Happy 2009!

Sorry we missed the month of November on the blog updates. It’s been a busy end of the year. The big event in November was our trek up to Fenwick for the traditional Edwards (extended) family Thanksgiving. It was sort of small this year. Don’t think there were more than 70 relatives. Caitlyn slid through the legs of the crowd with ease, unlike Mom and Dad as we tried desperately to chase after her! Luckily Caitlyn was healthy for Thanksgiving, which was kind of amazing seeing as she only managed about 5 days total in November without some kind of cold. We were all a lot healthier in December, although Caitlyn had a rough time in the middle when she got 5 new teeth in the span of 10 days. She’s been a much happier baby in the first week of 2009 now that she’s getting a bit of a teething breather.

Caitlyn was a lot more involved in her second Christmas than the first. Somehow she learned the phrase “Christmas Tree” and all December all you had to do was say the words and she’d run right to it. Speaking of words, while she only says a handful ("Mama", "Dada", "Up", "Dis", "Dat"), it’s clear that she understands a whole lot of what we say. She’ll bring us toys by name. She points to the bird feeder when you say “Where are the birds?” She’ll touch her ears, teeth, head and hair on command. And of course, you can’t say “Jack’s Big Music Show” without her immediately running over to the drawer where we keep the remote, pulling it out, and pointing it at the T.V.

She’s also getting much more openly affectionate. All of her stuffed animals get frequent hugs, and occasionally Mom and Dad do too! She likes to sit in our laps now, although she has a very unorthodox approach: A while back, we taught her to sit in her toddler chair by turning around and backing up into the seat. She’s really good at it now, but she’s discovered she really really likes backing up. When she comes to sit in our laps, she’ll start backing up from about 6 feet away! She also likes to dance with us. She follows along with the lyrics of this one song, stomping her feet, spinning around, and bouncing up and down on cue.

She's also getting very adept at running...running away from putting on her jacket and diaper changes that is.

It’s really amazing how fast she’s learning new things now. Sometimes we look at her and for a moment she looks more like a little girl than a baby. It’s hard to imagine everything she’ll have learned before we welcome in 2010! But we’ll be sure to keep you posted.

From Jaety, Geraldine and Caitlyn, Happy New Year!

December '08 pics

Happy Birthday Caitlyn!

Caitlyn had a wonderful first birthday party with the Edwards/Khoo families. To much of our surprise, she held up extremely well even as the party surpassed her usual nap time. It must have been all the excitement (or the sugar!) that kept her going. She was a very gracious host, walking from room to room to say hi to everyone and then stealing some food morsel off of a plate. Of course, the birthday cake was a huge hit with Caitlyn and she definitely scored big time on the presents. Thanks to everyone for coming and sharing this special day with us.

Click on the albums below and check out the pics from the party as well as a few others from this Fall (including Caitlyn’s Halloween costume. Her mother is partial to panda bears.)

Caitlyn's First Birthday

Fall pics and Halloween '08

11 months and counting...

Caitlyn has started a couple of ‘classes’ this Fall. On Monday, Jaety takes her to the YMCA for swimming. We’re not quite sure what her feelings are on swimming – she seems anxious to get in the water but once in, she puts on a very stoic face. She’s definitely not a big fan of lying on her back in the pool– with every attempt, Caitlyn’s legs are straight up in the air in the pike position as if she didn’t want to get them wet. But she has yet to cry or really fuss much when she’s in the water.

Caitlyn is demonstrating a real love for music and bops to the beat of the alphabet song nearly every time. (Uncle Peter would be very proud of the video below.) We play her music class CD in the car every time (God help us) and she seems to be recognizing the tunes. Her particular favorite is “Itsy Bitsy Spider” – she even tries to make the coordinating hand motions though at this point, all she does is raise her hands in the air.




The cuteness quotient has bumped up the past couple of months as Caitlyn is really into ‘hugging’ her stuffed animals and people. (See videos below.)







While she’s not running any sprints yet, I think we can say that Caitlyn has legitimately started to walk. She has grouped a few steps together – at first, this seemed to be happening once every 3-4 days but now, it’s happening 3-4 times a day. Just the other day, she walked from our oven to the fridge like a pro. Unfortunately, it’s been tough to catch on film since she seems to be more interested in the camera than anything else. We’ll try again next month.

September pics

Standing Tall

Unfortunately, we slacked off on the pictures this month but hopefully, we’ve made up for it with this cute little video of Caitlyn using her walker. She loves it and zooms around the kitchen and family rooms. We wish she was a bit better at steering though – once Caitlyn hits a barrier (which is about every 10 seconds or so), she’ll look to us with those big brown eyes to fix it and send her on her way.




Caitlyn has also started to stand on her own and (gasp!) even taken a step or two.

She did give us a bit of scare late last month when her temperature spiked to 102.5 seemingly in a matter of minutes. Caitlyn never likes to sit still and it was probably one of the few times when all she wanted was for us to hold and hug her. We definitely got our hugs in. Thirty-six hours later, she was fine.

Poor Caitlyn -- On our way to the pediatrician

September should be a busy month. Caitlyn starts swimming classes on Mondays and a music class on Wednesdays. With playgroup on Thursdays, she'll be a busy baby. We'll bring our camera.

Beach Blanket Baby

The big news this month was our week-long trip to Cape Cod, Caitlyn's first big vacation. We rented a house in Truro, MA with Caitlyn's Godfather Geordie, his wife Julie and their daughter Sophie who's just 10 days older than Caitlyn. As you can see from the following clip, the two little girls enjoyed running each other ragged!



One of the perks of Truro is that there's a calm bay on one side, big ocean waves on the other and even a string of pretty fresh-water ponds. While the girls weren't quite ready for the big waves, they both really enjoyed the bay and especially the pond. Jaety even dunked Caitlyn, who took it surprisingly well with a little spluttering but no crying.

Caitlyn learned a few tricks from Sophie such as asking for "brie" and cruising. And of course, Caitlyn's daredevil contribution was learning to climb stairs which Sophie soon followed. Neither set of parents were so sure about that achievement.

The four parents even had a chance to head out on our own -- we found a babysitter for two nights and had two amazing dinners. All in all, it was a wonderful trip and we're already searching for our next destination.

In other news, Caitlyn's growing leaps and bounds. At her 9 month checkup, she was off the charts tall at 30 inches, but weighed in at a modest 18 pounds, 1 ounce, just under the 50th percentile. She's a long, lean crawling machine! We've been furiously babyproofing, trying to keep one step ahead of her. That may get even more difficult soon, since her pediatrician bets she'll be walking within the month.

Cape Cod - July '08 Click for more pictures

"Will you be my friend?"

Joka's been keeping us company this week, and she is Caitlyn's new best friend. Caitlyn squeals whenever she sees her and follows her everywhere. Joka's been a really good sport.

Thrilled and Terrified

On her 8 month birthday, Caitlyn greeted her parents by pulling herself up to a standing position. Her Mom and Dad were in the kitchen preparing Caitlyn’s breakfast when they saw two eyes peering over the ottoman. Oh, how cute…Caitlyn’s on her knees. But then she just kept rising, nonchalantly pulling herself up to a standing position! Ever since, Caitlyn has been pulling herself up on anything and everything – tables, chairs, her learn and groove table and numerous other toys which aren’t meant to be pulled up on. She greets her parents in the morning (and after every nap) by standing in her crib and giving a pseudo wave. Her Mom and Dad are thrilled by Caitlyn’s latest accomplishments, but also terrified by what lies just around the corner: cruising, walking, climbing! If she’s anything like her Dad, we’ll find her up on the dining room table by month nine.

In the meantime, Caitlyn’s preferred mode of travel is still the commando crawl. She’s gotten so good at it, her Mom thinks Caitlyn will bypass real crawling and go straight from that to walking. Still, the wounded soldier crawl gets her all over the house. Favorite tourist attractions include shoes, purses, air conditioning grates (see video below) and yes, electrical cords. Every day she helpfully points out new things for her Dad to babyproof.

In other news, Caitlyn still sleeps like a gem (12-14 hours a night!), can get herself in the sitting position on her own (though she doesn’t like to sit still for long), is obsessed with Cheerios and now has a second tooth poking through.

June pics Click for more pictures

We were torn. Should we stop her or break out the video camera and preserve the moment for later teenage blackmail?

Caitlyn, our intrepid explorer, ascends to the high plains of Mount Ottoman.

Why crawl on all fours when you can dust the floor as you go?