcliff Pool. We had heard it was a great place for kids to learn to swim, and so far, it looks pretty good. It's a very busy place, and the instructors keep the kids going all the time, so Jillian has gotten a little more comfortable with the water. She still likes swimming, so that's a positive.

9. Letting Go : No pictures of this yet, since it's hard to tell when it might happen, but Bridget is starting to let go while standing up. Her balance is becoming a little more stable, with not so many of the wobblies. But, she won't perform on demand; if we hold her up and let go, she immediately drops to the floor into her crawling position.

Birthday Party

Jillian got to go to Rielee's second party that was also Macee's 16th birthday party.  It was the adult party so Jillian and Rielee got to play together a lot.  They got all dressed up in princess dresses.

Scrunchy Face



 This is Bridget's cute scrunchy face when she is excited.  She is standing behind her walker.

Bridget looks so cute in her sun dress outside in the sunshine.  She still had her runny nose so was a little clingy, unless you're outside and she loves it there.  She never cries or complains when you have her outside in her walker or car or just sitting.  Yesterday she wore herself out going as fast as she could in her walker all over the driveway.  Today I put her on the front deck and that was a novelty so she played there a long time as she could see everything from there.

Tattoos?

I had these butterfly tattoos so when I asked Jillian if she wanted one, of course she said yes.  She picked out the ones she wanted plus where they should go. Plus she wanted a picture!  This does not mean an endorsement of tattoos.

This morning they got to go visit the twins.  (See picture on Dianne's blog.)  They played with Jillian until she tried to tell them what to do and they wouldn't always follow her directions so some games didn't last very long.  She had fun there with them though since the twins shared their toys very well. The twins didn't know what to think of Bridget and spend a lot of time staring at her.  Bridget was shy for awhile but then she couldn't resist playing with the toys she hadn't seen before.

Lots of Basketball

This picture was during the half-time of Ty's basketball game at the high school.  Cale was doing the clock and Tierney the shot clock.  Then they got to watch Cale play his game and then it was off to Kelso to watch Tierney play.  Jillian liked going to Tierney's game since Rielee was there.  Bridget did sleep through one game.  They really did great for that many games.  Jillian kept occupied with Auna and her bag of  small toys that she got at a garage sale.  She thought going to garage sales was pretty great when she found several things that she wanted.

It was cute driving over to the first game, a trip of about 10 minutes.  Bridget decided she didn't want to go in her car seat and proceeded to start screaming.  When I gave her her pacifier, she threw it angrily on the floor so I thought we would just have to endure the screaming 10 minute drive.  Jillian started singing to Bridget and she was immediately quiet.  Jillian sang all the way to the high school.  She is so nice to her little sister. 

Busy Girls

In case you can't tell, Jillian is making a volcano with chalk.  She worked hard on it for quite awhile.  Meanwhile, Bridget is wanting to get down there to help, but she would just eat the chalk.

Games and Food



This is Papa and Jillian playing her new game of Candyland.  It was interesting teaching her how to move on the spaces, draw cards, and take turns.  She did understand the goal of getting to the Castle to win the game.  In this game she kept saying she was beating Papa.  Sometimes her attention span only gets her to halfway in the game.

I was trying to get a picture of how messy Bridget was getting eating but this didn't do her justice.  She had carrots and between the "razzies" and playing in the resulting drops, plus eating her biscuit, she had food all over her face, hands and arms, and tray.  But as you can see from the happy smile, she enjoyed every minute of making the mess.







Creative Girl

Jillian was so excited to have lunch outside today that she actually smiled for the camera.  I usually always ask if I can take her picture and sometimes she will say yes if she is pleased with whatever we are doing.
Her imagination was in high gear today.  Early this morning she was just wandering around outside and she asked me if I knew why she was scratching her head.  Then she said, "I was scratching my head thinking about what I wanted to do."  Several times during each day she rings the back doorbell and we pretend she is a little girl visiting "Grannie".  Today, one time when she rang the doorbell, I answered it and said, "Come in little girl."  She answered in a gruff voice with one hand on her hip, "I am not a little girl.  I am a pirate and my ship is over there."

Fearless Bridget

Big stuff!  Since we couldn't find our gate, Papa quickly made a gate on a hinge to keep Bridget from the stairs.  She is getting fearless about going anywhere and climbing on things and she gets very excited to find something new.  If she is a little crabby, like she was this morning, she will crawl to find you and want up.