BRITTA: 18 Months Old

RICHLAND, WASH. --  Sweet Britta is taking on lots of personality and trying to hard to figure out how to move around these days. Though she doesn't walk, the girl can cruise confidently. Her physical therapist made her a set of parallel bars out of PVC pipes, and she can walk up and down them over and over again. She wants so badly to stand and walk. Her little feet are just too weak still to support her. But she's trying, and that's the important part. 

Since she doesn't walk, and doesn't have much hair (poor kid), she seems more like a baby then she really is, I think. She is old enough now to go to nursery at church, so Isaac has been taking her the past month. Even though she can't really defend herself in there and will get plowed by some of the bigger kids, we felt like it was important for her to go in on time since mentally she is just fine. It's important for her to socialize with kids her own age and try to figure it all out. But we aren't quite comfortable leaving her in there by herself yet.  

Eighteen Month Old Stats:

• 33 inches tall (82%)

• 18.9 HC (88%)

• 23 lbs. (53%)

Sleeping: Goes to bed at 7 and wakes up around 8 or so. Has a nap around 12:30 or 1 and sleeps for at least 2 hours generally, often three hours.
  
Wearing: 12-18 or 18-24 month clothes. Sometimes to match her big sisters, she wears a 2T, though it's pretty baggy. 
  
Interesting Tidbits: Her favorite person lately is Paige. When she wakes up in the mornings, Britta will immediately say, "Pay?" She wants to know where Paige is. And if Isaac leaves the room she will immediately inquire, "Dada?" She wants to know where everyone goes and what they're doing. She doesn't say Marin very often and it makes Marin sad. Marin is super motherly to her and always wants to carry her around and help her. 

Our favorite thing we like to do with Britta lately is let her ride her little bike. She has this cute little red ladybug bike that we bought for Marin (and Marin and Paige both hardly ever used) when she was Britta's age, that she can cruise around in like nobody's business. It's almost like it's her little wheelchair. She can maneuver the thing really well, but if she ever gets stuck she'll screech, "STUUUUUUH!" She wheels that thing all around the kitchen and all over the downstairs and loooooves it. She will often go so fast that she works up a sweat riding it. 

She tries to say almost everything, but it's generally just the first syllable or consonant of any word that comes out, though her vocabulary is expanding pretty good and she's getting slightly more understandable. 

Britta loves to laugh and be goofy with her sisters. But if she's tired or not in the mood, she likes to belt out a good screech and push away people who get too into her zone. 

She's also super territorial and if anyone besides her climbs into my lap, she gets jealous and tries to push them out. So this next month with a new little sister on the way should be an interesting one.    

The poor girl has had a chronic runny nose for nearly a year now. We've taken her to specialists and tried numerous things, but to no avail. Allergies and enlarged adenoids are suspect, but allergy meds don't seem to do a thing. So every time we go outside (which is her favorite place), her eyes immediately water and her nose grows increasingly runnier. Hopefully we'll be able to figure out the culprit one day. 

We sure love this little girl! 

Britta's ladybug bike. 

Her sisters love to play with her. And she loves the attention.

She doesn't love sitting in her highchair and instead likes to stand on a chair to eat with everyone.

We took her to her first baseball game in Seattle earlier this month. She did pretty good.

At a family reunion in Midway this week. She didn't love riding the carousel.

While everyone cruised down the Alpine Slide, Britta fell asleep in Grandpa Candrian's lap.

Loooooves the swings. Especially when other kids push her.

She loves being outside and climbing around everything at parks. 

I think she mostly enjoyed being loved on by cousins this week. 

One Year Old - Britta's Crawling!

RICHLAND-- Britta finally started crawling right on her first birthday! It was such an exciting moment! I was actually recording her on my phone, trying to get her to make animal noises for the camera, and instead she started crawling. I thought for sure my eyes were playing tricks on me. She did it again later that day while Isaac was watching and we were all pretty excited.

The week after her birthday, her physical therapist and another lady from the Birth to 3 program came to do a six month evaluation. They wanted to see if we had reached our goal we had set six months ago, when Britta first started the program and then to set new goals for the next six months. It was amazing to me to see how minimal our goals were-- we just wanted her to sit up and to be able to have some hand movement. Man, did little Britta blow those goals out of the water! It makes me feel kind of sad that our goals were so small. But we honestly weren't even sure if she ever would sit up or roll over or be able to pick up things. Those things seemed so lofty and out of reach. But our sweet little Britta has come so far and made so much progress. My eyes teared up as we talked about how far she'd come. It really is a miracle. Truly.

The sweet girl loves her newfound freedom. She crawls everywhere, though she's still pretty slow at it. Her favorite place to go is to the bottom of the stairs, where she'll get up on her knees (another tremendous feat) and just try her little heart out to push herself up to the top step. Sometimes she'll get tired and rest her cute little head on the step while she gears up to try again. She's a long way away from being able to climb stairs. 

It is hard to believe she's already one! We can't wait to see how far she comes in the next year. I think she's going to wow us all. At least I have faith that she will. 

Twelve Month Old Stats:

• 30.2 inches tall (85%)

• 18.6 HC (98%)

• 21.25 lbs. (75%)

Sleeping: Goes to bed at 7 and wakes up around 8 or so. Has a nap around 12:30 or 1 and sleeps for at least 2 hours generally.  

Wearing: 12-18 month clothes.  

Interesting Tidbits: 

Lights up the most around Paige (and usually Marin). If Paige is in the same room as she is, she'll constantly be trying to get her attention. Today she was trying to get both Marin and Paige's attention while they were watching a Christmas movie. And whether they'd look her way or not she'd wave at them and chatter. If they'd look at her, she'd start laughing. 

We're trying to get her to talk more (like, maybe saying MOM would be nice), but she's just going at her own pace. 

She likes to point to things and say "dat" or "dis" for this or that. 

She starts dancing as soon as she hears music or some kind of beat. 

She loves reading books lately. Sometimes she'll sit on the ground and flip through pages of books all by herself. She especially loves the touch and feel books and picture books that have a lot of objects on the same page (like her colors book). 

Britta - 11 Months Old

RICHLAND, WASH. -- My baby Britta is almost a year old! She just experienced her first Thanksgiving-- where she devoured sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes with gravy, and was smothered with love from all her Reeve family in Portland. 

At the beginning of the month we took her to Seattle Children's for a one-year old appointment of sorts. It was a follow-up with a specialist (Dr. Al-Mateen, a muscular neurologist) we saw back in March. He was impressed by how much she can do given the weakness of her muscles and how loose her ligaments are. He brought in another specialist to take a look at her. More tests were ordered and more blood drawn-- there probably won't ever be a diagnosis, at least not one with any sort of treatment, but for now we are hopeful as we watch her get stronger and do more things every month. She's quite a miraculous little thing.  

She is such a good little girl. She's getting a little stronger and is trying to stand on her knees now. Still no crawling. That's about the only update, if that's even an update. She's starting to say more words and it's been fun to hear her try to interact with us-- even though the latest interaction is an ear-piercing squawk when she wants something or is trying to get our attention. It reminds me of what a pterodactyl must sound like. 

Her big blue eyes make me melt. 

Eleven Month Old Stats:

• not measured this month

Sleeping: Goes to bed at 7 and has been waking up a little earlier than normal, usually around 6:30 and I let her cry for a bit and she'll usually fall back to sleep until 7:30 or so. Has a nap around 12:30 or 1 and sleeps for at least 2 hours generally. Today her nap lasted 3.5 hours!   

Wearing: 12-18 month clothes.  

Interesting tidbits: 
-Says: Dada, juice, cheese, shoes, dog (da), and ball. That's about it. 
-Can tell us what an owl, sheep, dog and cow say. 
-Can point to her ears, head, nose and tummy when we ask where they are and loves to wave hello and goodbye. 
-She likes to find things that look like a hat and stick them on her head. 
-Britta is such a good kid. Every Tuesday we spend two hours at the ballet studio for Paige and Marin's dance classes. She has never gotten fussy (or at least not too bad), gotten mad or cried during the two hours we are there. Maybe because I hold her the entire time, but it could be such a miserable experience for a baby-- but she's so good about it! 
-The poor girl has had a gross runny nose since about September. Initially the doctor said it was allergies and nothing could be done. After a month, she got put on antibiotics and it went away for about a week and then came back. Poor girl.   
-Lights up when Paige and Marin pay attention to her. 
-Bath time is still her favorite time of day. 

We recently got a piano, and Britta likes to delicately play. Her fingers have a hard time pushing down the keys, but she is good at playing with the palm of her hand. 

She curls her feet up when she stands, which means her feet may have to be braced eventually.

I love sleeping babies.

Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa Reeve's house in Portland. 

Being held by her cousin Connor (I think... he has a twin brother and I'm terrible at telling them apart)

Isaac making her laugh. 

BRITTA: 10 Months Old

RICHLAND, WASH. -- Sweet little Britta has made lots of strides this past month. The biggest thing is that she can stand up! Before you get too excited, she can't stand up on her own and she can't yet pull herself up. But if we stand her up against something, she can stand. And this is huge! She also likes to clap. All the time. It's like she just discovered her hands move at will and she's enjoying it. It's the daintiest little flappy clap. 

We were in California on vacation a few weeks ago and spent the day at Disneyland on her 10 month birthday. She was not feeling 100% (horribly runny nose, watery red eyes) and it was not exactly a fun day for her, but she was a trooper and hardly cried until she was so exhausted she finally passed out for a short nap in the stroller. She loved the beach though, but was a bit frustrated when I wouldn't let her eat the sand. 

Ten Month Old Stats:

• not measured this month

Sleeping: Goes to bed at 7 and usually wakes up around 8 a.m. or sometimes later. Rarely earlier. Has a nap around 12:30 or 1 and sleeps for 2 hours or so.  

Wearing: 12-18 month clothes.  

Interesting tidbits: 
-She now has four teeth. She has that one that popped up last month, and then the top two came down. This week the second bottom tooth arrived! 

-Her little personality is blossoming -- for some reason I feel like it took a while for this to start happening. We view her as such a baby baby, but when Marin was this age she was walking and talking. I'm not saying that to compare my kids, but I think because physically she does less, we sometimes forget that mentally she's so much more capable than what we've been challenging her with. So we've been trying to be better with that. 

-She laughs and giggles more freely (and it also can take a lot of work to get a legit smile sometimes), but she loves interacting with her sisters and watches them with wide eyes  and laughs whenever they come close to play with her. She gets shy when strangers approach us and will bury her head into my shoulder-- it's kinda cute. 

-She likes to wave hello and good bye and sometimes when I glance over at her she's waving at me. Last week we started saying, "Who's so big?" and then throw our arms up high in the air and say, "Britta's so big!" And she'll throw her arms up in the air too (or at least try... they don't always go higher than above her shoulders). It was an effort to try to get her to raise her arms straight up-- which she struggles with because her arm strength is pretty low. But she tries, and it is really darling. 

-She sees the physical therapist, Darlene, about every other week. Every time she comes she comments that she can see improvement in Britta. She's either gotten visibly stronger or has strengthened a new skill (like trunk rotating and balancing her core). It's encouraging to hear this-- especially after picking Britta up a few weeks ago, she indicated Britta was the lowest toned baby she currently works with-- an observation she made when she realized it was still like picking up a newborn when you try to pick up Britta under her arms. 

This is a really terrible photo of Paige. ha ha ha

In line at the Snow White ride at Disneyland

Poor thing didn't feel too hot that day and it was 90 degrees there!

Swinging is a newly discovered joy. 

Britta: NINE MONTHS OLD

RICHLAND, WASH. -- Lots of updates for little Britta lately. Yesterday her first tooth FINALLY popped through on the bottom! Finally. I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with her teeth! She also waived at me for the first time this past week. And she also started giving high fives! We are on a roll with this little ball of chub! 

I came into the kitchen one day last week, where Britta was sitting in her high chair, and I waved at her and she gave me a huge smile and waved back-- with those weak, floppy hands of hers. Her cute little hands just flopped back and forth in a clear effort to wave at me. I'd been trying to work on this with her for a while, always making her hand wave at other people to say hello or goodbye. So when she did it on her own, I cheered for her so loudly, I probably scared her. Every time she can do something new with those little hands of hers, I am amazed. And so, so happy.

Nine Month Old Stats:

• 21.13 lbs. (93rd percentile)
• 29" tall (92nd percentile)
• 18.27" HC (97th percentile)

Sleeping: Starting to phase down to just one nap. Giving her a morning nap was starting to get tricky trying to go anywhere or get anything done, otherwise I'm sure she'd still love to go to sleep much sooner. She sleeps from about Noon to two or so and goes to bed at seven. 

Wearing: 9-12 month clothes. Sometimes 18 months. 

Interesting tidbits: Of note, her head circumference is now below the 99% mark! This is the first time this has happened in her life. ha!

Her physical therapist sees improvement every week, which makes me so happy, and thinks she'll be "commando crawling" really soon by the way she's been positioning herself when she tries to reach for things. Though she's still about as flexible (aka floppy) as they come, she is gaining more muscle control. 

Britta loooooves her sisters so much and lights up when they come near her to play or give her hugs or kisses. She babbles to them all the time and giggles whenever they're around. Sometimes, when I am feeding her in her rocking chair, she'll arch back to look at the door, I'm pretty sure she's hoping to catch a glimpse of them or hope that they'll come into her room. 

Wearing a smocked dress that Grandma Candrian made

Wearing their princess pajamas. 

Matchy matchy. 

Meeting a few of her cousins in Portland. Michael insisted on holding her.

Labor Day weekend boat ride. 

BRITTA: Eight Months Old

RICHLAND, WASH. -- Our little girl is getting stronger every day. We adore her. We spent the beginning of the month in Texas for a family reunion and she loved playing in the water and being smothered with hugs and kisses by everyone. 

I think this might have been her first swing ride. She was just "eh" about it.
and not quite sturdy enough for me to push her with any force. 

EIGHT Month Old Stats:

• none this month

Sleeping: Starting to phase down to just one nice, long nap. I put her down for the nap around Noon and she goes to bed at seven.  

Wearing: 9-12 month clothes. Sometimes 18 months. 

Interesting tidbits: She's getting stronger and can push herself back up now when she falls over sitting up. 

She constantly amazes me with how good natured she is. We sat for two hours the other day at Paige and Marin's ballet lessons. She didn't even cry once. 

The ladies at the gym (in the kids zone (aka babysitting area)) are constantly doting over her and noticing how much stronger she's getting too. I love going to pick her up after a work out, and they tell me how much they love her. It's nice to know she's in good hands for an hour or so. 

She loves her sisters so much and lights up and laughs when she sees them. They can make her laugh like no one else. 

She loves splashing in the water. 

Still no teeth. It's a mystery.