Grub Pen, we bid you farewell...

It is with heavy hearts that we announce that the infamous Grub Pen has been dismantled. Our little girl needs more room to explore, so we have have spent the last week troubleshooting, brainstorming, and gate installing all over this house so that she can have access to roam more freely. I won't try to pretend that I didn't shed a few tears as JK was breaking down the Grub Pen to utilize the pieces to cordon off his computer equipment. But, they were short lived, as I had to suck it up and move on to get the Grubster into the bath.

Wait, you might ask, didn't she just have a bath yesterday? Why, yes, yes she did. However, tonight, she decided it was hilarious to gag herself with her toys and hands, laughing hysterically, until she projectile vomited bile all over both of us in the car. Disgusting. But that's totally off topic.

Anyway, back to the household babyproofing situation. We still have some clean-up work to do and things to install, but we're getting there. I joke about being sad that she is growing up, but in fact, it is truly the most convoluted and confusing feeling that I have ever felt. One one hand, it is exciting and liberating that she can walk around like a little person now. Her focus is shifting upward, and she's not spending every single second trying to pick every single particle off of the floor and put it in her mouth, the way she was when she was crawling. She's not wearing out the knees of her pajamas after a couple of wears, and that is great, too! But, on the other hand, it is challenging and scary that she can get around the house and she is fast! Literally, I blink, and she is gone from my immediate line of sight. Frightening!

I talk to a lot of moms online whose babies were born in Monica's birth month, and it's about 50/50 as to whether or not their 9-10 month olds are mobile yet. The ones whose babies are not are hearing horror stories - people say, "oh, wait till your little one is walking, then you're really in trouble!" In my opinion, I'm liking this stage more than crawling. Is it easier for her to get away from me now? Absolutely. Is it difficult to deal with things like changing diapers and clothing? Hell yeah! But it's also a lot of fun. I'm finding that all ages and stages have their pros and cons....and as a parent, it's my job to get through the tough stuff and focus on having fun and enjoying the great parts.

For example, it's been ungodly hot the past week, so we've been a little cooped up in the house. So today, I dressed Monica, threw her in the car, and went to Kohl's to get us out of the house. My objective was to return and exchange an outfit for her. But, when we got into store, I realized that the shopping carts were gross, I didn't have our stroller, and I had left the return item in the car. I had this heavy, sweaty kid stuck to me, and she was wiggling like crazy to get down. So, what did we do? We walked to the back of the store to housewares and Monica spent a half an hour running around the empty department and "playing drums" by beating on the bed-in-a-bags that were within her reach. She had fun and burned off some energy, and I had fun watching her. It was a win-win.

So, I guess that's my lesson to myself right now. Try to enjoy each stage as she's growing up. People aren't kidding when they tell you that it goes by so fast. It really does.

Who Walks at Eight Months? This Kid!

As promised, we have worked to capture Monica's amazing feat of walking at only eight months old.  Here are a couple clips so you can see her in action!

As you can tell in the last video, she was starting to get sleepy, haha!  But don't worry, she got her second wind when we went downstairs and she was jumping all over the couch to try to get to the cat. 

You mean you have to use your hands? That's like a baby's toy!

Do you know what movie that is from? If not, click here for the answer.

Monica has started to regularly quote this scene while hanging out in her pen.  Her sweet little baby toys that once captivated her attention - her bees, her monkey, her lion - barely hold her interest anymore. She wants her flashy light-up singing talking remote control and her fancy music table. It's either that or the real TV - ugh!

While letting her rot her brain watching TV is the easiest way to amuse her, JK and I do make a real effort to engage her with her toys and books We resort to the TV as a crutch when we want to have a meal without the Grub Dog begging for us to throw scraps to her in her pen.

So, to shake things up in the toy department, we splurged and bought Monica a few new toys this month.


First lego set!

JK giving building instructions

Monica listening intently

All parts of this toy are great!

  

Yay, a huge tower to knock down! 

What's this??  A caterpillar tunnel?  Awesome!

Look at meee!!!

Umm, Daddy, you're too big for this toy!

Climbing through the door

I'm gonna get you, mama!

Monica's Eight Month Update

Happy Eight Month Birthday, Monica!  I know we're late since the actual day was April 29th, but hey, sometimes life gets in the way of baby blogging. Our little lovebug has had SO MANY developments between her seven and eight month birthdays.  We can barely keep up with all the changes going on around here! First, let's cover the topic of her rapid growth.  While we won't have any official stats until after her 9 month checkup, I do have proof that she is growing!  The picture to the left is from her seven month update, and the picture to the right was taken a couple of days ago - so there are no more than six weeks, at the most, between these two pictures.  Look how much she has grown!

I thank God regularly for my mother's compulsive shopping habits, as Monica is already fitting into her nine month pajama sleepers.   

Milestone Updates & Daily Grub Life Day to day, we're having fun enjoying the lovely spring weather.  Monica's favorite activities include going out back to watch JK throw the frisbees for the dog, and taking long walks around the neighborhood in her stroller. 

The Mobile Grub: As seen in the post Mowing - Beyond the Grub Pen, Monica has been working on her assisted walking skills for a while now. However, this video no longer does her justice, as just last week she took her very first steps on her own!!! I've never heard of a baby walking - or trying to walk - at seven months, and I'm certainly not quite ready for her to be walking just yet. But, as we've all learned, we're operating on Monica's timetable here. Anything can happen at any time. For now, she's always got her dog brother to help her get around, until she fully masters her walking skills.

Mush, mush!

  The Teething (and therefore barely sleeping) Grub: Not to be overshadowed by the major milestone of first steps, Monica is also sporting her first two teeth! The first one came through just days before her 8 month birthday, and the second one followed a few days after. We have had a couple rough days with teething, and sleeping has been a challenge, but we're getting through it together. Oh, and in case you are wondering - yes, in this picture, she is completely asleep in a little ball in the corner of her crib.   Precious!

Lobster, anyone?

The Hungry Grub: Monica is moving away from eating purees and venturing into the world of finger foods. I'm hard pressed to feed her an entire meal of purees without major grumbling. But when I dice some fruits or veggies and let her feed herself, she doesn't make a peep. She'll be eating frozen pizzas with JK and I before we know it! Allowing Monica to feed herself finger foods has greatly improved her coordination and dexterity, and she has just about perfected her pincer grasp - the ability to grasp and manipulate objects her with thumb and forefinger. While exciting, this also means we have to increase vigilance around our home and when visiting others - the ability to grasp small objects also means that she can more easily get them in her mouth, which can be dangerous.  

The Talkative Grub: As if all of these physical developments weren't exciting enough, Monica started "talking" to us this month. She's been saying "dada" and "mama" nonstop. While sometimes she is just babbling, she is definitely starting to use her words to make the actual association with each of us, as she will call us by name when we leave the room, or if one of us is gone from the house for an extended period of time. She is also working on her "b" sound as "bababa" is her newest babble.

Hello, Mama

It's been very easy to get wrapped up in all the fun with Monica, but I promise to give her blog updates more attention and keep everyone posted more regularly.  We're trying to get a decent video of her walking to share with our followers :)  For now, it's almost dinner time, so I'd better go scrounge up some grub for the Grub.  Peace out!

The Grub Charmer

The Legend of Zelda for the original Nintendo gaming system is the best video game ever.  This is not an opinion, but a statement of fact.

Ok, now that we've gotten that out of the way, I can explain exactly what this has to do with the Grub.

Early on, when the Grub only wanted mommy 24/7 (and, let's be honest - this was mostly just for feeding purposes), JK realized he needed to get creative in his approach to interacting with Monica.  So he downloaded an Ocarina player app to his phone and taught himself to play the theme song from The Legend of Zelda.  

JK started playing this song for her when she was just a little squirmy grub who couldn't really get around on her own.

Now, to our surprise and delight, upon hearing the first few notes of the tune, our little grub  comes scampering over to perch on Daddy's knee and listen to the song.  

 

An ocarina is an ancient flute-like wind instrument.  Additional information about the ocarina can be found here. 

In the Nintendo 64 game, The Lengend of Zelda:  Ocarina of Time, an Ocarina was given to Link for questing purposes.  Throughout the game, the player learns twelve melodies that allow Link to solve puzzles and teleport to various locations.

While our Ocarina doesn't result in cool things like teleportation abilities, it certainly seems to entertain this little grub.  She says, "Daddy, if you work on your ocarina skills, I'll work on learning to play a string instrument, and we can start a band!" 

At this point in time, she could probably start her own string band, as she has been working on systematically removing the string ties from every pair of pajama pants that I own (as seen to your left).  But, hey, I'll consider it a small price to pay when our little musical genius makes it big and is able to support JK and I in our old age.  Play on, Grubster!

Mowing - Beyond the Grub Pen

Monica's grub pen in the living room has been a great space for her to safely  play and work on new tricks.  34 square feet of fun is plenty of room for exploring, crawling, climbing....

But not mowing.  No, 34 square feet is not enough room for mowing.  

One of Monica's favorite Christmas presents is an activity walker - aka her grub pen mower.  She has been using this toy for a couple of months to practice climbing and standing, and it has wheels to encourage baby's first steps.  When she walks behind it, we say she is mowing her grub pen - practice for helping daddy out in the yard!  But now that she's really picked up the pace, she can only take about four steps before she hits the opposite end of her grub pen.  In order to give her some more room to practice walking, we brought the grub mower up to her bedroom last night so she could test out its full range.  She was so excited!  Click on the video below to watch her in action: 

At this rate, she's going to be scampering around the house in no time!

Monica's Seven Month Update

Happy Seven Month Birthday, Monica!!!

Monica continues to amaze us with her intelligence, strength, and coordination. I keep asking her to slow down and stop growing up so fast, but she is off and running - almost literally. I think she is convinced that she is an adult stuck in a baby's body. Or, we could go with Aunt Kim's theory that she is not a baby at all - she's a midget masquerading as a baby.

Either way, the past couple of weeks she has decided she wants to take everything to the next level.

Food:

JK and I can't eat a meal or a snack without Monica staring at us and begging to eat off of our plates. She's worse than the dog! And during her own meals, she's been SUPER aggressive - demanding I spoon feed her more quickly, and getting frustrated when I pause to feed myself a bite of food.

However, the grunting and groaning magically stops as soon as we offer her some finger foods for her to eat off of her own tray. All we need to do is give her some puffs or small pieces of fruit and she will quietly feed herself. I'm pretty sure she's trying to tell us that she's ready to start moving on from  purees, so I've started reading up on the transition to finger foods. I'm excited because it will be a LOT more convenient once she can eat what we are eating!

Interacting with the world: Monica's unique personality is developing more and more every day!

As we are gearing up for summer, the first order of business was to get Monica a sun hat. She made an awful face at the first hat that I tried on her, but when I switched to this one, she was all smiles. If she could talk I'm pretty sure she would have said, "Come on, Mama, the white one goes with everything; the pattern and colors of the first hat really limited our ability to coordinate with my wardrobe." I'm so proud that she is sensible and practical about fashion!

But, don't let her silliness fool you, this little girl also has a very serious side.

I can't remember if they were discussing Ron Paul's standing in the polls, or if they were debating gas versus diesel engines for our next car. Either way, JK is prepping her in the fine art of the debate.

Stroller rides: I try to take Monica for a walk on most days when there is nice weather. But lately, we will get halfway around the block and she starts to fidget and whine and try to jump out of the stroller entirely.  We are still using the infant car seat attached to the stroller base, but she has seemed annoyed that she can't see our surroundings. Or, maybe she is just annoyed by being forced to stare at me for the duration of the walk. 

Planning on a longer walk up to the mailbox last week, JK and I decided to try her out in the actual stroller. She looks so tiny and so silly, but she loved it! No grunting, no whining. She was absolutely delighted at the sights and sounds of our neighborhood.

I'm still going to use the car seat when we're running errands since it is convenient, but she seems to greatly prefer to be able to see where we are going and take in her surroundings - even though she can barely see over the top of the tray.

Finally, we can't leave out all the standing!  The pictures tell the story better than I can:

 

We just love our little snuggle bug!