First words

Tallie has been babbling up a STORM recently. They have a saying here in Mexico that babies either walk first or talk first, they can't concentrate on both things at once. Well, now that Tallie has completely dominated walking, and is running whenever she can, it's obvious that she's focusing on speaking. Other than papa and occasionally (much to my frustration)mama, she has made two non-accidental, used with meaning words. The first one was last week, and it was 'hot.' grandma gets her cup of coffee every morning, and always tells Tallie that it's hot. This was reinforced with her food being hot. I came home one day and mom told me she said hot clear as day. I wasn't so sure, but then damn if she didn't sit down on our title entryway, which had been in the sun all afternoon, stand up and say 'hot!' of course, it sounds a lot more like 'aahhdd' but hey, it's understandable! And she used it in a new situation. We had never told her that the titles were hot. Then tonight, she said her second word! Not ball or doll, or any typical one, no no, my Tallie is obsessed with Micky Mouse and dogs. So you can imagine. Her second word was 'Pluto!' she said it very clearly, only admitting the l sound slightly. It was adorable, and I want to try to get it on video. That's the plan for tomorrow. I LOVE watching her grow and I can't wait till she's saying English AND Spanish words. :)

16 months

So i've had intentions to write a post to my lovely baby girl since she turned one. but it always seems that something gets in the way. Oh yeah. Life. I'm not gonna try to make up for the lost time, it would take too long. instead, im going to write a letter to my baby about how she is right now.

Tallie Lee,

You are so grown now! It's hard to still call you a baby sometimes. You want to do everything yourself, and you get really mad and frustrated sometimes when you can't. You love to dance, play on my iPad, play with your little broom, terreraize Chapis and Botas, chasing them around the house with whatever you can find that will make them run. You copy behaviors now, like stomping your foot at the dogs to tell them no, the way I do, or using my cell phone to have a 'conversation'. You also come running whenever the home phone rings, and laugh hysterically when I answer it. You still love fruit, and are very big on Oaxaca cheese. You've warmed up to some veggies, and today prefered to eat your broccoli to your jello. Your molars are coming in at the same time as your canine teeth, and so somedays you are cranky and in pain. We give you a little bit of TLC plus some homemade popsicles, which you love, and usually you make it through without any medicine. You wake up shouting "PA!" every morning and Carlos will get mad if I try to get up and get you. He takes care of you in the morning before he goes to work and gets you dressed and ready for the day. You love all of your grandparents. But you have a special place for Grandma. You run to her like you havent seen her in years even though it might have only been 2 hours. or 10 minutes. You still love Mickey Mouse, and can point out all of the characters when named. You understand a LOT of english words, and some spanish too. Sometimes I swear you're going to start speaking spanish first, the way you shout "ahi-sta" (alli esta or there it is!) But since spanish is mostly vowels, and thats about all you pronounce well, I've decided that its just your way of talking. You do say "hot" and then start to blow on things, like Grandma's coffee, or your chicken nuggets, or anything else you think will be hot. You try to say "botas" but you havent gotten the "tas" part down yet. You do say LOTS of words through your signs and signals. You ask for more in sign language that Grandma tought you. You ask questions of "where is it?" by stretching out your hands and making oo sounds with a very cute quizzical face. then when you find what your looking for, you shout out the afore mentioned "ahi-sta!" I feel so blessed that you are here, in my life. You make everyday worthwhile. I'm so glad we got to spend spring break together, and i'm realy hate the thought of going back to work. But only 42 more days (school days anyway) and we'll be together for the summer. I can't wait to watch you grow! Love your momma.

9 months

Tallie Lee,

This week you turned 9 months old. You have now been out of my womb for as long as you were in. Its a crazy thing to think about. You are growing and making new advancements everyday. I was jsut telling grandma the other day, its amazing how fast andyet how gradual your develoment is. I remember thinking when you got some toys for Christmas, she'll take forever to play with these! And now, you are almost bored with them. I remember waiting anxiously for you to roll over, and now you do it every time we put you on your tummy.
Which brings me to tummy time. You hate it. HATE it. You throw a fits, arch your back, cry, roll over, anything NOT to be on your tummy. Which means of course, that you are still not crawling. And I kind of doubt you will. At least not now. Maybe in a few months I can teach you how. You are however, trying to walk like no tomorrow. Given two hands of any willing adult, and you are off. You practially run. And today you let go of one hand, only holding on to me with one little finger. I know that you will take about a week or two with only one hand, and then, before I know it, you'll be walking by yourself. Its a scary thought.(which makes me think I need to baby proof this house even more.)
This month you've also had your first sicknesses. The first one was pretty scary. You started to throw up, and did so continously through the night. You couldn't even keep water down. It really scared your Papi and me, and we took you to the doctor at 7am. She said it must have been some bacterial infection, gave you a lot of medicine, and luckly you were better in about three days. I'll never forget about 3am, you threw up water, looked up at your daddy and smiled your big happy smile. I think you even laughed sometimes. It helped us know that maybe it wasn't too serious and that you would be ok.
The other sickness was just this past week. We went to a festival in town with your Abuelita, even though i noticed you were a little tired, I thought it would be okay. Well you started getting fussy in your car, so Abuelita started to carry you. Pretty soon you had fallen asleep in her arms. I can't remember the last time you fell asleep in arms (when you weren't sick throwing up that is) I knew right away you were sick again. sure enough your tummy was burning up. So we went home, and you had a temperature of 102. We gave you some typlenol and you went to sleep. ONly to wake every 3 hours with more fever. It never got above 102, but we still took you to the doctor in the morning. She said she thought your throat looked inflammed, but that you were too young for an antibiotic. I was glad to hear this, I don't like the idea of giving lots of antibiotics that you really dont need. So we got some special medicine to control the fever. You've been okay since, but very cranky. It doesn't help that you're getting two new teeth in as well. Soon you'll have 6!
Oh! Another first. tonight in the bath you finally figured out how to make your rubber ducky squeak. you've been trying for about three nights, but you finally got it more than once tonight. The look on your face when you did it was priceless. It wasn't of surprise, but pure pride that you finally did it when you wanted it to. I wish I had a picture.
Wich reminds me, we've been really bad about taking pictures recently. I'll try to take more soon.
I love you tons and tons.

~Momma

7 months!

Tallie Lee,

You are now officaly 7 months old. It's amazing to me how fast time flies. We found a house for the same rent and about double the space, so we decided to move. I was extremely worried about how you were going to handle this move, and honestly, didnt really want to move myself, so I actually told very few people we were moving. I was doing some calculations and realized that besdies the 2 years spent in my spring garden apartment, I have moved every year of my life since I was 17. It started out as just a carful when I went to college, and now took about 8 trips in a commercial van. (not moving van, but a 15 passengar size one) Granted, we also are moving Carlos's, Mom's and your stuff. but still. its a lot of crap. Everything is still not in its place, and I probably should be putting more stuff away instead of writing this. but its been a week of putting stuff away and im tired.

Tallie, you have been a champ through out all this moving. You stayed with Abuela the whole day while we moved, and you seem to be pretty content here in the new house. The first few days you slept really well during nap time and with us in our bed at night. (your crib had some issues while putting it back together) Today you started being a little fussy, and I wonder if you miss the old house. I know I do sometimes. Its either that or you have more teeth coming in. You now have 2 very white beautiful bottom teeth, and you eat like a champ. you eat a bowl of cereal in the morning, a bowl of chicken with veggies for lunch with fruit as a dessert, nurse in the evening, and a bottle before bed. My goal during vacation is to get you to sleep through the night. IN YOUR CRIB! you love sleeping with us, and I have to admit, that during the school year it was the only way for me to get enough sleep to function as a teacher. However, since I am on vacation now, I dont have to get as much sleep and I WILL make myself leave you in your crib. hopefully, it will help that you have your own room. I am gonig to give you two weeks for transition time, so you can get used to the house, and then we're going to start to cry it out. i know that in the states, moms start letting thier kids cry to sleep when they're like 2 months old, but sharing the same room as you, and being in a culture that doesnt do it, made it hard for me. But you are bigger now, and you have your own room, and if I continue to have interrupted nights next year, i'll be a terrible teacher, so for the sake of my futrue students, and my sanity, lets make this whole cry it out thing last just a week.

You are a wiggle worm Tallie Lee! You want to move move move. I think that by the end of the month, you'll be crawling, although at first you hated being on your tummy, you can spend more time there now and can twirl yourself in a circle. you're still working on actually moving backwards and forwards, but I think youll get there soon. You LOVE your walker tho. Sometimes I worry about leaving you in it too much, but it's my lifesaver for when I have stuff to do. You can scoot around in it like a champ, you even kick and then lift up your feet to let it roll. I can tell that you are going to be a tremendous child, into everything i'm sure. You also have started this thing that when you get happy (espically when you eat) you pucker up your lips and snort through your nose a few times (almost like a bull) its so cute.. we have a video of it somewhere i'll have to put up. You like it when we imitate you doing it and you laugh and laugh and laugh. Your daddy thinks you started it because with the change in weather, you have more boogers in your nose and you like the sound it makes. I dont know about all that, but you like doing it, and its funny.
You're going to wake up any minute now from your nap, and I know youre gonna want lunch, so I better hurry and make it. I love you and I love watching you grow.

Your momma.

6 (and a half) months

So Tallie Lee (and all those other random readers out there) the six month mark just kinda flew by me. I recongized it, we even made a cake for it. (well kinda.. .you didnt actually eat any, but papi, grandama and i did!) But there was just no time to document it here in cyberspace.

You are sitting up now, and do it quite well. You had a few spills, and one kind of big one, but as mom and Abuela say, you grow through "golpes" (for those non spanish speaking people, it literally translates and 'hits' or in this case, falls, spills, and bruises.) When you fell off the table (I still can't tell this story without feeling INCREDIBLY scared and reliving the whole thing, so i wont get into more detail) we decided to double check that everything was ok, and since your Abuela has free access to x-rays, we got you one at the hospital. You're absoultely fine, but we saw the most amazing thing on the x-ray...... your TEETH!!

It looks like youve got al your teeth.. however, i am a little worried because it looks like you will have a HUGE gap between your two front teeth. So we're hoping that they will move closer together when they come in. However, after seeing this x-ray we started to pay more attention to see if you would start teething. Sure enough, on Friday, we were playing on the bed face to face, and you decided to put my nose in your mouth. Usually, this is jsut a fun little game, but this time it hurt!! You have the tiniest little ridge of your first front bottom tooth. You can be fussy sometimes, and youve had some trouble sleeping, but i think it has a lot more to do than your teeth.

You see, Grandma went to the states last week, which means you go to your abuela's house. She does a wonderful job with you and i know you like being with her, but you're not at your house, and you don't like transistions. Also, I give classes in the afternoon, and before you could stay near me and see me whiel i gave them (even if grandma was taking care of you) but now I have to leave you more time with Abuela. I know you're fine, but i hate leaving you after being gone all day working, and it makes me feel like a horrible mother. Sometimes i really wish that I could stay home with you, but the way things are right now, it's just not a possibility.

Speaking of being bad mother, i've really let you get into the habit of sleeping in the bed with us, and its something we need to break. like now. BUT I'm worried about trying to make that transition now because in 10 days, we're going to move to a new house. This house is much better than this one, but the actual land where its on isn't as good. but we're going to compromise, because this house seems like a place we can stay for (hopefully) more than one year. But im worried about how you'll do with the transition. This is the only house you've known, and your crib has always been in our room. Now you will have your own room and there will be lots of differences. The good thing is I will be on vacation, so we will have lots of time to get comfortable together before i go back to work.

Well its late and i have to go to bed, but i love you and can't wait till i'm on vacation to spend all day with you! Love you!

oo a few free seconds!

Natalia is fast asleep here next to me in the hammock, and I realized... Hey! I could actually type a post and finish it in one sitting! (they usually take me three or four) We'll see. I'll type fast.

So Tallie Lee is officaly 5 months and 11 days. She gets cuter everyday I swear. She is now eating banana, oatmeal, and sweet potato. She tried a bottle of gerber's broccoli, and only took about 4 bites, making faces the whole time. So Mom decided to try it, and agreed that it was quite nasty. I think I'm going to try to make some homemade and try to give it to her again. She is an avid eater usually. You can't eat and hold her at the same time. She will try to take it out of your hands and get mad when you dont give her some. Oh! She also tried mango, and quite enjoyed it as well. She is quickly learning how to drink from a cup (so far just water, as she still spills it all down her front, much to her delight) and loves her sippy cup.
She can now roll over without too much effort, but she doesnt like being on her tummy so she only does it when she really wants to. She is also learning how to sit up! She can do it supported without a problem, and unsupported she lasts maybe 5 minutes or so before toppling over. I gave her to her Daddy one day so I could cook, and they were sitting on the floor, in front of the tv, practicing sitting up. And from the kitchen i hear her start to cry, and I mean CRY. I freaked out, ran in there, to see that her daddy had been a little too interested in the tv, and while he was making sure she didnt fall over sideways, forgot that she could fall on her face. And that's what happened. Luckly she only had a little red lip. Just hearing her cry was enough of a scolding for her daddy. He felt bad for like 3 days.

We found a little push car that Angel (Tallie's cousin) used at my in-laws house. She LOVES it. Like if shes fussy you just put her in there and she starts laughing. a lot. We have some adorable pictures of her in that thing. Once again i promise a post of just pictures. She holds on to the steering wheel and it just melts my heart.
One day, mothers day actually, Carlos was washing off the patio with the hose, and of course she was fascinated. (as with everything new) and actually grabbed the hose and started playing. she got SOAKEDbut loved everyminute of it. (it was really really hot that day too) She would drop the hose, and then look to pick it up again.
It it also quite evident to me that she will be a very willful child. When she wants something, she WANTS it. and NOW. like if she's eating banana, and you stop for too long, she gets mad. She won't outright cry, but she will start, for lack of a better word, grunting, saying uh uh uh, until you give her what she wants. The same with a toy or book. Anything she's interested in. Yesterday it started raining during the day (for the first time really in her 5 months) and she did NOT want to go inside. so we stood under the porch watching the rain fall down. Then after about 5 minutes it started hailing. which of course caused much more interest. The sound of the hail hitting the ground and being able to touch the water as it poured off the roof fascinated her.

Sometimes I can't believe that she's only 5 months old. Sometimes it feels like forever, and other times, its like how did it happen so fast? Its so hard to believe that she was inside me. It happened, I remember every second of pushing her out, but its just so amazing sometimes. I dont know, I don't have words for it, but I wonder if other mothers feel the same way. Like how is it possible that this little person, who moves and laughs and plays, was inside me?? My body (granted with a little help) created this. It really is a miracle.

Well, its amazing that she's still asleep, so I'm going to take advantage and start that picture post. but no promises it gets up today, or anyday this week really.

Good Ole US of A

I know its been a while since writing in this, but life has just been busy. I'll try to back up and get everything in.
First of all, Tallie finished her 4th month, and even though I didn't write a letter (sorry baby, maybe we'll only do 3 month increments from here on) She has been busy. She's possibly starting to teethe (its a long process but shes drooling and chewing on everything) We can see some white things trying to pop out under her gums, but so far you cant feel anything.
Then we got Tallie christened! When preparing for our big trip to the states, my mother-in-law couldn't stand the thought of her going without being christened first in the catholic church. (she's a little paranoid something bad will happen every time we come) So we went to the classes and got her christened on April 9th, two days after her 4th month birthday! It was a difficult day because she didn't get her usual morning nap, and her Daddy and I bickered a little during the service, which the priest saw and I think decided to punish us by pouring the WHOLE jar of ICE cold water over her head. This caused MUCH crying, which really continued till the end of the service. I had to take her out and walk around for a while it got so bad. But after a nap she was in much better spirits for her party. It was small and in our house, but it was pretty. I should probably put up the videos that I took. One of which is of Tallie sitting in her Uncle's lap, trying to eat a jello cup. It was hilarious, we tilted it to the side and she just licked and licked and licked it, trying to eat the jello. Here's the video.







I have the video of the christening, but blogger is being slly and wont load more videos. heres the link. click here.

So after her party, we went to the US of A! It was a very exciting trip, with too much stuff to do and not enough time to do it. I actually started this post while there, but it has taken me three tries just to get this far. We started off at 5 am on the bus to Mexico city, got there about 2 and a half hours early, stood in line for the check-in, only to have the lady say to us, where's natalia's mexican passport. uuuuh. she doesnt have one. so we had to go to immigration, where of course they asked for her birth certificate. uuuuuh. its in Cuernavaca. so we can scan it and email it. SO i had to call mom and walk her through finding the birth certificate, scanning it, saving it, and sending it as an attachment. so finally we got all the papers there, signed the forms, ran back to check-in, and of course, the flight was closed. it was like 55 minutes before it left and the flight closes one hour before. SO after much crying and pleading, they changed our flight with no cost- however it would be until the next day. So after calling people to let them know we would not arrive to the states on time, we decided to get a hotel. It was a fairly boring day, but we were together and we could relax, knowing we wouldnt have to get up quite as early the next day.


So we finally get to the states, and it was just a whirlwind. My brother's brother-in-law was getting married, so there was a ton of people at his house, including his nephew, Julian who is only 1 month older than Tallie. They had fun playing together and stealing each other's pacificers. There's a video of that too. click here


Then we had a little party at Aunt Mere's house so that people could meet her! She did well, but decided to stay awake since we were awake, but it turned out alright. It as great to catch up with people i hadn't seen in a long time. There were lots of people missing, which made me sad, but I know some already had plans.


So then we went to Virginia Beach so natalia could meet her great-grandmother. It was perfect timing and my grandma was just facinated with what a good baby she was. (she had just slept 2.5 hours and eaten when they met) Here's a video of her singing to Natalia. Its quite sweet.



Then it was off to the Bay to meet her Pawpaw! She really took to dad, and after the first cold day, she had fun going outside and looking at all the beautiful flowers Dorothy has grown, and of course at the water. She didnt like being on the pier too much, it was windy and she would get annoyed, but it was beautiful. Natalia also rolled over for the first time by herself! Of course, it was on a slight incline, and she hasn't yet done it again, but I'm confident that it won't be long before she does it with consistancy.


After that we went to DC where we got to have lunch with Valentine, and play in the park with Pawpaw. There's another video of that too, but it will have to wait, I've literally spent all day trying to finish this post, and it's just not going to happen tonight. sorry.


And finally we went back to Raleigh. On the way we got stopped by a policeman who was either discrimiating against a mexican driving a nice new rental car, or looking for drugs. I don't know why he really stopped us (we were going the speedlimit) but oh well. After talking to Carlos INSIDE the police car (the front seat) He let us go with a warning to "be careful and take care of that baby" I finally stopped shaking like 20 minutes later.


In Raleigh we had a day to chill before getting back on the plane and flying back to mexico. We didnt do much, but it was nice to have some calm before moving again.


So now we're back home, and while it's nice to be back, it makes me realize how short of a trip it really was. It always makes both Carlos and I think about when would be a good time to move back to the states too. We're fine staying in Mexico for a while, but we both know that we want our children to finish school in the states (even if they do part of elementary here) It's not time yet, but it is a definite for the future. Well, I hope you made it this far, and MAYBE i'll get something written for Natalia's fifth month next week, but i doubt it. This will have to do for 4th and 5th month.