Our little girl continues to melt our hearts with every new and cute little thing she does. She is a little ball of total sweetness and after this story we’re sure you’ll agree.

When Carly was a baby we’d sing her the “night night song” before bed each night. It’s a song we learned in swim class that we input the words “night, night” in to. It goes:

Night, Night Carly

Night, Night Carly

Night, Night Carly

It’s time to say Night, Night

It has probably been close to 6 or 7 months since this song has stopped being sung on a nightly basis but every once and awhile we’ll sing to Carly to calm her down on the changing pad before bed or just to put a smile on her face.

Fast forward to last night and the part that makes us smile from ear to ear…

Carly was hanging out in her new favorite spot…in front of the front door, with her best bud Frinkie (our cat). She had collected her blanket from her crib and had it draped over her lap and at different times draped over Frinkie as well.

Mommy and Daddy we going about our nightly duties when all of a sudden …

We hear Carly quietly singing to herself and Frinkie…

Night, Night Kitty

Night, Night Kitty

Night, Night Kitty

Something, Something Night

It was so cute and so precious.

Carly continued to sing the song over and over to Frinkie multiple times as Mommy and Daddy listened in…

 It’s the first time we’ve heard her sing, the first time we’d really known that something we sang 6 or 7 months ago she retained.

The sound of her whispering little voice singing to a little tune to her favorite little friend…a memory we’ll hold onto forever.

A child’s development is a crazy thing to watch. When you have a child you begin noticing and seeing changes everyday. Whether it’s noticing your child has grown a couple inches or is developing social skills it’s all so intriguing. Most recently we have been watching Carly mentally and intellectually develop.

It’s an amazing thing to see your child take their first steps and it’s equally as amazing to watch your child as the gears move around in their head as they REALLY begin to figure things out. When you can see in your child’s eyes they are really thinking about something and problem solving… how does this fit, how do these match… it fills you with a pure feeling of joy.

Most recently we’ve seen Carly’s gears turning when she does puzzles.

Since the age of 10 or 11 months Carly has enjoyed playing with puzzles. Playing with puzzles mostly consisted of moving a puzzle piece around on the board until it happen to fall into place or playing with the Melissa and Doug puzzles with the large knobs.

It has become just recently Carly has begun to actually look at the puzzle piece in her hand then glance down at the puzzle board as she tries to figure out where that piece should go and what it matches with. We have graduated from large knobs puzzles with large puzzle pieces to smaller puzzle pieces with little to no knobs and suggested ages of 2+ or 3+.

By no means are we calling our child is a genius we’re just saying watching her brain grow is an amazing experience.

Growth and development is even being seen in Carly in word/picture recognition. If you ask her to find you the picture of a cat in a book she’ll flip thru the pages until she finds the “kitty”. Or you can show her a picture of a fish and ask her what it is and she’ll yell “ish” aka “fish”.

Carly’s vocabulary continues to astonish us as well. We can no longer provide you with a list for words she can say because she can say a ton. In fact she’s beginning to put multiple words together. The other day at story time she looked at Allison and said “I sit there”.

We’re hoping the next stage of development is patience… we can stand not having our night full of flying toys and food, but we guess everything develops at it’s own pace.

Another area Carly is having a great time learning about is swimming. We have had her enrolled in swim classes since she was six months old on and off during the cooler months. Since her first swim class she has loved splashing around in the water and occasionally going under water. This past swim class we have really seen her make strides toward learning actual water skills. She kicks her feet in the water like a pro but has not yet begun “scooping” her hands… but we figure leg movement is the first step … aka treading water keeps you from sinking. She now shows no fear when it comes to throwing herself into the water, whether it be jumping of the edge from the standing or sitting position. She even had the chance to go off the diving board this session which she wasn’t a huge fan of while she was doing it, yet once she left the water she continued to point at the diving board and tell me “I did, I did”… like everything else that’s new it takes a few tries to get comfortable doing it.

For now those are all the big changes we have to update on and know more changes and growths in development will be ready to report on next journal entry.  

If you ever watch TBS you’ve probably seen the Family Guy commercial where Stewy says to Lois “Mum, Mummy, Momma, Mum, Mummy, Momma…” well that’s what you hear echoing thru our house as well. Dada may have been Carly’s first word but we hear Mamma so much it’s more than made up for it.

Carly vocabulary is changing daily and she can say tons of words, she’s like a little parrot.  She’s mastered saying a lot of colors: blue, purple, red, green and yellow (which was the answer to the trivia question). New words she can also say: poopie, more, Christmas tree (c-tee), Elmo (mel-mo), Grover (grova), Big Bird (bi-bird), sit (sounds a lot like the other word), b-boot (baby boost which are her baby music videos), baby, ducky and well the list could go on and on. But most recently she has begun putting words together such as “all done”, “I sit” and “I walk”.

Carly has learned many of her body parts, some of which she’s known for quiet some time and some new ones as well… arms, teeth and tongue are the most recent ones. They are all cute in there own way, with arms she likes to cross them while she points and with teeth she likes to smile as big as can be and point at her pearly whites.

Brushing her teeth has become her favorite part of bath time. She tries to rush out of the tub as quick as she can so she can brush her teeth with her Elmo toothbrush. Some days we haven’t even soaped up yet when she starts telling us “all done, all done” and picking up her toys.

She’s also a great little helper around the house. She does a great job picking up after herself, putting her blocks away, placing her toys back in the toy basket, cleaning her tray with a wipe when she’s gone eating and the funniest of them all… doing her laundry. Yes… she does laundry at the age of 17 months and its so cute! For some time now you can tell her to put her dirty clothes in her hamper and she’ll go right to the hamper lift off the top and put her clothes inside and slip the cover back on. Then this progressed into doing laundry. She pushes her laundry basket across her bedroom floor, thru the hall, across the living, thru the kitchen into the laundry area. She then continues to pull all her laundry out and stuff it into the washing machine (front loaders make this task possible), she then spins the dials (which we then have to reset to the proper settings), shuts the soap tray and pushes start. She attempts to load the dryer as well but since the washer and dryer are stacked … her height stops her from that part of laundry.

Carly is loving the snow. She’s been outside to play every chance we get. She’s made snowmen, gone sledding and participated in snowball fights. We’re also lucky that at Allison’s house they get outside for walks on every nice day so Carly is getting plenty of fresh air.

We have enrolled in another session of swim class at Hampshire Hills and Carly still loves swimming and being around all the other kids. The biggest difference between last session and this session is Carly’s un-willingness to jump into the pool. Last session she’d jump on in as long as Mommy was there to catch her but this session she attempts to run away from the pool when she’s standing on the edge or she become little miss nosey and wants to watch the other kids instead of participating on her own, but as long as she’s having fun that’s all we care about.

Thankfully the tantrum throwing as stopped for the most part but the time outs have begun. Listening isn’t something Carly always does well. We understand she’s only 17 months but we feel she’s old enough to listen after all she understands when you ask her to “Please pick up your toys” so she should understand “Please don’t throw your food” or Please don’t throw your toys”. Throwing her toys is the biggest issue of them all; our girl should be a pitcher because she’s got quiet the arm on her. When toys are thrown we nicely ask her to go pick them up or go with her to help pick them up however there are times after we pick up the thrown toys that Carly decides to throw them again which is usually when we offer her a time out or take the toys away for a bit. Time outs don’t last an unreasonable amount of time after all like we said she’s only 17 months. Typically the length of a time out is 1 minute. Some may sound we sound strict to give her time out but the fact of the mater is we don’t want our child to be wild and out of control and we want her to understand the difference between right and wrong… and hopefully our methods are teaching her that.

Since the last journal entry Carly has some big announcements to make to those who follow her life….she’s going to be/ is the big cousin in both families. On Feb 15^thCarly became the big cousin to Desmond Jack Cawley Salamone (John’s Cousin Tony and Sarah’s child) and in May Carly will be a big cousin to a baby boy and Cousin Gilly will be a big sister. The families are growing and she’s not the baby any more… now she’s the big girl… or as Great Grandpa Salamone says “She’s got competition” or as Daddy says “She’s old news”.  

We’ll leave you all with that happy new!! Until next time!

The terrible two’s have come early and Carly is now a professional tantrum thrower. Her form is good and makes use of her whole body from kicking her arms and legs to screaming at the top of her lungs. Anytime the word “NO” is used or something she’s not suppose to have is taken away from her the tantrums start.

Her tantrums are both frustrating and comical, they can be about absolutely nothing at all, or should I phrase it as something that seems small to us… but in Carly’s eyes a big deal to her. Depending on the day it could be the cat looking at her funny or coming into her Carly bubble that could set her off into a tantrum and leads to scream that are ear piercing and limbs that suddenly can reach everywhere while they are getting flopped around… they’re kind of like “Go-Go Gadget Arms”.

The tantrums started soon after the walking began and she started getting into everything. Though our home is pretty baby proofed there are some things that can’t be locked off. For example one of Carly’s favorite places to try to stick her hands is in the diaper pail… yep GROSS! She likes to try to play with the handle and send her toys into diaper land. We nicely take her hand and try to lead to her another activity or get down to eye level with her and tell her “NO-dirty” but often these attempts are followed by tears and tantrums.

In the comfort of our home we let the tantrums fly and try not to fall for the “give me what I want or I’ll scream” thought process of Carly. We let her go at it, as long as she’s in a safe place where noting can fall on her and she can’t hurt her flailing limbs on anything.

We have been told by Carly’s doctor we are handing the tantrums the correct way. To let her go at it and that a tantrum should last as many minutes long as years the child is old.  . Some days the minutes feel like hours but we stand our ground to show her we’re the ones in charge. This is one of the hardest things to deal with, you just want to scoop your baby up and give her what ever she wants to stop the screaming and make her smile again. But we must remember that she needs to learn screaming to get what you want does not work and will not work.

This like everything we know will pass, we’re just hoping that since it’s starting sooner it will end sooner. To think this stage could last another handful of months is not a happy thought but it comes with the territory of being parents so like we do with all the challenges we’re discovering, we’ll make the best of it and have some good stories to remind Carly of as she gets older.

Fall has come and we’re making the most of it before the snow begins. We’re spending as much time possible outside making sure Carly’s lungs get full of fresh air before we bunker down for the winter and cold season.

This past weekend we took Carly to Parlee Farms in Tyngsboro, MA to go pumpkin picking. This place was awesome, close to home and Carly had a great time. We moseyed thru the pumpkin patch trying to find our perfect pumpkins with Carly walking next to us when we glanced down to see Carly had already selected the pumpkin she wanted and was carrying it along with her. We’re guessing she saw this one and thought “Yep that’s about my size” and decided to snatch it up so she would lose it amongst the larger pumpkins. What can we say we have a girl who knows what she wants!

We also did a little apple picking at Parlee Farms since Carly had so much fun apple picking a few weeks ago with Grandma Walsh.  This trip apple picking Carly got to go on a hayride up into the orchard where she rode next to Daddy on her own barrel of hay. Carly made sure she sampled every kind of apple before we put it in our bag to guarantee it was tasty.

Sunday we spent our day in Salisbury, MA at a very nice house on the beach with Auntie Donna, Uncle Tony and cousin’s Tony, Sarah, Jaclyn and baby-to-be Salamone in Sarah’s belly. The weather was beautiful and this was Carly’s first chance to really play in the sand and walk on the beach. She was a little afraid of the waves but loved seeing the horses and dogs walk the beach and kept nice and warm near the fire pit as she flung sand in her mommies face. We hoped the sea air would tucker Carly out and give us a good night sleep but no such luck.

Moving along to one of the most important parts of the update… Carly is a full fledge walking machine. We knew that once the first few steps were taken there would be no stopping this girl, we have learned already that when Carly puts her mind to learning something she is going to accomplish that goal. Within a week of taking her first steps she now walks about 95% of the time and crawls only when she’s tired or wants to get some place really fast. She loves running around the kitchen trying to catch Daddy as they play peek-a-boo and has officially become the cat’s worst nightmare.

Carly’s little noggin is growing as well; she continues to amaze up everyday with the information her little brain can obtain. Recently we started working on learning body parts, for a while now she has known: hair, belly, belly button and feet. She now knows: leg, nose and mouth as well… but we warn you don’t ask her to show you her nose because often she inserts her finger into her nose to point to it (gross but cute). The peak-a-boo baby books have been a great teacher for body parts and also serve as amusement for Carly as she cracks up laughing at the page of the baby showing her belly button.

She also is going a great job with shapes. We often work with her using her puzzles and barn set to learn different shapes and where they go and she learning very quickly. With her shapes puzzle she’ll put the shape where it belongs but has a hard time getting the shape turned in the correct direction, so she’ll lay all the pieces where they go and then we’ll work together to get them to fit tightly in their spot.

Her understanding of things going on or things you ask her to do greatly impresses us as well. At bath time you can tell her its time to pick up her toys and she’ll quickly gather her ducks and place them in her mesh bag or you can ask her to help you put her clothes in the hamper and she’ll get one item at a time and place it in the hamper… no if we could only teach her don’t play with the diaper pale life would be wonderful.

Now onto the part were taking suggestions on… getting Carly to sleep thru the night! Once upon a time sleeping thru the night happened almost nightly. She would place her head down at night and wouldn’t make a peep until we woke her in the morning…those were the days! We also went thru a stage where she would wake briefly in the middle of the might for a pacifier but once one was given to her she was out like a light again and many other sleeping stages in between these. .

We’re now at the stage where Carly wakes up like she did when she was a newborn… ugh… and were not sure why.  Most recently she has been waking on a good night… two times... on a bad night… four times... she wants to be held and snuggled until she pasted out enough to slip her back into her crib which can last up to 2 hrs at a time. We have tried letting her cry… she just screams harder and hyperventilates, we have tired patting her bum and rubbing her back and still she screams. So if anyone and everyone wants to offer up suggestions PLEASE send them our way. They will be greatly appreciated.

The Salamone house has pretty a pretty eventful place this last month. The journal entries and pictures have been few and far between because… well… Carly is constantly on the go…which means mommy and daddy are constantly on the go! The second the camera comes out Carly is moving again and that photo opt moment is gone… leaving behind the BLUR which is Carly.

The most exciting news we have to share was best said by ZZ Top…. “She’s got legs; she knows how to use them.”

Carly has started the walking process of taking her first steps and were sure she’ll be running any day now! Her first steps were on Sunday afternoon and by Tuesday night she had graduated from 2 steps in a row to 4-5 steps in a row before loosing her balance.

We have to say these first few days of watching Carly take steps have been some of the most exciting days of being parents and the joy we have felt during these first 4-5 consecutive steps are indescribable. When Carly first rolled over we were excited, when she first began to crawl we were thrilled but none of that is comparable to watching your child start to walk.

Carly’s other big step toward becoming a big girl is she’s off the bottle and onto sippy cups. This transition has taken about a month to do, every few days attempting to give her milk in a sippy cup and her throwing it on the ground looking at us like… “Thanks but no thanks, where’s my baba”, until finally one morning she couldn’t get enough of the sippy cup and we haven’t looked back since.

Eating big girl food is another giant step forward this month for Carly. For those of you who get to enjoy some of the daily Carly stories you know that this transition has been a hard one. For months we’ve attempted to give her “big people food” and she would take a bit then throw-up everywhere. We believe it was the change in texture and the GERD which were working against us but now 95% of that is in the past.

This past month along with Allison’s help (Carly’s sitter) we have gotten Carly pretty much off baby food and into trying most of everything. Baby food has become more of a filler (Carly has a huge appetite) and to make sure she’s getting enough fruits and veggies in her daily intake.  

A small list of some of Carly’s favorite big girl foods:

PB&J sandwiches (peanut free peanut butter)

Grilled Cheese

Pancakes and French toast sticks

Nilla Wafers

Graham Crackers

French Fries

Pasta…. Her absolute favorite

Cream of Wheat

Green Beans, Corn, Carrots and Peas

Bananas

Mac and Cheese

What we have learned she is not a huge fan of is meat, especially anything that comes in the Gerber pre-made meals. We can get her to eat meat if it’s off our plate at dinner time. The key phrase here is “off our plates”; if you put the meat on her tray while she eats in her high chair she wants nothing to do with it.

Meats off our plates that she does seem to enjoy are: steak, chicken and turkey bacon.

Her vocabulary is steadily growing too. Carly can now say book, bowl and shoe along with the typical Kit-Cat, Momma, Dada, and Baba. She says dog too but in an un-writable way. We are working on the word "Please" since she has "Thank You"  master and manners are imporant. And we can't forget that she says "I Love You", which we love to hear. But by far the cutest is when she yells “DOWN” for touchdown and throws her arms up in the air signaling touchdown.

We have also entered into the “what’s that” stage. Carly is constantly extending her little pointer finger at EVERYTHING and asking “dat” as in “what’s that”. Her favorite discovery of learning what “dat” is so far has been airplanes… lucky for Carly we live near the aviation school so planes are constantly flying over us and our nightly walks are full of plane watching.

And let us not to forget to add in this update the fact that our little girl has got MOVES… as in dancing moves. Girlfriend shakes her butt, bops her head and gets her arms going whenever a good tune comes on… it’s a riot and it brings us nearly to tears of laughter. Currently her favorite tunes include: Black Eye Pea’s – I’ve Got A Feeling, Taylor Swift – You Belong To Me, the Dragon Tails Theme song, Cobra Starship – Good Girls Gone Bad and the Wheels on the Bus. She is also learning the hand motions to Itsy Bitsy Spider and has mastered the “out comes the sun” part.

Mommy and Daddy also want to add in a BIG THANK YOU to Nana and Grandpa Frink for taking care of Carly this past weekend so we could enjoy and night out with friends that consisted of a great night of tailgating, bean bag tossing and an amazing U2 concert. So Thank You!

This upcoming weekend were looking forward to Grandma Walsh coming to visit from North Carolina and taking Carly apple picking for the first time, a trip to the flea market… and maybe another night out for mommy and daddy!

Tooting, farting or passing gas, which ever you may call it is in fact a natural thing your body does.

When a baby toots its cute and funny, when an elderly person passes gas it’s just something they can’t control any more and when a teenager farts it’s gross and rude.

But the question we bring to you is… when does a child develop a sense of humor about tooting? And at what age do you teach in our case our little girl that:

1. Girls don’t toot
2. It’s not something to giggle about when you toot or someone else toots.

Is this sense of humor something they learn at home… in our case we’ll say NO. Is it something they learn at daycare… could be a group of little kids all with gas…one laughs so they all laugh and bring that home with them…maybe. Or it is just something they develop on their own… who knows.

What we do know is that some time with in the last month Carly has developed this tooting sense of humor. Any time a little squeak comes from between those cheeks our little girl she lets out a burst of laughter. Often it is this new devilish laugh she produces. She looks around to see who is paying attention to this fascinating noise she has made and wants to make sure you know she thinks it funny… and of course in her mind the funniest times she does this is when she’s diaper free.

Though we don’t correct her for tooting and laughing and often laugh along with her (you have to admit it’s kind of cute that she laughs at herself) this sense of humor pretty much developed overnight as do many of the new things she’s learning.

Were hoping it’s a passing phase… the laughing part at least as we know the other can not be controlled at time.

We guess for now we’ll just let her laughing because at 13 months there isn’t much more one can do. And we’ll just hope by the time she reaches grade school age were not getting a call from her teaching telling us that Carly is causing trouble by tooting and laughing in class.

Milestones are a very important thing to document. They are important in a babies learning process and most importantly fun to watch as a parent. We think it’s safe to assume that every parent and even grandparent truly enjoy watching a child discover, learn and do new things for the first time.

We have attempted to document many of Carly’s milestone in the “fun facts” section of the website but truth be told with so many new milestones or cute things happening so quickly and closely together it hard to document them all and remember what day or what month she started doing something new on.

So in an attempt to document these new things were dedicating this journal entry to fun, cute facts and milestones

Here is the list of things Carly has started doing in the past few months.

• Gives high fives
• Blows kisses
• Says “thank you”, “I love you” and “shoe” very clearly
• Pulls herself up on EVERY thing
• Walks holding on to things (couch, coffee table or peoples hands)
• Eats big people food (pasta, cheese, turkey, crackers)
• Blows raspberries
• Tickles people
• Pats your back when you give her a hug
• Puts her finger to her mouth when she says “sssshhh”
• Points at everything wanting to know what it is
• Puts up her pointer finger when you ask her how old she is, indicating she’s 1
• Makes elephant noises with her lips and uses her arm like a trunk (thank you Wiggles song and Allison for that!)
• Mimics actions (if you rub your hands together she’ll rub her hands together)
• Puts her hands up to her cheeks when you say “oh no”
• Drinks Soy milk rather than formula

Those are the major ones that come to the front of our minds, but we will continue to update this list as we think of more… so check back.