3 Months

Here are her sisters: Three Month Portraits

Two Year Old Jane

Janie Junie, Jane Jane, Jane Jane Choo Choo Train, Janers….

This girl is something else!  She's affectionate, mischievous, strong-willed, curious, opinionated, cuddly, and gets into all sorts of trouble.  On a daily basis, she'll stealthily move from room to room doing things she knows she shouldn't be doing… getting granola from the pantry then opening it and spilling it all over the computer keyboard and desk, coloring on library books, taking off her diaper, filling her mouth with gulps of milk then spitting it out down the front of her shirt over and over again, scattering credit cards from wallets that she digs out of purses and drawers, eating old food left on the kitchen counter overnight, cutting clothes with scissors…

All in a day's work!  Jane sure does keep us all on our toes.  And we love her!

She is completely attached to her little elephant security blanket. She calls it "my ellie".  She loves her daddy and her Mom Mom and hates any loud noise.  Play time with Avery takes up a large part of her day, and the two of them walk around with baby dolls playing pretend, all the while Avery calls Jane "Honey" and suggests what they should do next.  Jane usually plays right along!

She still speaks lots of gibberish and is extremely expressive.  We almost always know exactly what she wants even when she only grunts and hums.

 But the English words are starting to flow, now, too.  Her most-used phrases are

"I don't know"
"My ellie?"
"No" (haha)

I love the way she says her sister's names:

Grace is "Dee", Leah is "YaYa", Avery is "Wee Wee", Evelyn/Evie is "Me Me".

Jane loves to wake up at 6:15 every morning, call for her Daddy, and request an oatmeal or yogurt (yaya) breakfast.  It's just the two of them down in the kitchen.  She sleeps with her Ellie, Bear Bear, Cupcake the dolly, a knit blanket, and Avery's baby quilt; all of which must come out of the crib with her when you come in to get her out.  And yes, we are avoiding the transition to a bed for the time being (see mischief-making paragraph above).

Most of all, I think we all love her little shy/sly grin.  If I ever catch it on camera I'll be one happy mama!

Three Months Old

Three months have flown by.  Suddenly, she's not a "newborn" anymore and we're seeing glimpses of older baby behavior.  Evie is grabbing toys, rotating herself 360 degrees when we lay her on her play mat, smiling, cooing, and laughing at faces, sticking out her tongue when she sees us do it, and having longer 1.5-2 hour wake periods between all those naps.

Her signature look is wide-eyed and mouth wide open!  She's so cute we all want to eat her up.

Evelyn is still eating every 3 hours or so, and can sleep through the night with a little encouragement from Mommy and Daddy.  I'm giving her two 5-oz formula bottles every day, one in the evening and one at 10pm, to keep her growth chart moving in the right direction.  I decided not to schedule the weight checks but I am curious to see the results of this feeding schedule at her 4-month check up in December.

OINK

Last week some friends stopped by with two baby guinea hogs.  They're babysitting these orphaned piglets for a local farm, and Avery, Grace, Jane and I thought the baby animals were  awfully cute (although stinky).  Leah was not impressed and stayed indoors.

The piggies will grow up to be super-ugly hogs but for now we can appreciate their adorable little snouts and tiny hooves:

It's Funny

It's funny-- Evelyn's been around for 11 months (including her time in utero) and we still can't get used to the idea of Jane being a BIG sister!  Maybe now that she's talking more-- and thus seems a little "older"--it'll start to sink in.

Some Jane words we hear these days:

Yeh-Yee (Ellie, her elephant blankie)
Ooh a Yeh-Yee (Where is Ellie?)
one, two
berry
Mo'?  (more?)
Dada, Mama, MomMom, and some form of Grace, Leah, Avery, Jane
yeah
yes
no
outside
mine
poo-poo, pee-pee
yuck
I want eat

the list could go on… but my favorite thing is that she still says whole conversations that sound like "uh uh uh uh-uh-eh eh eh uh uh uh uh UH"  So cute.  And somehow we all know exactly what she's trying to communicate.

One Month (Plus Some)

These aren't the most glamorous photos of Evelyn, taken on Sept. 1 when she was a month old, but this was the best I could do!  All the Deterding kids get pretty severe infant acne around 2 weeks old, and it's just now starting to clear up a little.  As you can see, she also has adorable bed-head issues and is great at sticking out her tongue!

At one month, Evelyn is very alert and is always trying to hold her head up to look around.  Her favorite place to be is in someone's arms while swaddled and being bounced.  I had mastitis when she was four weeks old, so our feeding times and schedules were messed with while we tried to recover.  For now, she's waking twice during the night (the second time usually around 4:30 or 5 am) and takes a loooong time to nurse!  Last night she ate at 10:30 pm while her Mommy and Daddy listened to the Orioles clinch the AL East Title, then slept all the way until 4:30am-- there was great rejoicing!  During the day she's eating every 2.5 - 3 hours.

At her checkup she was 8 lbs. 10.5 oz. (25-50th percentile) and 21.25 inches long (50th percentile).  Her weight gain is steady but not as fast as the "experts" say it should be, so I'm back to praying for adequate weight gain for the third child in a row.  It's a tad frustrating for me, when all seems to be going well until I lay my babies on the doctor's scale.  Petite Deterding genes aside, I wouldn't mind seeing some rolls appear without the help of formula!

I'm happy that I'm writing so many details down here on the blog (bear with me) because I just recently noticed that I barely kept track of Jane's first 2 years of life and I need to do better for this child!!  

Teeth are Fallin' Out All Over