A Dream Along The Way: November 2009

On Friday, Arden turned 11 months old. It's shocking. She is somewhat trying to walk. She cruises and she'll walk if you hold her hands and she's really good at that, but she won't take a step by herself. Today, I stood her up to her little walker toy, and she walked across the lving room with that, then she hit a toy that stopped her, so she got down to check out the wheels. She's so silly.

She still has 5 bottles a day and she's been eating a little more table food lately, but she REALLY loves her bottles and she knows her schedule. If I'm trying to feed her lunch and she's not in the mood, she'll throw her food on the floor and fuss until she gets her bottle...unless it's cheese. She loves meat too but fruits and vegetables....it just depends on the day. She is done with baby food...I guess she prefers feeding herself. She likes yogurt and HATES peaches. She finally got the hang of one of her sippy cups so she's been drinking a lot of water lately. I will NOT give my child juice. ;)
Saturday, we went to a fairy princess birthday party for a friend's daughter who just turned one.

I used to work with Blair's mom and she, Rebecca (Trey's mom) and I were all pregnant at the same time and due the same week (They obviously had Blair's due date wrong).

All the girls were dressed in tutu's and had wings and the boys had crowns. We tried to get a picture of the little ones together, but Arden wouldn't sit with them; she kept taking off.

Last week she was cranky, had a low grade fever, diarrhea and 2 new teeth arrived! #D and #G.
This child loves to climb on anything. She is constantly moving and seems interested in how things work. She is very sensitive. If she thinks she did something wrong, she'll start crying. The other day, I dropped something and said, "uh oh" and she cried. At church, a friend was holding her, and Arden was playing with her necklace and it came undone, and apparently Arden thought she broke it, so she cried. She used to cry if someone sneezed. If I cry, she'll laugh.
We have a collection of pictures of family members and a couple of friends on the fridge and everyday we point out the people and say their names to Arden so when we received a picture invitation for Trey's birthday party, Derek put it on the fridge. There are only a couple of people she smiles when we show her, and everytime we show her Trey, she smiles. I guess she does remember him although we haven't gotten together as much as I'd like to.

(off to her castle she goes-it's nap time)

(about to stand up, then a leaf distracted her)
Arden has been standing up a lot on her own- like in the middle of the floor- with no help. The first time she did it was Oct 20. She got up and we just looked at her like "what the heck?!?!" and then she went down slowly and carefully and started clapping (did she seriously know she did something major!?!?) and of course we joined in. A few minutes later she stood up again and started dancing. Since that night she stands up a lot, but a lot of times she'll start to stand, but she'll get tickled and start laughing and can't concentrate to get all the way up. This past Sunday she was crawling down the hallway and stood up and started waving to a lady who was totally ignoring her and she just kept waving.....and waving.....she stood there a while then gave up.

Almost 3 weeks ago, Clarisa had a day off school so she came to hang out with us. We had to go to the grocery store first thing, and when we got home, I was pulling into the driveway and noticed a little bird in the way and It didn't look like it moved so I told Clarisa to get out to make sure the bird was gone so I could pull up. Well he wasn't and didn't move when she went right up to it. So I parked, got Arden in and fed her and put her to bed while Clarisa brought the groceries in. At this point she was pretty much freaking out worried sick about the bird. I had to do a couple of things, so I told her to research online about what we should do (we thought at this point he had a broken wing). I was doing my own research because I knew there was no way I could keep this bird and nurse him back to health. Lucky for me, I found a rescue group maybe 3 miles from my house!!! Their website also says that non-professionals should not try to rehabilitate a bird on their own because it would most likely not live. Birds need professionals. I was very excited to read this, because I figured they surely wouldn't just tell me what to do and make me keep the bird myself. I left a message with the group and went downstairs to tell Clarisa the great news. She met me at the bottom of the stairs with all the info she found about how to mend the broken wing. Luckily I got a call a few minutes later with info and directions to the rescue place. We waited for Arden to get up and I think it was pretty much agonizing for Clarisa. The lady did tell me to go ahead and put the bird in a box so a cat doesn't get him, but there was no way I was going to keep a poor bird in a box for TWO hours! I mean he could have a heart attack...couldn't he? I put Clarisa on bird watch.

Meanwhile the bird hopped over to the bird feeder and ate the seeds on the ground. We went out to take a picture of him, and when I got close, I mentioned his eyes didn't look quite right. They looked really dry and flaky.

GO TIME!

When I told Clarisa that we'd have to pick the bird up and put him in a box to transport him, she quickly volunteered. I wouldn't have been able to do it.
I gave her gloves and a washcloth to pick the bird up with and we put him in a cat carrier. The first attempt was unsuccessful because the bird could actually fly. A tiny bit. After a couple attempts, she got him and off we went.
The rescue center was really neat to see. There were a lot of birds there and one resident duck....not really sure exactly what kind of water fowl, but he was big, VERY friendly and VERY cute! And he is in love with one of the volunteers and follows her everywhere. He came out of the fence with her to say hi to us, we were able to pet him and when his 'girlfriend' went back in the fence, he got nervous because he didn't see her go back in. The other volunteer told him she went back in, and he poked his head around the gate, spotted her and ran in. He was precious. So they opened the door to our carrier to get our little bird out and he flew out....sorta. I think he really just ran out and fell to the ground. They caught him and said that he may have gotten stung on his wing which is why he could sorta fly but he had conjunctivitis which probably made it hard for him to fly because he couldn't see very well.
After all of that excitement, we went to the park. It was a very windy day.