Happy July 4th!

We're having a busy summer here and Zoey is growing like crazy! She took her first steps one week before her first birthday, and a couple weeks later she just took off walking all the time. The stairs in our house are not really great for climbing babies, but she has been practicing her climbing at the neighbor's house. We have several awesome neighbors with babies Zoey's age who have great basement playrooms -- we're inspired! Our basement would need a fair amount of work to finish and we're only renting right now, but perhaps in the not-so-distant future we can start working on a rent-to-own situation...

Jason got into paramedic school and will start in January, which is very exciting! He'll go through an intensive one-year program. He's finishing up his prerequisites now with the third Anatomy & Physiology class and a math class this summer, and a couple more classes in the fall. We're very proud of him!

Zoey has four top teeth and four bottom teeth, and we are starting to see some more big ones coming in on the bottom. Her little gums are all bumpy and I can't imagine that they feel very good. She had a fever earlier this week, in the 99-101 range for about three and a half days, breaking yesterday morning. We were thinking that it was probably these teeth coming in because she wasn't acting sick at all and had no other symptoms, but last night I noticed a rash beginning to show up on her neck and trunk. After looking it up this morning, it sounds like the fever and rash are a classic picture of roseola, a harmless little virus that almost all kids get before they turn two. So I guess we're getting that out of the way...

Zoey loves her books! She has a few board books that she likes to turn the pages in. She chewed the corners off of most of them when she was still in her oral phase, and she rips the books with thinner pages, but what kid doesn't? Her favorites are Pat the Bunny and Peek-a-Boo, I Love You!

She's making more new sounds with her mouth and tongue, and a few new words are emerging. She has been saying "mama" for months now, but is very selective with "dada". She says "kitty" and loves chasing our cat around (who has really been a good sport about it all), and she knows what a dog says ("woof", but with a closed mouth). When she hears a bird, or you ask what the bird says, she looks up into the sky and points (although pointing right now is with a wide open hand). Her favorite word right now seems to be "pi-THAAAAaaaa", which seems to be more of an exclamation rather than referring to anything in particular.

Sleep is going fairly well. We are careful about calling it "what she does" or "a trend" or anything, but lately her midday nap has stretched to 2.5-3 hours! Previously it had been anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. She goes to bed for the night around 6:30pm and usually wakes up somewhere in the midnight-3am range, at which time I nurse her and she goes back to sleep. Often there is another wakeup point in there as well before she's awake for the day around 6-7am.

Zoey's favorite foods are hit and miss -- some days she eats everything we put in front of her, and some days it's none of it. If you've seen her lately, you know the girl is not starving, so we're trying to not make a battle out of meal time. Foods that seem to be acceptable most of the time are avocados, yogurt mixed with sweet potatoes, kiwi, hard-boiled egg yolks, and string cheese. We give her oatmeal for breakfast and mix in a leafy green veggie like kale, spinach or broccoli, as well as some grated carrots and a little tofu for protein. When it's all mixed together like that, she will usually eat a fair amount of it, but sometimes she just refuses it altogether. O's are an unreliable snack or appetizer, as she often just picks them up one by one and throws them on the floor. That's where things go when she's done eating, too, right onto the floor. She has no problem communicating that.

Have a safe and fun July 4th!