Stuck in Christmas Land

I finally caught up with scanning in pictures from Christmas, so things are a month behind. To start, here's Tori the reindeer.



She was being pushed around in the wagon by her older brother, who then insisted on climbing in himself.



They may like each other yet, even without enough room for each other.

Ta Da

Tori's first tooth has finally broken through the gum barrier! It is sharp! She seems to be in a better mood now too. Not in as much pain, but it is still painful to her.



It has allowed her to play like she used to and work on other things like getting ready to crawl. She can get into a crawling position and rock, but hasn't moved any where yet. She tries moving her back leg forward, but ends up rolling over because she loses her balance. She can get where she wants to go by rolling around. Last night she traversed the entire family room just playing with her toys. It won't be long and the baby gates will be back up.

We also had to take her to the doctor on Friday as she had drainage out of her left ear. It isn't and ear infection, but the doctor put her on antibiotics as a precautionary measure. Once her tooth came through and she had a does of medicine her mood improved greatly, so she must have some infection even if the doctor can't find it. She's pretty much back to her normal self other than occasional doses of her antibiotics and motrin/tylenol for her pain. She hates medicine as much as her brother, but she's a little easier to get the medicine down, if only she wouldn't spit it right back at us!

Rough Time

Teething, cold, stuffiness from both, fever and burps made a rough night for Tori. She couldn't breath while laying flat on her back and would wake when I tried to put her in bed. At 1:30, I handed her over to her Mama and she was out within an hour and in her own bed. By 4:00 she was up again, but I didn't hear her because I was snoring right through it. We were all up by 5 am though for the day. Ollie woke up on his own and was his crabby self. Tori wasn't feeling well and their parents were just tired. So we are all having a great day!

Tori took a nap early this morning, but was awake for our trip to Hardee's. She wasn't stuffy then, so she was pretty calm and looked around. She had a bit of medicine for her fever in the morning, so it should be well taken care of until this afternoon. I hope she gets enough sleep and feels better soon. I'm sure it would help if her tooth would actually come through the gum instead of just teasing it. Her teething seems to be harder on her than it was on Ollie. Only another year and she might be done with teething. Now if she could just get rid of all her other ailments, she could happily work on learning to crawl and terrorizing her brother.

Dumbo

Teeth are Tori's main complaint right now. She had a rough night 2 nights ago and had a bad day as a result. She then took it out on the sitter. Last night, she slept from 6:30 to 11 and then slept the rest of the night. Guess she made up for her missed sleep the previous night. She was happy as a clam this morning, though she wasn't so happy once she got to the sitters. I'm sure her general mood will improve once that sucker breaks through, until then, its going to be painful for her.

More Embarrassment

Things on the head seems to be a popular subject. Especially for embarrassing photos. Once her hair starts coming in more fully she'll look more like a girl and we won't have to resort to such drastic tactics.

Shell Shock

The theme continues of 'How To Embarrass Your Kids With Pictures".



She's wearing Ollie's tool hat and seems a bit shocked to be wearing it. I'll think I'll show this one to her first boyfriend.

Cool Baby

Tori is still at the age where she can't complain when we do things like this to her.

She is extremely happy no matter what is happening to her. The only time she isn't so happy is when she is being taken out of her bouncer before she is done, when she has a dirty diaper and when she is tired. Other than that, she is an extremely happy child and laughs quite a lot, at least until she sees what we've done to her with pictures like this!

Jumper

The jumper we bought Ollie when he was born wasn't in much use until Tori came along. She will spend at least an hour in the jumper. If we take her out of the jumper before she is finished, she will cry and we have to put her back in. She has even come close to falling asleep in the jumper. This has to be her favorite device for play. She will almost consistently bounce for the entire time she is in it and laughs and smiles the entire time.

Since the swing and bouncy seat were put away she needed something else to play in and this jumper became her favorite right away. As much as she jumps, she'll want a trampoline for a birthday present. She has to learn to crawl and walk first, so it may be a little while yet.

Bob

Tori has been having a rough time of it lately. She's teething so she doesn't sleep as well as she could be. Last night was no exception. She got up at 1 for bottle, back in bed by 2, up again at 3 and finally back in bed by 4. This isn't the only strange sleep habit that has come over her lately.

The other night while I was holding her in the chair, she leaned up against the side of it and played with a balloon with one hand. Every so often, she'd start to rub her head back and forth on the fabric on the chair. She kept playing with the balloon and eventually stopped, but continued to rub her head. Eventually she fell asleep in my arms and was out cold. Her little head bob comes out when she is tired. I don't think Ollie ever fell asleep just from us holding him, so this was a new experience entirely. Her head bob makes it real easy to tell when she is tired, now if only her incoming teeth would let her sleep.

Moving and Sleeping

Tori has been teasing us with sleeping through the night for awhile. A couple of nights, she was going to sleep at 7 pm. Then not so much, but she slept through the night a couple of times. That was a shock to our system. One thing she has been great at is being inconsistent in her sleeping.

She is trying to become more mobile that ever. She has been able to get her feet underneath her at least once. In the meantime, she has taken to rolling her way backwards. She'll also roll around the room just to get around. She hasn't figured out how to move forward yet, but rolling back and forth makes her go backwards. Not exactly forward progress, but progress in mobility.

All Dressed Up

We had her all dressed up in a skirt, tights and nice little sweater this morning. Right before we leave, she spits up her breakfast bottle all over the outfit and we have to change her. Guess she didn't really want to dress up like a girl today. Instead she is wearing pants and shirt with pink in both. Guess that makes her still a girly girl in spite of her efforts to not look the part.

Roller Girl

She's been rolling all round the floor. Last night, she almost rolled out of her room into the hallway. She nears crawling more every day. Not long now.

Holidays

Tori's first holiday trip went well. She was very good at the actual travel, but like the rest of us she got tired of being in her seat.

Christmas night was filled with eating paper while her mama opened her presents for her. She would get mini-naps in between each mini-event. She seemed to enjoy her time no matter where we were. She kept to her usual sleeping routine of getting up just once a night and actually slept through the night on Christmas Eve. Of course, she didn't go to bed until 11 pm that night either.

She was shown off to her Grandma Vickie's co-workers. No one got to see much of her face because she kept her hands in her mouth for most of the time we were at Target.

The only downside for her is that she picked up a cold. It wasn't until the end of our trip, so that was the only good thing about the cold. She seems to be nearing the end of it this week, but still has a cough and mucus drainage. Other than that, she has new clothes and new toys. She mostly seems concerned with becoming mobile, however. She rolled around the living room last night and occasionally tries to get her legs underneath her butt, but she doesn't have the strength yet. Not too long and she'll be on the go. The gates will have to come out again and we'll have to dig cat food and other substances she finds on the floor out of her mouth. Its going to be a lot of fun.