The Sixteenth Month

"Head, shoulders, knees and toes (knees and toes)"

That's right - Kaitlin can now find her head, toes, nose, ears, belly button and teeth. Well, most times she can. Sometimes she gets a little confused and keeps pointing to her nose when you ask her where other things are. She can also find your nose (and her bears nose, and monkeys nose, and dolls nose, and...) and she LOVES to find Mommy's belly button. Usually when we are out in public. That's cool.

(I swear I didn't know that she was wearing the same outfit in her fifteen month update. She does have more than one onesie, I promise.)

Kaitlin is turning into a very loving child and showers every stuffed animal, book and kid in sight with a million kisses and hugs. Where she used to give slobbery, open mouth kisses she now makes a kissing noise with her mouth and puckers her little lips up. She is in love with all of her stuffed animals and dolls and loves to have them all around her (either on the couch or in her crib or all over the floor). She'll go to each one, touch them on the head and give them a kiss before moving on to the next one. And dogs. Ohhh this girls love for dogs knows no boundaries. On the opposite end of the spectrum she has also turned into a shrieking, crying, screaming mess if she has to do something she doesn't want to or if you try and stop her from doing something she wants to do. Very Jekyll and Hyde over here.

Kaitlin started school this month and it has been a bit of a roller coaster. I wrote about her first day here and luckily things have drastically improved since then. The first few weeks were awful but by the fourth week she wasn't crying when I dropped her off, and was only a little upset once I came to pick her up. This past week was our best yet - she even got EXCITED as we were walking into school and I was telling her about all the fun things she was going to do (buggy ride, playing with balls - story time!!) and she didn't cry one tear when I picked her up. Success!! Hopefully it continues ;)

We are still on the teething road from hell (I say that but compared to other kids it probably isn't that bad). She has one new molar and I can see two more canines just below the gums. I am ready for teething to be over!

And can we talk about toddler eating habits please? I mean....what is the deal?! Loving a food one day, hating it the next. Acting like you are trying to give them rat poison when really it's some lovely strawberries. Kaitlin has even begun rejecting POUCHES which means she is getting barely any fruits and vegetables in her diet at all. I never thought that I would practically have to BEG my child to eat a pouch. But that is what it has come to folks. And most times she gives it a weary eye and then walks away. As of right now the only things she will eat are: quesadillas (with just cheese, or shredded yellow squash/zucchini if she can't tell it's in there), ravioli, pasta with tomato sauce, eggs (sometimes), oatmeal (sometimes), pancakes (sometimes), freeze dried strawberries (?!?!), dried apples, cheese and milk. I think that about covers it. She has not eaten a single, WHOLE piece of fruit since the beginning of August when we were up in NY. I think the most aggravating part of it is that JUST when you think you have a "safe" food that they will consistently eat they turn around and act like you are the worst person in the world to even think about offering it to them to eat. And you wonder why I drink ;)

Kaitlin has added a couple new "words" to her repertoire, which is an exciting development. She can now say - dada, yes, ah-ah (monkey noise), ar-ra-ra (dog noise), vrrmm (car noise), uh-oh, ow (for "wow"). All very exciting. She is also getting better at imitating words that you ask her to say. For instance I said to her, "Can you say 'UP'?" and she looked at me for a minute and said, "Uh". She is practically a genius ;)

We have quite the book worm on our hands too. She loves, LOVES her books. We read them morning, noon and night. She reads them on the floor, on the couch, on the chair. She would read them in the bathtub if we let her. She has about 20 favrotie books at the moment and we ready them all 49583459 times a day. We probably spend a solid 50% of our day reading books. Although it's gotten to the point where she has one or two favorite pages in each book. Often times she doesn't even want me to read the story, she just flips to the page that she likes and gives it a kiss or makes a happy face. If I try to read it she waves her arm and says, "SSHHHHH". Her teachers said that she loves to read books when she's in school too. I better get this kid to the library!

She is a running, walking, climbing (she has to climb into EVERY box she sees) ball full of energy. She's happy, emotional and energetic crazy head full of love, kisses and hugs. She can really drive me crazy but then manages to erase all of that craziness with one sweet look, one kiss out of the blue or one big, goofy smile.

How To Travel With a One Year Old

We took our first vacation with "Kaitlin the Toddler" last week and boy did I learn some lessons. Some were good lessons and some were bad. I'm here to share a few with you in hope that you can (as always) learn from my mistakes. The last time we flew with Kaitlin was back in December, when she was barely seven months old and not even crawling. I won't say the flights were impeccable, but they sure were easier since she couldn't move independently. Now that we have a squirmy, walking (running), knows-what-she-wants toddler, flying is a whole new ball game.

1. Pack a few, well thought-out, key toys - I knew that we were going to have to bring some toys with us but I didn't want to have to check another bag with just toys in it. Luckily, the items that Kaitlin is most interested in at the moment are fairly small. I grabbed a few wood blocks (for her to stack and throw), a couple of water/bath toys and a couple of animals from her Little People Noah's Ark. I put them in a plastic toy case (that she happens to LOVE to play with, for some strange reason) and hid them from her a few days before the trip. The same goes with books. I chose a couple of key favorites that wouldn't get me in trouble with the luggage scale and hid them in my suitcase a few days before the trip. That way when I pulled each item out during our trip she was super excited to see and play with them.

*These Indestructibles books are PERFECT for traveling as they are super thin and weigh virtually nothing!*

2. Buy a couple of new toys - New, or at least new-to-your-baby, toys can be super exciting (ie attention grabbing) for little ones this age. I bought two new toys and introduced one on the flight to Jackson Hole, and saved the other one for the flight home. The first toy was a "grab-and-go" set from Michaels which included crayons, a coloring book and stickers. Turns out Kaitlin is too young for the coloring part (she just wanted to put the crayons in her mouth) but she had a grand old time with the stickers (which, also, ended up in her mouth). She was even mildly amused by watching me color. The second new toy I bought was this Melissa and Doug Reusable Sticker set. I had heard through the grape vine that reusable stickers (vinyl stickers) were highly entertaining to toddlers and boy were they ever! This kept Kaitlin busy and entertained for over an hour, which in toddler-time is virtually a lifetime. Amazing!! My only complaint is that it's quite large. I wish they made one that was half as big. Luckily my husband and I were sitting together, otherwise our neighbor would have had vinyl farm animals all over her seat. I'm on the hunt for a smaller version of this - if you know of one please let me know! And by the way - please don't feel like you have to spend a bunch of money buying new crap for your kid. If your friends with kids the same age have some different toys than what you have, and are willing to trade or let you borrow for the length of your vacation, this is just as good! Even better really since you won't have to spend any dough.

3. Utilize the in-flight entertainment - And remember, what may not be interesting to you might be SUPER EXCITING to your toddler. We let Kaitlin play with the safety manual, SkyMall and airline magazines during all four of our flights (I know...I still need another drink just thinking about it) and they kept her very entertained. And shockingly enough, the most entertaining toy was an empty beverage cup and three napkins that I crumpled into balls. She played with it for nearly a half hour taking the napkins out and putting them back in. Again - a half an hour in toddle-time is pretty much a whole year, so - SCORE! And of course, if your flight has personal TVs stick a pair of headphones on your baby and let them watch a cartoon! Who knows if they will keep the headphones on, but they are likely to watch the cartoon. We didn't have individual TVs on our flights (ahem, UNITED, ahem) but I am definitely going to do this when I fly jetBlue next month. We don't normally let Kaitlin watch tv, but on a special occasion (wait, special for who??) a few minutes of TV won't hurt your kid and just might save your sanity.

4. Take advantage of the kindness of strangers - I was pleasantly surprised at how nice people were about Kaitlin's behavior during our trip. I am not one to be overly apologetic to strangers about my kid - she is, for the most part, well behaved but yes she does throw tantrums, especially when she hasn't slept in 8 hours. She is 14 months old, what do you expect? But I do feel bad when she is shrieking in someone else's ear. I nearly kissed a guy sitting in the row behind us when he started playing peek-a-boo with Kaitlin during one of our descents. She had been getting particularly fussy and then all of a sudden she started laughing and smiling. When I thanked him he said, "Don't worry about it! I have kids of my own, I know how it is." And much to my surprise we heard this over and over again throughout our trip. Another family let Kaitlin blatantly watch their Duck Tales movie over their shoulders (and subsequently drool and laugh in their ears). They didn't say one word to us, though it should be noted that their youngest (maybe 3 years old?) was throwing an EPIC tantrum during much of the flight.  Maybe we got lucky. It seemed like all of our seat-mates and surrounding passengers have or had kids/grandkids and were so gracious about interacting with Kaitlin (or at least not complaining about her). And I should be giving Kaitlin some credit too - even though we had a couple of meltdowns she was a great traveler and was super smiley to everyone she met.

5. Bring supplies, lots and lots of supplies - this also holds true for traveling with an infant, but make sure you are OVER prepared with diapers, wipes and food. I packed 10 diapers for Kaitlin in my carry-on and thought that it was excessive. She ended up using 8 of those diapers by the time we made it to our hotel. Suddenly 10 didn't seem so crazy. I brought 2 packs of wipes, medicine, a change of clothes (for her) and a TON of food and snacks. I'm not saying that you should pack everything but the kitchen sink (ok, I kind of am) but definitely over-pack on certain items that you know you won't be able to buy inside the terminal (diapers, wipes, certain snacks/food, etc). You might not end up needing them, but it's pretty much a guarantee that if you don't over-pack them then you'll definitely wish you had. Some snacks and food that got us through the trip include peanut butter sandwiches, bananas and endless amounts of cheerios!

6. Fly during nap awake whenever you can - I have heard many times that it is best to fly during your child's nap time. That way they will be tired and are more likely to fall asleep during your flight. I have also heard that you should fly during their awake time so that they aren't cranky and overtired. Here's the thing - your kid either sleeps during a flight or they don't. Just like your kid either sleeps in the car or they don't. In the end, it doesn't really matter when you fly (or drive) because they will either sleep (if that's the kind of baby that they are) or not (if that's the kind of baby that they are). My child will.not.sleep unless she is in her crib. Trust me, four flights and endless hours in a car during a week long vacation and I can tell you she slept exactly 30 minutes (in the car) during ALL forms of transportation. The girl just won't sleep unless she is in a crib or pack-n-play. And unless you are flying on a private jet (and if you are - Hi! Do you want to be friends?) you likely have to be at the airport 2+ hours before your flight anyway, which combined with actual flight time pretty much guarantees that you will be traveling - at some point - during an inconvenient time. My advice - get the best flight for your needs and then just grin and bear it. Travel days will probably suck. Have a strong cocktail waiting for you at the end of your journey and then focus on the FUN you're going to have on your vacation!

Do you have any tips or tricks on how to travel with your one year old or toddler? I would LOVE to hear them! Leave a comment below so we can all share and *hopefully* find some success!

Many of you might have noticed that I left off using an iPhone or iPad to keep your toddler entertained, which is pretty much the easiest no brainer solution to traveling with a toddler. I only mention tactics that worked for us and we don't let Kaitlin use either of these at the moment. The only thing I will let her do on my iPhone is look at photos (she LOVES to look at pictures of herself). We almost bit the bullet for the trip home and were going to buy some toddler apps and cartoons for the iPad, but Kaitlin proved she couldn't be trusted just yet. I was letting her go through pictures on my phone and when it was time to put it away she threw an EPIC tantrum. We knew there was no way we would be able to let her play with the iPad without her going nuts when we tried to take it away. We decided it was better to suffer without the iPad than to create a monster. And I'm not saying that your kid is a monster if you use an iPad or tablet with them. Many kids do just fine playing a game or two and then calling it quits. You are the lucky ones as that is not my child ;) 

What We're Lovin' - Month Ten and Eleven

Here is a quick round up of a few things we (mostly Kaitlin) is loving. Hope you find some inspiration for your little one and that they love them too!

Mini Orchestra Shaker

Quite a few months ago a good friend of mine brought these out to play during one of our play dates. Almost immediately Kaitlin went ga-ga for them. She already loves rattles of any kind and to make as much noise as possible, so these were a perfect fit. There are four different sounds, one for each shaker, and are all (reasonably) easy to listen to. Some of the toys she has that make noise make my ears want to bleed, but these are totally fine to listen to as she furiously shakes them as fast as she can. Over and over and over again. I keep one in my diaper bag, one in the car and two around the house for her shaking pleasure.

Water Table

A couple months ago we were at a friends house and they had a super fun water table that Kaitlin fell in love with. She had so much fun playing with it and splashing around (and chewing on all the toys that came with it) I knew she would have to have her own. I'm not one to rush out and buy Kaitlin a million toys (well, I try not to be) but I knew she would love having one and that it would last her for a couple of years as she grows into it. The next day I went to Toys R US and picked this guy up for $45. And that $45 was well spent. She is obsessed. I'm not even kidding. From her high chair she can see out the back door onto the porch right where the water table is kept. During breakfast she starts pointing and yelling at the door, motioning that she wants to play with the water table. I usually have to turn her chair around so that she can't see it, but immediately after I take her out she goes over to the door and starts banging on it trying to get out so she can play. Luckily it's getting warmer out in the mornings so I can let her play with it pretty early if she wants. And pretty much all she does now is chew/throw all the little toys that came with it and splashes her hands in the water. She has just learned to reach towards the funnel and will drop in the little toys if we lift her up (she's not quite tall enough to reach on her own). There are a bunch of other ways to play with the water table and it is sure to keep her entertained for many summers to come.

Monkey Lovey

When I started working and began leaving Kaitlin with a babysitter for the first time (I know, I know) she was so upset that I wanted to see if she would take to a special lovey or stuffed animal to make her feel comfortable and secure while I was away. She always had an odd connection to this little monkey lovey that my best friend bought for her, so I thought I would give that a try first. I was always afraid to give Kaitlin a lovey or security blanket in her crib because I thought it would make her stay even more awake since she had something to distract her and to play with. Turns out, if she doesn't want to sleep then she won't, no matter if there is a distraction there or not. I have actually found that since introducing the lovey she has been taking slightly better naps (though that could be a random coincidence, I've come to believe that nothing about naps makes sense or is necessarily for a reason). It didn't take her long to become attached to the little guy and now she takes it EVERYWHERE with her. I'm sure I've just created a bit of a monster (and need to immediately buy at least one more should something, ahem, happen to the monkey) I think it is great that she has become attached to it. She walks around with it everywhere, tries to crawl with it - which is quite a site to see when she is tripping all over it - and definitely has to have it with her at nap and bed time. Monkey has even been in the wash a few times and is still super soft just like he was when brand new.

Monkey scream from tracy lynn on Vimeo.

Playtex Lil' Gripper Straw Cup

Now that we are approaching Kaitlin's first birthday it was time for me to introduce other ways of drinking liquids other than a bottle. At first I gave her a sippy cup which she took to pretty quick, even though it took her two months to figure out how to drink from it. Then I remembered that our pediatrician said she didn't want her to use bottles or sippy cups after age one. The bottle is going to be a tough one to break but I figured we could easily swap out the sippy cup for a straw cup. Poor thing was a bit confused after months of being told to "lift the cup UP to get water!" to then be told "leave the cup DOWN or you won't get any water!" She still tips it upward quite a bit but she is getting more and more used to it. The reason I love these cups is because they are easy to drink out of but are a bit spill proof (ie the water doesn't come pouring out of the straw when it's knocked over), they are cheap (I definitely get these for much less at my local Kroger) and you can slide the cap piece over the straw to keep it water tight when you're on the go (making it a perfect cup to put in your diaper bag or stroller).

A reader recently asked me about Kaitlin's favorite books. I thought it might be fun to share a few of her favorites, and a few of mine. She doesn't really sit still long enough to read a long (or normal size) book, but there are a few that she will make an exception for.

1. As mentioned before, she is obsessed with the Indestructibles books. Baby Faces and Baby Babble are by far her favorites.

2. Peekaboo Farm by Emily Bolam is Kaitlin's current favorite book, hand picked by her. She loves to find the farm animals behind the flaps and she especially loves finding the "baby" (a reflective mirror) on the last page.

3. But Not the Hippopotamus by Sandra Boyton - Kaitlin will sit through about half of this book so far, but I think its quite cute and it rhymes which makes it easy to read to her even if she isn't sitting with me. We have a couple of books by this author and I personally love them, time will tell if Kaitlin likes them as much as I do!

4. Each Peach Pear Plum - Kaitlin doesn't sit still for this one but I think it's brilliant. It incorporates tons of children's stories characters, so I think it will be great in another year or two when we can then read more stories about the characters in the book.

5. On the Night You Were Born by Nancy Tillman - I love the story in this book. Kaitlin doesn't sit still for it but I still always try and read it to her. I think it's such a sweet book and has a cute message. It makes me a little teary :)

6. My First London Bus by Marion Billet - Kaitlin loves to turn the wheels on this book and she helps point out the birds and other objects in the story. It's not too long so she generally stays put for the whole story.

7. Bright Baby First Words Books - we actually have two of these books (this one and this one) and she loves them both. They are big and colorful and she likes to turn the board pages, over and over again. She is starting to point to certain objects that she recognizes and some that she just likes. I keep one in her bedroom and one downstairs and we play with both of them several times a day.

DIY Sensory Table

What did we do before Pinterest? No, seriously. I can tell you what I did. I had several half attempts at an organized "Bookmarks" tab on my internet explorer that I didn't regularly keep up or organize. It was pretty much useless. But now that I have Pinterest to help organize and inspire me I can forget about the old days. I use Pinterest for a lot of things but lately I have been scouring it for fun activities to do with babies and toddles. Now that Kaitlin is crawling, cruising and way more interactive than she was when she was a newborn, I have been trying to come up with new games and activities for us to play. Three hours is a long stretch of time to fill with activities for someone who has an attention span average of five minutes.

While gathering some inspiration around Pinterest I stumbled upon a new-to-me-blog called Fun at Home with Kids. I originally came across this post on their playroom and quickly noticed the sensory boards they have on the walls. I immediately checked out her post on the sensory boards and I was smitten. I knew Kaitlin would love something like that; something she can play with, use to problem solve and help develop her fine motor skills. The only problem was we don't have a place on our walls to mount them. A friend of mine also made the boards but couldn't mount them either and had trouble getting the board to stay upright - after all the purpose of the board is for your baby/toddler to play and pull on the objects. I talked to Brian about it and he had a genius idea - why not turn the board into a table? Such a smart guy!

Over the weekend we gathered all the materials for the sensory table. Since we were only going to make one table it was going to be smaller than both sensory boards that were our inspiration. I wouldn't be able to use all of the items that I originally wanted to but I knew we could still make it work.

We decided to get the Kritter table from Ikea in white. Ikea had a few cheaper options but we liked that the Kritter was mostly wood and would be able to withstand having things drilled into it. Really any small wood children's table will do, but remember that you are going to be drilling, hammering and glueing objects onto it so you might not want to spend a lot of money.

The next step was to go to Home Depot and gather our supplies. I was able to use a lot more than I thought we would be able to and modified them if needed in order to be on a table:

- Small LED push light

- 3 different size chains that hang over the sides of the table

- 2 wheels, one that rotates and one that doesn't

- 3 carpet samples of varying textures (furry, soft and rough)

- 2 wood door knob pulls

- a chain lock

- stone tile backsplash sample

- three spring links clipped together

After the table was assembled I went to Michaels to get a few more items, which we need to add to the table this weekend:

- small wood letters for Kaitlin's initials

- a small mirror

- pom-pom ribbon 

It took Brian about an hour to assemble the table and to attach everything. What couldn't be screwed in was mounted with Gorilla Glue. We might have to move a couple of things around to make room for the new additions but it shouldn't be too much work (says the girl who doesn't have to do it ;) )

And the verdict from Kaitlin? She loves it! So far her favorite things are the light, the chains and the carpet samples. She would play with that light all day if she could. She can't turn it on by herself yet so we have to do it for her, but her little face lights up as bright as the light does when we turn it on for her. I often "hide" the light under my hand and have her "find" it by lifting my fingers up. The chains have also been great, since she can grab on and bangs them against the side of the table. If you decide to make you own sensory board or table please make sure that the chains aren't long enough to be a strangling problem - safety first, people!

The wheels are decently entertaining, though to rotating one is much more popular than the fixed one. The pom-pom ribbon, for now, is wrapped around one of the legs. Every once in a while Kaitlin touches it but for the most part ignores it. I'm thinking about tying (and then glueing) some ribbon around the wood knobs to make them a little more interesting and to add another texture to the table.

The best thing about the table is that I know it will keep her entertained for a long time as there are so many things on the board that she still has to figure out how to use (lock, turning the light on, spring links, etc). I also love the fact that you can make a sensory table out of almost anything! Once you start gathering objects to put on it I guarantee you'll start thinking of a million different things that you have to have on it. The key is to have enough on there to make it interesting and challenging, but not so many things that it's overwhelming.

Any negatives, you might ask? Well, the table is a bit on the high side. We are considering cutting a couple inches off of the legs so Kaitlin can reach everything better, but honestly thats just us being a little nit-picky (and before we know it she'll be tall enough to reach everything). In the end this little project wasn't exactly cheap. All in all it cost about $75, even though everything was $1-$3 each it starts to add up. The good news is that you might be able to find some interesting/fun things to add to your board/table in your garage or in your craft supplies. We don't have a lot of extra stuff like that laying around so we had to buy it all new. But if you have it you might as well use it - as long as it's safe the sky is the limit!