A Year in Review

Here are Meredith's Monthly Pictures over the past year.  I did miss one month, so I picked out a good picture of her at around that time.  Wow, she has certainly changed from a funny looking and very fussy little newborn, to a cute and happy little girl!

One month old

Taken just after getting back from Mexico, she was unhappy and sick :(

Nine months old

Some of Meredith's 12 month happenings......


 - She is 21 lb 8 oz (57th percentile), 29 inches long (46th percentile) and her head is 45.1 cm around (50th percentile).  So she is right in the middle!


  - She's walking everywhere, barely crawls at all anymore.  She's getting pretty fast too.  She still falls over, but usually doesn't seem to phased by it.  Even when she knocks herself on something, a little hugging and she's ready to go again!


 - She's eating pretty well.  Now getting 3 solid meals a day and a snack also when she's at daycare.  We're down to 4 six ounce bottles.  She still doesn't want a whole lot to do with the sippy cup and we've tried about 7 different kinds.  We give it to her with every meal and snack, but she mostly just throws it onto the floor.  She does love her bottles now though - go figure!  I'm sure based on our past experience, she'll be quite slow adapting to sippy cups!  We'll just keep cutting out the bottles and pushing the sippy cups!


 - We're down to 2 naps a day.  They are both about 2 hours long.  It's kind of a vicious cycle because she takes a late afternoon nap (from 5 to 7pm) because her naps at daycare aren't that long and she's always tired when she gets home, then she goes to bed around 9 or 10pm!  Then she'll sleep in until 9 or 9:30 am and take her first nap from about 11am to 1pm and then not really want another nap until 4 or 5 pm!  It really doesn't bother me because with the late nap, she's a delight in the evening and just ends up playing and running around while we relax after dinner and plus I get to sleep in!


  - She says HI and Uh-oh, now and waves.  She signs bottle and more, though inconsistently.  She's starting to imitate us more, but really likes to babble and play on her own - she's very independent!


   - She definitely has curly hair.  She gets a bath every other day and with each nap she takes, her hair gets curlier and curlier.  Her hair is also still very red and she still has her blue eyes.  We think she's pretty darn cute!

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY MEREDITH!

  Well, it has now come and gone, our baby girl's first birthday!  I can't believe where we were just a year ago, so much has changed in our lives and with our little one.  We celebrated this momentous occasion with a party with 30ish of our closest family and friends.  It turned out to be descent weather and Meredith was in good spirits the whole time!  We want to thank everyone who was able to make it and also for all the thoughtful gifts.  I have to admit, I've been having fun with some of them too!

Meredith opening some presents

Everyone signing our two happy birthday songs to Meri

Not sure what to do with the cupcake yet

Trying her first handful

Deciding that it tastes pretty good

Really going for it now!

Meri after the party playing with one of her new toys, thanks Laeney, Finn and Brady!

Here's another one of Meri's new toys - our Burley.  It was a gift from Gma Stone (McCue), with a little contribution from her dad and I.  We took it out on our first bike ride a few weekends ago and ended up out and about for 2 hours!  It was so much fun for Jon and I, and Meredith seemed to like it too!  Here we are at Minnehaha Falls!

Meri had such a great time, she ended up falling asleep!

Here is Meri with her first B-day card from Great Aunt Carolyn and Great Uncle David

She liked the fun bow on the present too!

Thanks for the cute outfit and the 1st Bday Bib (which we totally used on her b-day)!

We had to take a picture because Meri gets SO mesmerized by Glee when they're singing and dancing.  She just stops and stares at the TV. Before and after the singing she's running around and playing, but as soon as they start to sing - she stops everything and watches!  She's even sitting in her toy box!

Here's another Glee song

We had a visit from our good friends Nicole and her daughter Paisley (they're only 3 weeks apart!)

   Here's daddy and Meri cuddling the kitty

A Visit to the State Fair

   The McCue family laid pretty low over the Labor Day weekend.  Jon was on call and busy 3 out of 5 days last week, so we were all pretty tired out.  Jon and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary at home with Meredith with great Cuban takeout and some bubbly.  Then on Saturday we all headed to the great Minnesota get together.  On Sunday we met up with my mom and step-dad for some brunch at Hell's Kitchen.  And today we're hanging out at home and doing some BBQing on the Green Egg.


  The State Fair was the main weekend activity and Meredith did great.  It took us a very long time to find a parking spot, next year we'll definitely do the Park and Ride thing.  It was a very busy day there, being a Saturday and having such great weather.  We first grabbed something to eat, then headed to the Butterfly house.  Meri didn't know what to do when a butterfly landed on her.  Then more food and off to the other animal barns.  Meri got to see and pet a horse.  Then cows, pigs, goats and sheep.  We also made it to the Birthing barn and saw baby piglets and to the Dairy barn for some malts and to see the butter scuptures.  Meri stayed up and happy the whole 5 hours and tasted all the food we had, pronto pup, cheese curds, chocolate covered bacon, and a malt!

Meredith's first encounter with a butterfly

Here, she didn't even know the thing was on her

Checking out MN's largest boar

Getting nice and close to this little piggy

Just some cute shots of Meri having fun at home

Meredith still loves her bouncy chair, she climbs in it to eat her bottles, but also just to sit, flip around or bounce

One of her new favorite activities, bouncing on her chair

11 months old and walking!

     Well, Meredith is well on her way to her first birthday (in less than a month)!  She's past the 11 month mark and already walking.  She started taking a step or two at the beginning of the month, but now - she's walking all over the place.  She still falls on her butt very frequently, in fact she has a little bruise on her right butt cheek :( , but she definitely prefers walking to crawling.  I know a lot of people say this is when the trouble begins, but I prefer it to crawling because it keeps her from eating absolutely everything she finds on the ground.  I'm sure, in the future, I will look back on the crawling phase and wish she was still there.

     Other than that we've been dealing with teething.  And I am wishing she was born with a full set of teeth.  I can deal with her crabbiness, screaming in the middle of the night, fevers and diarrhea - but my daycare doesn't want to.  I've been called to take her home on 3 occasions in the last month, all related to teething.  Twice for fevers and once for diarrhea (which ended up lasting a whole week!).  Thankfully, after discussing it with the manager at our daycare, she was able to come back the next day on all three occasions.  There policy is to send the kids home if the fever is greater than 101.3 and then they have to stay home until they are 24 hours fever free with no meds, or you can get a note from the doctor saying it's due to teething.  A visit to my doctor costs me $200 out of pocket until our $4000 deductible is met, so a visit to the doctor is not worth it.  But, as I said, I am just lucky that the manager at my daycare is reasonable, because I would've been out of work for almost two weeks if she hadn't been.  Meredith now has 4 teeth, so there are still many more to come.  I'm hoping she cuts the rest of her teeth on the weekends (ha, ha!)

     And just like every other Minnesotan, Jon and I are keeping busy this summer.  The first weekend in August we took Meredith down to Eagle Lake, just east of Mankato, to spend the night at my very best gal pal, Sheila's, home.  She has a 2 and a half year old son named Carson and it was so cute seeing him play with Meredith.  He was very good to her and seemed to like helping out and entertaining her.  I think he's ready for a little brother or sister.  Better start working on that Sheila!  We had a nice dinner on the grill, then we let the kids play in a wading pool (Meredith in her regular diaper that expanded to 100 times it's normal size, then we let her go naked).  Then, after the kiddos were tucked in, we enjoyed some nice cold beers out on their beautiful new deck!  My brother and sister-in-law every stopped over because they had just moved to Eagle Lake themselves!

     The next weekend we stayed home, but Jon and I had our first date with a non-family member babysitting for us.  We found a babysitter through Care.com and it worked out great.  Jon and I started by having drinks and an appetizer at the Bradstreet Crafthouse, which was excellent - I definitely want to go back.  Then we had dinner at Subo, which is a new restaurant in the hold Hell's Kitchen spot.  It was okay, but not fantastic (and we got our food so quick we were done in less than 30 minutes!).  So, it was still early so we went on to have a drink at La Belle Vie, but it was closed for a private party, so we settled on Bar Lurcat.  When we got home, the baby was in bed and everything was put in it's place!  It was a pleasant surprise, I half expected Meredith to be screaming and the house a mess!

     And this past weekend, Meredith and I headed to Blue Earth to see my family and to celebrate my nephew, and Godson's First Birthday.  Jon was on call all weekend, so he stayed back with the pets and worked hard.  But Meri and I had a great weekend seeing everyone.  It is amazing to see Brooks an Meredith together.  He is only one month older, but is enormous compared to her.  He is in 24 month clothes where Meri can still fit into 3-6 month pants, I call her my little peanut, midget baby!  Meredith had a lot of fun at my sister's house at Brooks' party.  There were a lot of kids running around and she just seems to love that.  She also had a lot of fun trying to climb my mom's basement stairs over and over again later that night.  It is always so nice to see and spend time with my family, I wish I could do it more often. 

     Jon is headed out today for a board review course in Chicago, so Meri and I will be alone until Saturday night.  So this weekend will be very low key and I am looking forward to that.  Then it's already Labor Day weekend, oh where has the summer gone......

Meredith 11 month Happenings.....

- As I mentioned before, the new thing is definitely the walking.  She is getting better at it everyday.  She seems so proud of herself and is smiling and giggling as she does it.

-Her naps are still the same as they've been for months.  Three naps a day still.  I have tried on a couple of occasions to go down to 2 naps, it can happen, but it makes for a very tiring day as she is much crabbier.  She just can't make it very long in the morning without needing a nap (like up at 7am, ready for a nap by 8:30am).  I have to admit her nap schedule works well for me too, I can nap again in the morning and get things done during her other naps.  When she's ready for just 2 naps a day, I'm sure it will become apparent.

-I do still swaddle her.  Once again, it works - so I am going to keep doing it until it doesn't.  I do swaddle one arm out so she can get her pacifier herself.  But the swaddle prevents her from getting around in her crib.  I know once she unswaddled, I'll be risking her climbing out, because she is a little monkey that climbs on EVERYTHING!

- She still is on 5 bottles a day.  I want to cut it down to 4 bottles, but there always seems to be something going on - teething, fever, diarrhea, etc - so I haven't braved it yet.  Plus she still hasn't gotten the hang of her sippy cup.  So, I may try to decrease the bottles, but I don't think they'll be gone for good untli she can get fluids from her sippy cup.  But really, I have no idea how to transition off bottles.  She definitlely has no emotional attachement to them, but she does not to well with change.....

-She is doing pretty well with solids.  I basically give her whatever we eat, just cut up small.  She always seems to try the food, but doesn't eat a lot in total.  She also gets breakfast and lunch at daycare and seems to be doing well there.  I just hope as the bottles decrease, she starts eating more solids (I'll cross my fingers).  Not that I should worry because she has a very good sized Budda belly!

-She is starting to interact more.  She claps, especially when you clap or say "YEAHHH!", she is starting to wave and learning to blow kisses, too!

The family out at our neighborhood block party for National Night Out

A night out with my good College gal pals

Down in Eagle Lake with my bestest high school gal, Sheila

Carson and Meredith had fun playing with each other

Meredith desperately wants to jump in with Carson

We finally let her in to the pool and then she ended up naked, having a good old time

Is it August already?

     Where has this summer gone, seriously.  They always go by so fast here in Minnesota.  Meredith has been doing really well and is getting closer and closer to walking.  She's cutting another tooth and so far seems to be doing well, except for some diarrhea which got her sent home from daycare today (luckily only an hour before my shift was done and I was able to convince them to take her back tomorrow)!  My hubby's still working as much as possible to get his surgery business off the ground, but has allowed me to do a few fun activities while he stayed with Meredith.  I went home to Blue Earth on a Wednesday night to watch the Johnny Holm's Band with some high school friends at the County Fair and saw most of my family too.  Then last weekend I went near Pequot Lakes to my friend, Nicole's cabin from Friday night until Sunday - it was a blast.  Here are a few pics from the past few weeks!

Me and my high school gal pals ripping it up on the dance floor after the Johnny Holm concert - so much fun!

Meredith's first time at the wading pool by our house.  It's a bit deep and she had to stand the whole time, but she had a good time.  It was also a bit cold, so her little lower lip was shivering - it was so cute!

Meredith helping me pack for my trip up North

Meri's 10 Months Old

Wow! This summer is really just flying by! Meredith is already 10 months old - and is as busy as ever and so much fun. We've had some fun filled busy weekends and some relaxed low key weekends, just like I like.

Over the 4th of July weekend we decided to have a few friends over for a BBQ, really an excuse for Jon to use his Big Green Egg! Jon smoked some beef brisket, I made a few salads and dips, we set up our inflatable kiddie and all enjoyed cool beverages as we sat outside and watched the kids splash around. It was a very fun afternoon and Meredith seemed to have a lot of fun, too. The next day we headed over to a friend's house for a pool party. Meri had a great time playing with their twin 14 month olds and 2 year old daughter and also had fun splashing in the pool. She actually stayed up and happy for 6 hours straight (with 10 minute nap on the way there). I was quite suprised, but it worked perfectly. We decided not to push it with fireworks and Jon and I instead tried to get a view of the Powderhorn Park fireworks just 10 blocks North of us. We saw a few through the trees in the distance while we listened for Meri on the monitor and sipped wine.

The following Friday I got a night off to hang out with a bunch of college friends. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it because Jon was on call. But Jon graciously offered to watch Meri, as long as I'd be immediately available if he had to go. I had intended on being home by 11pm and ended up out until 2am. It was just so great seeing everyone and we had a great time dancing and catching up.

The rest of the weekend we just hung out at home and it proved to be the start of a very long week. Meredith was just a bit off, a bit more fussy and not eating her bottles very well. I attributed it to teething and gave her Tylenol intermittently. She hadn't had a fever so I brought her to daycare on Monday and she apparently was fine all day, but when I picked her up, I could tell she had a fever. I stopped by Walgreen's on my way home to get more Tylenol and gave it to her in the car. About an hour later when I finally took her temp, she was 102.8 F. She took a nap, at a bit and went to bed mostly like normal - so I was hoping it was just a fluke until Meri woke up basically screaming at 5am. I fed her, and she ate a descent amount, but was still inconsolable. We checked her temp again, it was 103 F. So, I stayed home with her that day. She was lethargic and slept a lot, but by 11am her fever was down to 101.5. I called the Doctor's office anyway and they said I could certainly come in, or I could wait to see if she still had a fever in 24 hours. I had Wednesday off anyway, so I decided to wait. That next day her fever was down to 99.5 before meds, so I thought she was over whatever it was (she always has a snotty nose and cough, so it's hard to know if it's that or something else). She still wasn't eating that great, but seemed less fussy and her fever was reasonable as far as daycare goes, so we brought her in on Thursday only to get a call by 10:30am that she had a fever. Thankfully Jon was able to pick her up and brought her to the Doctor's office - I just couldn't keep missing work. They found she had a mild ear infection - almost not worth treating with antibiotics - but we said we wanted to treat her. I stayed home with her Friday and actually ended up going home to Blue Earth with her - as we had planned for a long time.

On Saturday we had our Pfaffinger family reunion at Gomsrud Park in Fairmont, MN - a park between two lakes. Meri was relatively happy - but still wasn't drinking bottles well. Jon was able to come down that morning - but it turned out he was getting a fever, too - so ended up sleeping on the ground most of the day. It was nice to see everyone, but with a sick husband and daughter and sitting in 90+ degrees all day - we were all exhausted by 6pm when we headed back to my mom's house. We all showered, ate (Meredith actually took her whole bottle!) and went to bed by 9pm.

The next morning, I fed Meredith (another whole bottle) and got her changed and Jon took her back to Mpls while I slept for a few more hours at my mom's and then headed back in my car - by myself!!! (It was awesome!!). And Meredith has been a cutie pie ever since. She's back to finishing her bottles and being a happy, smiley, giggly girl when she's up. And she seems to be sleeping better (she had spent all last week waking up screaming at 5am, glad to be done with that). I think the antibiotics have cleared her ear infection, her snotty nose and her cough and her top right tooth finally cut through the surface. Hopefully we'll get a break of healthy and happy girl now for awhile!

Here are some 10 month happenings with Meredith.....

- She's down to 5 bottles a day - no "dream" feed. It was waking her up and I found she would eat more during the day without it, plus I could go to bed earlier - if I wanted. When she's happy and healthy she's eating 5 to 7 oz at a time!

- We're still in the same place with solid foods - no fruits or veggies, but we keep trying new things and she does eat small pieces of meat (chicken and lamb this weekend) and other things I was suprised at (mediterranean cous cous). And we keep trying with the sippy cup. I think we're slowly getting there

- She still on the same nap/bedtime schedule: 3 naps a day, bedtime around 9pm and up at 7 or 7:30am on non-work days.

-She's now standing on her own for several seconds at a time and getting more brave with cruising from place to place. She can even climb up steps - oh boy!

-She's starting to imitate a little bit, mostly sounds - grunts, etc. She also started "kissing" me the other day - coming at me with her open mouth, it's SO cute

- She now has three teeth - her two bottom ones and the top right just broke through

And just a quick update on Jon. He is now finished with residency and is in solo private practice - meaning he is self-employeed with no partners, etc. He takes trauma call at North Memorial and any plastics trauma that comes in becomes his patient, his case and this is really the only way he operating right now. He's been relatively busy, mostly with hand trauma. Plus some of the other busier surgeons are passing some of their consults and patients to Jon because they're too busy to fit them in. It's very different and I know it will pay off, but it is also hard - since if Jon has a patient in the hospital during the weekend, he has to see them - which means it will be hard to get out of town for awhile. It's been a bit harder on me than I thought, because Jon is never truly off call, so therefore I am really always on call for Mereidth. I also lost my way to sleep in the on the weekends (Jon watched Meri so I could catch some extra zzzz's. We're still ironing on the details, so that I can keep my sanity and get time away too. But I am so proud of him and am so happy that he's finally done. He's doing a great job!

4th of July BBQ at our house

Meri floating in the pool at our friends, Nissrine and Florin's house

Hanging out and having a bit to eat (Veggie straws, a new favorite)

Out with Jen and Mindy at Brit's

Everyone on the dance floor, what a fun night

One way to entertain Meredith in the hot sun outdoors, a swing!