365 Days With Alex

Today is the day that Alexis turned one year old. So much has happened in this past year and she made the incredibly painful times bearable and given us perspective and she has made the good times into cherished memories. I know that sounds sappy, but we're talking about my girl here and I will always be sentimental about her.

We kept her up a half hour past her bed time so we could get a picture of her at 7:29pm, the exact time of her birth. In order to do that we gave her some of her personal banana cake that I made for her birthday party. She ate part of the chocolate panda bear cake at her party on Sunday, but saved the mini-banana cake for today. That little bit of sugar kept her going for the final half hour as she rifled through her bookshelf and climbed in and out of the chair a half dozen times.

As for developmental milestones, she continues to get closer to walking. She can stand on her own for about twenty seconds before she slowly lowers herself to the floor. She can also take about six or seven steps at a time, but only when she really wants to---she rarely attempts it on request. She also has moved on from the infant and toddler bathtub to the full bathtub. She insists on standing up and crawling around so much it just got easier to manage her in the big tub. For the last couple of weeks she has really wants to lay on her back when she's in the tub. There's only about two or three inches of water in the tub, so the water barely covers her ears when she rest her head at the bottom of the tub. She alternates between letting her limbs go limp and kicking her legs and splashing the water.

A tradition we intend to continue on each of her birthdays is to measure and mark her height on the wood post in the basement. Tonight she measured 29 inches (she was 20 and 3/4 inches at her birth). She seems so healthy and strong. She has a doctor's appointment next week, we'll get her weight and post it then. She's seems to be kind of long and lean in her body. She has a nice pot belly, and her legs have a chubby aspect to them, but she seems more muscular than anything.


Here's some video of her taking on the banana cake:




And, to commemorate her birth, here's a video of her getting her first bath in the hospital and waking up all of the sleeping babies in the room:

First Birthday Party

Alex's first birthday is coming up on Tuesday, but she celebrated the occasion today with her first birthday party. The invitations, sent to family, friends, and baby friends, were made by mom and aunt Tracee. They are based on the Ed Emberly-inspired paintings I made for her room. Tracee lined the envelopes and helped mom cut circles and triangles out of construction paper to create the lady bug, baby chick, and owl you see below.



Mom made a colorful banner that read, "Happy Birthday Alex!" that was hung up in the backyard where we held the party. We purchased over twenty balloons, and set up the kiddie pool. For the first time in weeks, the day was cool and breezy, and while it was a welcome respite from the hot weather we have been experiencing, it meant the pool went unused.

I made a devil's food panda bear cake and a banana brown bear cake. The panda bear was made from the same mold that was used for my first birthday cake in 1976.


Pictured above are the birthday cakes made by me with the mold from his first birthday cake.


And above are pictures of my first birthday party with the cake made from the same mold. You can see mischievous baby me putting my frosting laden fingers in my sister Tracee's hair.

In addition to the cake we had chips with home-made salsa, watermelon, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, and apples. Guests included uncle and aunt Andy and Rachel with cousins Eleanor and Vincent, dad's cousin Scott with his wife Rachael and their seven month old daughter Fia, friends Dan and Ashley with their son Pete, friend David, friends Claude and Sara with their son Atticus, aunt Tracee, grandma Lael, grandma Pam, and great grandma Evelyn.

As you can imagine, she got lots of great gifts. It was a great day and we're looking forward to her actual birthday on Tuesday.

Here's some video of everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to her:


Photos of the party were uploaded to our Photobucket Account. Here's a few of our favorites:

Eleven Months Old

Alexis turned eleven months old on July 17. She's been extremely busy since the last post. On Independence Day she visited Great Grandma Evelyn on her way to spending the afternoon with mom, dad, Grandma Pam, Aunt Tracee, and various family friends in Richfield. She watched her first parade from dad's lap. She thought it was okay but was rather nonplussed by the entire event. Mainly, she sat quietly. After the parade was over, she went to Cousin Paula's home in Lake Elmo to spend time with mom's side of the family.

The following weekend she went to the Anoka Heritage Home and Garden Tour, which dad organized at work. She was a hit (as usual). We thought she was the youngest person on the tour, but then we saw a six week old at the end. At least we know she was the cutest one.

Last weekend was a dad weekend. Mom was busy helping prepare for a wedding shower. On Saturday, she visited the Gibbs Farm Museum in Falcon Heights. They have two black African pigs on the site that were a common breed for Minnesota pioneer farmers to have. Alex was IMPRESSED with these little pigs. She also got in the middle of the petting zoo and got face-to-face goats, ducks, chickens, and a turkey. Fun, but nothing beat the pigs that day---with the possible exception being the home made ice cream. On Sunday, she and dad went out for breakfast and a walk with Grandma Pam and Aunt Tracee. After a long midday nap, she went swimming with dad at the YWCA.

She spent the day at home today with a temperature. Last night was a rough night, but things calmed down for her when she fell asleep in mom's and dad's bed. Unfortunately, while she slept better, the fever still hasn't broken. We're not certain if she has a bug or another tooth coming in. She has eight teeth in and it has been a couple of months since she had more come in. We might be looking at a molar coming in, but were not sure. Her previous teeth didn't produce this kind of reaction, so I guess we'll see.

As for her development at eleven months she is getting even more active every day. She is practices standing for a few seconds at a time. She thrills to take two or three stumbling steps from mom's arms to dad's. She crawls up an entire flight of stairs (under dad's watchful eye) and has even gone down one or two steps. We are not certain about her height and weight at the moment, but she'll be going in for her one year check-up next month.

Dad Flys Solo for the Evening

Mom got a well deserved night out with friends tonight. So, while she went out for dinner and a movie, I relished in the opportunity to watch Alex for the night---and I only had to call Nikki once with a question!

Here are some videos of the evening's activities:


Pushing and walking behind her cart.




Reading Where Is Baby's Belly Button?, and flipping up the tabs.




Reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and turning pages.




Expressing her appreciation for Thor the cat.




Taking a bath (even Thor checks this one out).




Saying good night to Garfield, a nightly routine that signifies bed time.




Reading Goodnight Moon, another nightly tradition.



Tomorrow night, Nikki will return the favor to me when I go to watch the Twins play the Rays. But she's unlikely to blog about it as if she had invented parenting (like I just did)...

Baby Alex At Ten Months Old

Alexis turned ten months old today. She is talking a lot, mainly baby babbles, but she likes to say "mamama" a lot and words that sound like "dadad." She loves to stand up and walk along coffee tables, chairs, walls, book shelves, mom's and dad's legs, whatever's handy. She also loves to have us read to her. Her favorite books at the moment are Brown Bear, Brown Bear, I'll Find You Kitty, Whose Tail Peter Rabbit, and That's Not My Polar Bear.

She has also been expanding her palate lately. You probably read about her love of Cheerios. She gets a real kick out of feeding herself. She's recently introduced beets and Dal to her palate.

So how to she spend her ten month birthday? She took a dip in the pool. She loves baths and has been in the inflatable kiddie pool a couple of times. She loves to splash and pour water out of containers and place tub toys in the containers and take them out. It's all very complicated, but she's got a system she is working on. We're hoping to take her to the YWCA's pool this weekend and introduce her to her first real pool.

Enjoy this short video of Alex splashing and giggling in the pool.

Attention General Mills Casting Agents

4 June 2010

1 General Mills Boulevard
Minneapolis, MN 55426

Dear General Mills:

Allow me the opportunity to introduce you to your next Cheerios spokesmodel, Alexis Mahon. As you can see from this thirty second audition shoot and promotional head shot, the future of Cheerios, and the entire General Mills corporate family, is here. The cutest baby in the world is a big fan of your signature product and she is available to promote it to the consumer public.

But she does not come cheap. The specifics of her contract demands will be forwarded in future correspondence, but generally she requires one cat on the set at all times, lots of mirrors to admire herself in, and a significant contribution to her college fund and her parents' retirement fund.

Act now. She is in the midst of preliminary discussions with Kellogg's and Gerber Foods and is only interested in an exclusive business relationship. Please view the audition tape and promotional photo. We are open to discussion on the direction of any advertising campaign, but insist on veto power with any creative decisions.

We look forward to hearing from you and to a long and successful partnership.

Best wishes,

Daddy
Agent

Nine Month Update

As has become the tradition of this blog, this one month update is coming a few weeks late. On May 18, Alexis had her nine month wellness checkup with her pediatrician, Doctor Dietz. Everything checked out great. She seems to have stopped her rapid growth. At her six month checkup she was in the 75th percentile for both height and weight. At her nine month checkup she was still in the 75th percentile for height, but in only the 50th for her weight. There's no reason for concern, but we've started to feed her even more solid food at her twice a day solid food meals. She currently has two solid food meals and nurses with mom a couple of times a day and has three bottles at day care. One of the bottles is pumped breast milk, and the other two are formula.

Here's her measurements from her May 18 appointment and here's her measurements from her August 17 birth date:

• Weight: 18lbs 10.5oz
• Height/Length: 28 inches
• Head circumference: 17.52 inches
  

Baby On the Go

Alex has been crawling for a few weeks now and she is extremely mobile. She is all over the place, pulling herself up on chairs and tables, and crawling after the cats, especially Thor. She is even walking---sort of. Grandma Lael bought her a nifty wooden cart that she can support herself with and walk across the room. She is extremely proud of herself, as the video evidence proves it. Here's a couple of short videos with her and the walker and some photos of her moving around the house.

Goodbye to Grandpa Lynn

Most of you are probably aware that Alex's Grandpa Lynn passed away on May 10. That is the main reason for the long gap in posts to the blog. Many of you have been asking for updates and those will begin again soon, but we felt it was important to write about Grandpa Lynn first.

Alex was born on August 17, 2009. Grandpa Lynn had celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary with Grandma Pam the day before Alex's birth and he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer a few days later. We were all shocked by the news, but hopeful for what might come. The following months were filled with doctors appointments, chemotherapy, a major surgery, and, most of all, lots of waiting.

In early April, he received a PET scan that revealed some difficult news. The tumor was back and had metastasized throughout his stomach. In other words, instead of a solid mass, he was facing small specks in his stomach and intestines. This meant that surgery was not an option. All of this occurred while he was undergoing his second round of chemotherapy, which meant that the chemo had no positive affect on the tumor. His oncologist told us that the three drugs he was using for chemotherapy were the strongest that they had and therefore it did not make sense to continue with that treatment given how hard it had been on him and its ineffectiveness.

Shortly after the PET scan, Grandpa Lynn went down to the Mayo Clinic to see if he could be a part of a clinical trial. Ultimately, that did not work out. In late April, after checking in to the hospital with dehydration and vomiting issues we found out that the nerve endings in his gastrointestinal tract that moved food through his bowels were not doing their job. He came home from the hospital on April 30 to do hospice care.

The following week and a half was filled with a lot of love, laughter, and more than a few tears. An endless line of friends and family came to visit him. Alex was able to visit him most days and they always brought smiles to one another's faces. It was truly touching to see the love they had for one another---Grandpa Lynn always made the best funny faces.

His funeral was attended by at least 140 people and many people came up to share wonderful stories about him. Alex was so good during the service, sitting quietly most of the time, and piping in when she felt moved to. Grandpa Lynn probably got a kick out of that.

We have received such great support over these last weeks. Alex lost her Grandpa Walt a few months before she was born, so we are committed to telling her all of the great stories about both of her grandpas. We're asking our friends and family to help us with this.

Recent Pictures

It's been a while since we did a post of lots of photos. We try to update the folder in our Photobucket account, but we want to add some to this blog too. Here's some photos from the last few months.


Alex at her cousin Vincent's third birthday party. (No, Grandma Pam is not actually giving her Propel water...)



Alex celebrating her Grandma Pam's birthday.



Checking out an Easter egg.



Playing with one of her favorite toys---a laundry basket full of laundry.

First Word

Alex said her first word on April 7. She said "mama." Now, she has been experimenting with her sounds for a while now, and has been making sounds that were similar to mama and baba for a bit now. But I was sitting on the floor with her in her room, getting her ready for a bath. As I was undressing her, she got fussy and started to cry. Nikki when down to her and she threw her arms up and emphatically said "mama" as she looked up to her.

The next morning, when I was getting her ready for the day she kept looking directly at me saying "baba." I was hoping this was her name for me, but it turns out that everything is baba at the moment. Duke the dog, Thor the cat, toys. At least I am in good company.

Baby Steps

Some video of Alex taking some baby steps, with mom's assistance.

Alex and Thor

Alex shows her enthusiasm for Thor.

Alex Visits Target Field

Today Alex spent the morning visiting Target Field for the Twins open house for season ticket holders. My friend and I split a 20 game package. Regular readers of the blog might remember that Alex is a big Twins fan, having attended her first game at the Metrodome game back in September. We're not sure if she'll make it to any games this year, but she seemed to like the view from our seats in Section 305. We bought her a red t-shirt in the pro shop to commemorate the Twins 50th season in Minnesota.

We also want to thank the great staff at Target Field. Because today was just the open house, not all of the amenities were open yet, including a mother's nursing lounge. When we asked if there was a place that Nikki could feed Alex, the staff was kind enough to take us to an area not open to the public. A big thanks to one staff person in particular, Lasha, for her help. She told us that she and her husband are expecting their second child in July. Her first child is thirteen months. We wish them the best as their family grows. She was really kind to us and even laughed at my corny suggestion that Alex wanted to nurse in Jim Pohlad's private box. No such luck there (apparently he doesn't have one).

Ppbbbbttttt

Seven Months Old

Alex turned seven months old on St. Patrick's Day. She wanted to go out and celebrate her Irish heritage by getting drunk and brawling in the streets, but Nikki and I decided that should wait until next year. She's just too young for that.

She hasn't crawled yet, but all systems are go for that. She gets up in perfect crawling position, arms straight and directly under her chest, her legs bent at her hips and knees at perfect 90 degree angles. Then she revs up the engine by rocking back and forth a couple of times and then proceeds go backwards as she pushes back against the floor. She hasn't figured out the back leg part. She gets pretty frustrated with seeing the object of her desire get further away from her as she pushes herself away. But she's quite mobile already. She can turn and pivot on her belly and roll around. She covers quite a bit of ground on the rug in her bedroom.

She's can also stand up for several seconds while supporting her weight on a chair seat or table. This has been happening with some regularity over just the last few days. She's always liked to "walk" with mom and dad holding her up by the hands or arm pits. She's gone 4-5 steps before stumbling down. Usually she needs something really motivating in her sight, like the dog. Speaking of pets, about a week ago she jumped out of my lap and horse collared Thor, one of our cats, and brought him to the ground. Thor's the laid back cat in the house and just went with it.

Zero Point Five Years Old

We didn't put up a post to celebrate Alex's six month birthday. She has been such a joy in our lives and these last few weeks have been especially entertaining. She is getting so much bigger and interacting with us and the pets more and more. She loves to laugh, she's eating all sorts of new foods (including pears, peaches, bananas, and more), and she's starting to become mobile.

She moves around by rolling, pivoting, and has done a few crawling steps. Most of the time she ends up sliding backwards, getting further away from what she's trying to get to. Her frustration is kind of cute.

She had her six month appointment and the doctor's office and she now weighs seventeen pounds and five ounces. She's 26 and a half inches tall.

Here's a video of her doing one of her favorite activities: laughing.

Garfield Doesn't Like Peas

When I (Todd) was a kid I wasn't a big fan of vegetables. I'm embarrassed at how hard I made it for my parents. On the top of my list of hated vegetables was peas. My parents tried lots of things to coax me into eating my peas, but I was a pretty tough nut to crack.

A favorite toy of mine was a stuffed Garfield. I took him with me everywhere. I also developed a habit of letting Garfield tell people that he didn't like things that I didn't like. For instance, I was big on telling people that "Garfield doesn't like peas." I'm sure a child psychologist would have had a field day analyzing me.

One person that was particularly frustrated with Garfield (me) was my grandma Evelyn. One particular summer she forbade Garfield from coming around.

Alex has been trying solid foods for the last month. Most of the time it's rice cereal, but we've been introducing fruits and veggies. She loves pears and squash. Peas? Not so much. She is definitely her father's daughter. Enjoy, great grandma Evelyn.

(Okay, she still likes them more than I did as a kid...)

Twinsfest

On Saturday Alex kicked off the start of the 2010 Twins season at Twinsfest with her parents and the Grabitskes. She took in a lot of sights including: listening to Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer being interviewed for Saturday Morning Sports Talk, checking out the goodies that various vendors were selling, a close run-in with Denard Span, posing with Justin Morneau,and she sat in on a team photo.

It was a very busy day for this young Twins fan. She is looking forward to the excitement of spring training.

Five Months

Last week Alex turned five months and a lot has happened in this last month. She is now a pro at rolling over from her back to her tummy -- Todd and I find her sleeping on her tummy when we put her to sleep on her back. She is also using this new skill to move across the room.

She is also starting solid foods and enjoys the gourmet taste of rice cereal and roasted squash. Next week we might try sweet potatoes or pears.

Alex is more interested in Duke, the greyhound, than ever. She often squeals in delight whenever Duke comes near her, and when she is on her tummy she will grab towards the dog. I have a feeling that Duke will be an inspiration to get her to crawl. When that happens watch out Duke!

It seems that Alex is accomplishing milestone everyday. It will be exciting to see what she accomplishes in the next month.