First St Patrick's Day @ 11 months!!

Walking to the party!

We had a wonderful "unofficial" St Patrick's Day with Zooey on Saturday. She was all recovered from yet another ear infection so we spent the whole day out on the town!

We started at a St Patrick's Day brunch at Adam's coworker's house. It was an interesting and fun crew- Adam's colleagues (mostly all younger than us) and Adam's boss's college age sons and their friends (DEFINITELY younger than us).  Zooey was by far the youngest party-goer but she was quite the hit! She took the noise and the constant line up of smiling strangers grabbing her feet, hands and cheeks in stride and even smiled a few times. She went to town on melon and was fascinated by the candles. She really was a trooper. Adam and I decided that we really need to keep taking her to adult parties so she is used to behaving in that environment.

Next up was a quick car nap for Zooey before we moved on to the more child friendly part of the day- open play at Bubbles! Just like last time, Zooey was right at home, moving around and interacting with other kids with no fear. It's really fun to compare her to other kids. Our general sense is that she is a bit more physical and chatty than other kids. While she's not walking (there was an 11 month old there who was!) she constantly rolls/scoots/crawls around fearlessly over obstacles. She uses her feet like hands. She doesn't mind falling or hitting her head. Her teachers at school say she is very independent and talks all day- to herself, to other kids, to the teachers. Chatty, physical, portable, and fearless. That describes Z at 11 months!

Practicing walking.

Bubbles on her head at Bubbles Academy:)

SO MUCH FUN!!

After playgroup, we went to dinner. Z did really well considering this was the last stop in a long day! She ate some chips, some rice, some tortilla. She handled the really loud restaurant well especially considering she was wiped out!

First time in a restaurant high chair!

Zooey is standing quite well, using minimal one handed support. I suspect she will be walking in a month or so. She LOVES to put food in her mouth though spits a lot of it out after gumming it around. What else? I wish I could report that she is sleeping well or through the night, but she's not. In fact, we had a sleep consultant coming to help with this problem this week! (More on that later...)

My next Zooey post may very well be her 1st birthday. Can you believe it? Our 4 lb 10 oz mini will be turning 1!

Enjoy Z talking:

Free time?!?!

Tonight I find myself in a very unusual situation. A situation I haven't encountered in 11 months. It is 7pm and I have nothing I have to be doing!! Sure, there are things I could do- paperwork, reading journals, picking up, journaling, working on Zooey's scrapbook, looking for houses, etc but none of it needs to be done tonight. I already worked out- a great 5 mile pyramid run. I already did the essential dishes, I already put the laundry away. I saw 10 patients in clinic, I attended conference, I looked for the needed paperwork for my licensure and mortgage application. I fed Zooey, played with Zooey and got her to bed.

What to do???

Write a totally non-essential blog post while watching 'The Good Wife'. That's what I'm doing. Productive non-productivity. Awesome!

Let me tell you, stopping nursing has been a life changer in a really good way! The ability to occasionally sleep through the night (when Adam takes Z), and an extra 2-3 hours of available time during the day- it is fabulous!!

So here is my themeless blog, just some cute Zooey photos and antics that I thought would be fun to share:

Z's first bison! At the Peggy Nodebaert Nature Museum.

Z always has smiles for Grandpa!

And she loves baths with Grandma!

Zo has mad ball dropping skills.

Just cute

Even cuter

It is increasingly hard to take any still photos of this girl. Here we are trying to take the 9 month photo of Z next to her developmental milestones book but she is exhibiting that she is right on track with her mobility milestones by trying desperately to roll or scoot away to play!

Add caption

 Z was able to be part of her great-grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary celebration. My Grandma's wedding dress and honeymoon dress are behind them. It was great to hear their memories of getting ready for the wedding, the day of and the honeymoon.

Happy Anniversary Grandpa and Grandma!

See my "toofers"? (teeth)

Zooey always uses her feet to manipulate objects. She's a little monkey. Our little, favorite, adorable monkey:)

That's all for now. Gosh, and I still have 1/2 hour until bed!!! Best day EVER!! ;)

Bubbles Academy

Yesterday, Adam, Zooey and I went on a play adventure to Bubbles Academy. Bubbles is a place in Lincoln Park that offers baby and kid music, movement and swim lessons as well as open play groups. We went to the open playgroup that is offered every Saturday (as well as M-F) from 1-5pm. The play is for babies and toddlers and takes place in a big, fun, colorful carpeted room called the Meadow Room. There are all kinds of toys, tunnels and foam blocks to climb on and through, sit atop toys, sleds, grocery carts to push, tents to play in, scarves and clothes to try on and, of course, bubbles!

Meadow Room

As soon as we got there we placed Zooey on the floor and she was off to the races. She showed not an ounce of apprehension or shyness as she scooted around the room from toy to toy. She immediately got involved with some bubbles and spent the first 1/2 hour with a bubble on her head. This is the view we had of her most of the day as she scooted in front of us in her attempt to get to the next great thing:

Constant movement= blurry pics. But see the bubble on her head??

Sometimes the authorities forced toys on her that she wasn't necessarily interested in. But she resourcefully found an escape route!

Watching the big(ger) kids

Zooey really enjoyed watching some of the bigger kids. We spent a good 5 minutes watching an 18 month old having her snack and not listening (or not understanding?) her mom's request for her to "sit over here". Hopefully Zooey wasn't learning lessons in not listening to your mom! All of the parents we ran into were super conscientious about enforcing sharing and making sure the bigger kids didn't get too close to Zooey. So I felt kinda bad when Zooey would scoot right up to bigger "walkers" and try to take their toys. I guess she's learned from being in a daycare room with a bunch of older, bigger boys that you have to take what you want from them! I think she's too young to understand "sharing" but I'll admit, other kids were disproportionately "sharing" with her and she didn't give much back in return!

"I know what to do with this!!"

Her favorites were the tunnels (no surprise there, she loves tunnels), the play ketchup bottle, the foam balls and the sled. She zoomed around the room on the sled two separate times, holding on for dear life. She didn't even seem to notice when other kids hopped on for a ride as well.

More, Daddy, More!

Doesn't she look like a frog?

Totally non-plussed when this guy joined the ride!

We weren't able to capture a whole lot of smiles- when Zooey is in the zone trying new things or exploring she is stingy with the smiles, but she certainly was entertained. She probably could have gone another 1/2 hour but her parents were ready for a change of scenery!

Play time well spent!