Bill & Cat's Blog About Calla

Gender: Female
Name: Calla Sophia
Birthdate: October 11, 2008

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Dang Baby

Not sure how this happened. I had a reasonably tidy dining room. I
went to the bathroom. I returned to this little disaster.

Calla is currently munching on some Cheerios. I'm sharing a laugh
with you instead of putting her up for adoption.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Sunday, September 27, 2009

New Words and Signs

Miss Chatty Calla has a few new words. She says "moo" (I admit it
sounds very much like how she says "more", but she says it when she
sees cows). Tonight, she pulled her bumble bee stuffed animal out of
the toy box and said "buzz buzz buzz".

She says the first syllable, or maybe phoneme is a better way to
describe it, of tons of words now. Upon viewing the enormous tiger
mural at an Indian restaurant, she kept pointing at it and repeating,
"Tah. Tah!". She does this first phoneme thing all the time lately.

This evening I noticed two new signs. One was "baby" and the other was
"drink". Cute, because just two days ago I remarked that drink was an
easy sign, so I didn't understand why Calla continues to just look at
her cup and whine instead of just signing drink!

"More" continues to be her favorite word and sign! I hear "more" all
day long. She's getting the R sound in there a lot more frequently,
too.

She's a very happy baby. Standing and balancing for linger periods of
time now. Pulling up more, as well. Will she walk in time for her
first birthday? Who knows?


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Sent from my iPhone. (Forgive typos. It's hard to blog by phone!)

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Friday, September 25, 2009

POTD: Calla's Hat

Since You Asked... Calla's Birthday Wish List

I hope this isn't too tacky, but several people have asked what Calla would like for her birthday or what sizes she's wearing now, so I thought I'd post a little list here.

First of all, I asked Calla and she said you don't have to get her anything because there is nothing she really needs and she's not very materialistic (yet?). That said, here are some things that she likes, doesn't have yet, or could use:

1. BOOKS - This kid loves books. Her favorites are the ones with lots of color photographs of babies or animals. Board books are preferred because she eats books with paper pages. This reminds me, she'd probably love a board book copy of Pat the Bunny (she ate most of her copy a few months ago).

2. Signing DVDs - She already has these: Baby Signing Times (First Signs), Baby Einstein (First Signs), My Baby Can Talk (First Signs). She is bored with the First Signs type of DVDs, she needs something with some new signs.

3. Puppets - She really likes puppets but doesn't have any good ones right now.

4. Musical Toys - She already has a drum, maracas, jingle bells, etc. She would probably like a xylophone, though.

5. Stuffed Animals - She loves cuddling stuffed animals. She is fascinated by baby dolls, too.

6. Balls

7. Pull Along toys

8. Cars/Toys with Wheels - One of her favorite toys is a fish with wheels, so I think she'd enjoy other toys with wheels too.

9. Blocks




If you were interested in her clothing sizes, here they are:

Clothes - 2T is the safest bet, although 18m in some brands fits well now.
Shoes - Her feet are getting too big for her size 3s, so I would go with size 4.

Current Weight and Height: 26.5 pounds and 30.5 inches

Clothes preferences:
Fall and Winter clothes. Jacket, coats, maybe some hats (which she will undoubtedly pull off her head). She could definitely use some small "training pants" too. Oh yeah, she desperately needs socks that will fit her big (but cute) feet (shoe size 4). Maybe some of those gripper socks would be nice, since I'm sure she will be attempting those first steps any day now.

Note: Since Calla uses a potty at home, dresses or t-shirts with Babylegs (legwarmers) are easier than pants or onesies. We still love cute pants and onesies, which she wears when she goes out, though.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Sunday, September 20, 2009

VOTD: Calla is NOISY

Making noise while we watch the video for Duck 4 on You Tube.

What's new with Calla?

A few notes on new stuff Calla has been doing...

New signs
I may have mentioned a few of these in earlier posts, but here are her more recent signs: "where", "thank you", "cat" (though it's barely recognizable at this point), "fish", and maybe "poop".

Speaking
She has been mimicking or attempting to mimic some words lately, "pig" and "bunny" and "buzz" come to mind. She babbles a lot, too.

Hugs
My favorite - Last week she started hugging her stuffed animals. So sweet!

Friday, September 18, 2009

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Calla wants MORE eggplant.

First taste of Dad's eggplant parmesan and Calla asks for more (mo-
ah)... a lot.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Saturday, September 12, 2009

What's new with Calla?

What's new with Calla? She just turned eleven months old this week! The year is going by so quickly! I'm planning her first birthday party now, already a bit behind schedule on getting invitations out, but we're getting there!

Most recently, she has begun humming a little tune A LOT. Sometimes she does a little bouncy dance while humming it, too. Not sure if it's an original composition or if she is copying part of Laurie Berkner's song Rocketship Run, which she loves. It does sound a bit like the part of the song where Laurie sings "When I get there, I'll go dancing through the air."

She has added the word "uh-oh" to her lexicon. She says it like "ahh-ohhhhh" - very cute. She also may be trying to say "bear" and "baby" - not positive about those, yet. Her latest sign is "thank you" - she does this when I say it (I always tell her "thank you" when she turns off the light switches for me when we leave a room, for example).

It's amazing to me, who never knew very much about young babies before becoming a parent, how much she already understands. I can ask her to go get a book, and she will scoot right over to the stack of books by her toy box and grab a favorite, then deliver it to me and wait for me to read it to her. She can do the same if I ask for certain toys like her fish or giraffe. She can point out birds or babies in her picture books. She can point to her nose, when asked. Of course this all depends on her being in the mood to play along, bear in mind! Anyway, I can see now it's true that babies understand words long before they can say very many of them, which is fascinating.

Elimination Communication continues to be awesome! I'm so glad that we decided to give it a try. Yesterday, for example, Calla only peed in her diaper ONCE!!! All her other pees (and poop) went into the potty, except once when she peed on the kitchen floor during naked time. So much easier to clean a potty than to deal with wet or dirty diapers. YAY! I strongly recommend giving EC a try to any new parent who is interested in it!

She is still crawling by dragging one leg, which she folds beneath her. She can crawl really fast nonetheless! I have a feeling she will not change her crawling style. We had to step up the baby proofing efforts in recent weeks. She pulls up on furniture a bit, and she can balance herself standing up for a few seconds, too. Getting closer to walking, I suppose, but I hope she's in no hurry!

According to our scales at home, she weighs 26.5 pounds. She's around 30 inches tall. She has at least six teeth, but isn't too keen on letting me get a good look to see if there are more yet. She's definitely working on some more, though, as evidenced by all her drooling and biting lately. She's very healthy and happy and such a joy.

Okay, here I'll post a video of Calla humming her little song, and I'll embed the Laurie Berkner song too, just for the heck of it. Sorry the video is not the best example of Calla's song, and she was being coerced by her dad to sing it, but it's all we have for now. If you watch them both, or are familiar with the Berkner song, let me know if you think Calla is singing that song or making up her own.

Calla's Song:


Laurie Berkner Band's video for Rocketship Run, which Calla LOVES:

Friday, September 11, 2009

Friday, September 4, 2009

POTD: Dinnertime Peekaboo

Calla misses her daddy, who's working late tonight.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Calla Videos

Calla's Favorite Videos