Conquering Everest

"Hm," thinks a certain small girl to herself. "I'd like to get up on top of that table. There must be a way."

"I know! I'll climb up on that chair, and then the world is my oyster."

Yep.

Sigh.

New Trick

It's not the greatest example, but R is a pretty darn good walker these days! She's been walking for about 2.5 weeks, and now walks to get from place to place. At first, she just walked to get to mama or dada. Just yesterday, she learned that she could bend over & pick things up, and has been very excited about carrying things around with her. Because she can, I guess!

R & her new sunglasses

Rob & Kelly gave her new sunglasses for her birthday. The joy is in the journey.

Teeth

We are not fans of teeth.
8 and counting;
it appears that she's starting on her first molar.

At 9 months of age.
A little ridiculous, no?

A Moment of Wow

I did the math, and she is 1-3 days shy of being out as long as she was in. Close enough.
Then (8 days old):

...and now

Moving

Happy birthday, of sorts! Little R has now been in the outside world longer than she gestated inside me...

We realized that R would be crawling if we had rugs in the house. Wood floors make friction difficult, and friction is critical for crawling. She gets up on her hands & knees, and then her little knees slide backwards until she's on her belly again. However, this is not preventing mobility. She is all over the place, all day long. She just had a little screaming fit because Dad would not let her push the button on the plug-in CO sensor. It would have made a loud, horrid noise that might have discouraged her from ever doing it again, but it might also have damaged her tender eardrums.

2 more teeth working their way through, and not painlessly. This will bring her grand total to 8. She may not be precocious in anything else, but my o' my is she very adept at growing teeth!

Conflict of interests

Being a mom seems to mean that I mourn the passing of each phase, each cute little habit - but at the same time, can't wait to see what's next.

Miscellaneous growing things

The deer ate our garden this year. R did a great job getting it beautiful, planted, weeded, and healthy, and then the deer ate it.

Green beans are, apparently, tenacious. You can see how high the deer could reach.

Pump that through Powerpoint.

I do not now, nor will I ever (if I have anything to say about it!) know what, "MD5 hash the result" means.

That is all.

Unreal

Everyone told me that it goes by so quickly.

Up until the last few weeks, I would say that things have been moving along at a comfortable pace. None of the unpleasant phases (such as not sleeping) lasted for too long, yet we feel like we've had plenty of time to enjoy each of the new, wonderful things that Baby Girl (BG) is doing.

Until she became mobile. The changes in her are significant, daily! One day, she's rolling over. The next, she's barrel-rolling around the house. The next, she's commando-crawling. The next, she's doing whatever is within her abilities to chase our Old Dog around the house (!) so that she can pull his toes & ears. Thankfully, he is a very tolerant dog.

She came out with "ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba" this past Tuesday. On wednesday, she said it all day long. Both times that she woke up Wednesday night, she looked up at me with her wide, bright eyes, and told me, "Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba". I told her, "No, BG, it's time to sleep." You can guess her response!

Where's my little girl?

3rd tooth is through, 3 more on the way quickly.

When I went in to check on her this morning, she was sleeping on her belly. On Her Belly. This is the child who, 3 weeks ago, fussed if left on her belly for too long. She's over that.

Now I just have to learn not to worry about her sleeping on her belly!

...keep them doggies rollin'...

I thought R was rolling over because she could flip from her front to her back and her back to her front. Now, I understand that "rolling over" means that I will find her on her belly when I go in the feed her in the middle of the night. It means that she will nurse while trying to roll over and to scoot along on her belly. It means that she will not, ever again, stay in the same place that I put her down. It means that we have to rearrange and R-proof our household, so that all those beautiful, tempting cords are hidden away.

It means that my Baby Girl is mobile, and very, very excited about it.

God help us!

New in her world...

The other day, R had Baby Girl on a blanket on the living room floor. He was running around washing up, feeding the dogs, etc. She had plenty of toys to play with. When he came back in, she had flipped herself onto her belly (she HATES being on her belly!), and was pulling herself, hand-over-hand up the vacuum cleaner cord towards the outlet.

She's sitting. In that drunken-baby sort of way, where she happily tips over and then smiles up at me, blinking.

Loves being outside. Lots of bug-bites.

Loves people. Very social.

Top teeth working on coming in, but taking their sweet time...they've been just below the surface for weeks. I'm starting to wonder if all 4 top incisors will come through at once?

Baby Girl has, for the most part, been an absolute JOY - full of laughter, smiles, giggles. She plays with everything!

We are teething.

We are officially cutting our first tooth. Either that, or We have a splinter in Our lower gums. Whatever the case, We are not happy about the state of affairs.

Tooth growing today;
Loud yells start in the morning.
Breaking through gums, ow.

Art project

We tried baby girl in the backpack. She likes it, but her head is still a bit too wobbly for any treks in the woods. We're guessing another couple of weeks at most. It will be a relief - the Bjorn is not comfortable for more than about a mile!

Why is it not comfortable? Because our daughter is a giantess! 15lbs. at 4 months, and 27 inches. Off the charts in length, but "a nice, lean, breastfed baby - very healthy". And heavy.

We're especially proud of our latest art project...

We plan to add more colors, and to do a run going up a wall and across the ceiling. Not sure how the logistics of that will work, since it's a wiggly process that requires the full attention of 2 people, and the more-or-less cooperation of a small 3rd person. Still, it's entertaining.

By the way - this is in Baby Girl's room. I think we'll have to do some in our room as well, since she will undoubtedly want to paint over them or wash them off some day. Her mother, on the other hand, is going to want to treasure them forever, and will occasionally look at them and get all teary-eyed when Baby Girl is a rebellious, difficult teenager.

FEET!

Just over a year ago, I found out I was pregnant. What a great birthday present. This year for my birthday, Baby Girl giggled as I was putting her to bed and tickling her with my ponytail. Life is pretty darn good.

Her latest trick is FEET. She loves, loves, loves her feet. When she half-wakes up in the middle of the night to eat, I look over and see her grabbing her feet, eyes closed. She did manage to get toes into her mouth this afternoon. Cute attack!

Nature Walk

We went for a nature walk the other day to capture some of the local flora on "film". We don't have a lot of flower landscaping, so we make due with what Mother Nature gives us in the woods nearby...a few pictures below, and more pictures here.

Joy

Someone small is in full control of her smiles & giggles these days.

It seemed like a dream...

Someone small fell asleep at 8:50 last night, and didn't wake up until 5. I was very confused when I woke up - did I feed her in the night? Did I put her back in the co-sleeper? I don't remember putting her back after feeding her...oh, wait...that's because she didn't eat during the night....??

Although we can complain about spitting up and other things, we cannot complain about her nighttime sleeping. She's a champ.

She is not, however, a champ about taking a bottle from her dad during the day while I'm working. Sigh. One thing at a time.

Mother's Day

It's hard to believe that she's 12 weeks old already...it doesn't seem fair that Mother's Day is the day before I go back to work. I'm not ready! However, we did have a sweet day, that ended with a hike. I am so blessed to be the mother of this child - she brings more richness and joy to life than I ever could have imagined!