Cruising along

I haven’t had time to upload the pictures so I thought that I would post a quick video of Hazel cruising around the coffee table. She loves to stand up now, and she pulls herself up whenever she gets a chance.
We also got Hazel a play tent last weekend which she absolutely loves. She crawls in and around it and rings her door bell and dances to the music- it’s so adorable! We hope you enjoy the videos!

This first one is to make Grammy Jane especially jealous. Grampy got to witness the cruising when he came over tonight.

Cruising from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Hazel’s House from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Hazel’s House from esther benoit on Vimeo.

A month of firsts

January has been a busy month for Hazel. We began the New Year a bit under the weather- Hazel caught her first cold and was sniffly for a little over a week. This didn’t slow her down much, though. By January 10th she was crawling for the first time. She had been trying to move herself forward for some time, but finally figured out how to truly crawl on the 10th. Since then Jered and I have been kept on our toes. Hazel crawls all around the house, chasing the dog and cats, excitedly propelling herself across the room. When she sees something of interest, her face lights up, she lets out a laugh and goes for it. Watching her now is so satisfying because she is so much happier (read: less frustrated). We can tell how thrilled she is to be able to move around in this fascinating world of ours.

Ever since the crawling has started (hard to believe it’s been only 2 weeks now!) our days have been structured a bit differently. Hazel now needs clear boundaries- and by boundaries I mean physical barriers. We have an elaborate gate system set up in our living room so that she can roam around safely without us having to crawl behind her every second of the day. We wake up with her around 6 or 7 every morning, go downstairs after breakfast and let her crawl around. She has a box where we keep all of her toys and she loves to pull them out and bang them together. If she sees one of the cats or the dog, she’ll crawl over to greet them (much to their dismay). Her attention span is still very short, and she is easily distracted, something we are using to our advantage. When she has a toy or some object she is excited about she can get very very upset when it’s taken away from her: this is where distraction works wonders. I’m hoping this tactic will work for a while, but as with most things, we’ll probably need a new strategy before the month is up- things seem to change so quickly now!

Last weekend Hazel’s Grampy was visiting and while he was here she practiced standing up. Fast forward two days to January 20th and I find Hazel standing in her crib after her nap. I swear this is all going too fast! We’re actually pretty surprised Hazel has decided to try standing since she has a pretty bad ear infection (also a first) and that can mess with balance- she doesn’t seem phased, though. We were shocked to learn that she had a bad ear infection at her nurse’s visit last week- she seemed fine and we were just there to get a shot that wasn’t available to us at her 6 month appointment but walked out with a prescription for amoxicillin. The worst part of the medicine so far has been Hazel’s reaction to the taste. She gets 5 ml twice a day and it’s a liquid, pink bubblegum flavored medicine that she is not too fond of. Fortunately, we’ll be done with it on Monday morning. Hopefully her ear will be clear by then.

It’s been a busy month and we’ve had so much fun. Jered and I can hardly believe how much she grows and changes in the span of just a few weeks (sometimes days!). I haven’t been as good about posting lately, but I am going to make an effort to get back to blogging more regularly. Check back later this weekend for a picture update.

Standing up!

As promised, here is the video of Hazel standing in her crib. In addition, there is another video of Hazel playing with the baby gates we’ve had to put up since she’s into everything now.

What an historic day- a new president and Hazel figures out how to stand up in bed. Oh my…

Standing Up?!?!?! from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Hazel’s “Prison” from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Growing up too fast

Hazel is growing up way too fast. She’s a little over a week into crawling and already she seems to be moving on to the next thing. We had the fortunate opportunity to see Hazel’s Grampy again this past week- he was in town for business and we got to see him twice in a week. During his visit he got to witness Hazel’s new desire to stand up. Just today I went into her room to find her standing up in her crib. I can’t believe how fast she’s changing!
I was able to capture Hazel standing up in her crib on video- but it was just after I had uploaded the last batch of videos, so I haven’t had a chance to upload that one, but it will be posted here soon!

I thought I’d post a few videos of Hazel so that you can all see how much faster she’s gotten at crawling. We also want to share a sweet video of bedtime stories with Grampy. Enjoy!

Grampy reads a story from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Untitled from esther benoit on Vimeo.

More crawling! from esther benoit on Vimeo.

She finally figured it out!

After about a month of trying her best to actually get on all fours and crawl, our Hazel has finally figured it out. It started almost 6 weeks ago when she would start rocking on all fours back and forth and side to side. She did this for weeks and would sometimes accidentally scoot forward an inch or two. This seemed to motivate her to try different techniques- about two weeks ago she started using her arms to lift herself up and then pull her legs forward (we posted a video of this last week). We knew it was only a matter of time before she would get her legs up and moving, but we had no idea it would go so quickly.

Here are a few videos taken today- she is still new at the whole alternating arms and legs thing and occasionally if she gets really excited she will go with her old techniques of moving forward just to get there more quickly, but she has figured out how to crawl. We can tell she is absolutely thrilled with her new skill- when she crawls toward something or someone she gets the biggest smile on her face. We hope you enjoy the videos!

Starting to really crawl- Saturday Morning from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Hazel Crawls! from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Crawling, crawling, crawling from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Do the wave

One of the more fascinating things Hazel has recently learned to do is wave. She doesn’t do it all the time, but most of the time, if you catch her when she’s not fussy or hungry or otherwise occupied, she will wave back when people wave at her. She especially responds to Hiiiiiiiiii and He-llo, and lately even just Haaaaaazel.
We captured some of her very first waves while we were out in Kansas. Here’s a little video clip that also features Hazel’s favorite cousin Peter.

Hazel Waving!!! from esther benoit on Vimeo.

The baby who once only moved backwards…

Can now move forwards… Here’s the proof!

Semi-crawling from esther benoit on Vimeo.

The long-awaited update

I have not been a good blogger lately, but I have plenty of good excuses. We left on Thursday the 18th for Hazel’s first big trip to visit her Grammy and Grampy, and Aunt and Uncle (and cousin!) in Kansas. She did great on the plane trip to Kansas- everything went just about as smoothly as possible. We got to Kansas and Hazel experienced another first: snow! There was some on the ground when we landed and it snowed again the day before Christmas.
We had so much fun on our trip- we got to visit with Aunt Joanna, Uncle Matt and Cousin Peter who graciously shuttled us to and from the airport and hosted us all for Christmas. After Christmas we headed down to Wichita to visit with Great Grammy and Grampy, where we also got to see Great Aunt Pam and Uncle Bill and Eric and Mike. It was so good to get back to Kansas- Jered and I hadn’t been back since last July. After 11 days we headed home and while we were sad to leave family behind we were happy to get back home. I think we underestimated how important routine is for Hazel. She did extraordinarily will considering how much was going on over the holidays- but she did struggle, and so did we. Christmas Eve we had to let her cry it out. I hated every minute of it, but it worked. It felt so counterintuitive to just let her cry, but it was all we could do. The night before we were up every hour with her, and we were just too exhausted to do that over again. Letting her cry it out was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Thankfully, Joanna took me on a drive while Jered stayed back to endure the crying- without that drive I would have been climbing the walls! After that night things were much easier (thank goodness!).

Now that we’re home Hazel is back into a routine- she has been a bit under the weather, but is starting to feel better now. Just today she started to move forward very quickly in what seems to be the next intermediary step towards truly crawling. We captured this on video and I plan to post this and a few other videos from our trip later this evening. Tomorrow we are going over to Omi’s house for Christmas round two. We haven’t yet exchanged gifts with my mom and brother and are very excited to give Omi her Christmas surprise. Look for more photos from Christmas Round II later this weekend!