Mira's First Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is definitely an awesome holiday. I love spending time with my family and taking the time to visit and relax, and of course eat. I love food - I just don't understand how anorexics do it. Which is why I'm not an anorexic. But I really enjoy Thanksgiving because it's a nondenominational holiday with the purpose of taking time to reflect on your life and how much we have to be thankful for. Our society is a lot about finding what you don't have and then trying to go out and get the newest and coolest - but when you slow down and really take a look at your life, it's amazing how much you actually do have. At the very least, I am SO thankful that my whole family and I are healthy (courtesy of the PICU).

I took Mira to my mom's for dinner with my family on Thanksgiving. Mira loved the food - this was a really good age for her to have a first Thanksgiving because she's old enough to sample most of the food. Sadly she didn't get to try out the turkey this year as I felt she needs more than 2 bottom teeth to attempt chewing meat. But she got to try some homemade bread, squash, roasted potatoes, stuffing, cooked apples, cranberry sauce, and of course pumpkin pie. She wasn't a huge fan of the squash, even when we put salt and butter in it, but she enjoyed everything else and just LOVED the cranberry sauce - and it was the homemade kind so it was pretty tart too. I was surprised by that. And she ate about half a slice of pumpkin pie just by herself. She was having a grand old time, grabbing handfuls of food with both hands and cramming everything in her mouth as fast as she could. I'm learning I need to space out the food I give her because she's made herself gag a few times by putting too much in her mouth if she's eating something she really loves.

Here are a couple of videos from Thanksgiving. The first one is my dad having some fun with Mira, and the second one is how she reacted when trying out cranberry sauce.

I wasn't able to capture this on camera, but when we got started with dinner I put a burp cloth on Mira's lap to try to protect her dress, and she grabbed it and started playing Peek-A-Boo with it! She held it up over her face and waited for me to say, "Where's Mira??" She lowered the cloth and laughed and laughed. And she did it over and over again and got so excited she sped it up so eventually she didn't wait long enough for us to say, "Where's Mira?" but she had the right concept. She's quiet when her face is behind the cloth and after she lowers it she laughs. She started doing it a few days ago - add that to the list of cute things she does that I need to attempt to catch on camera.

And of course we have some more picture overload. I've decided she's a very photogenic baby and she just can't take a bad picture, therefore it's impossible to narrow down the number of pictures I post on here because they're all just so adorable!

With Grandpa

Playing with Auntie Sara's necklace. I love this picture.

With Mommy

That food didn't stand a chance...

Apples are yummy!

I love this expression. I think she's really taking the time to savor the flavor.

It was a great holiday, especially since my little sister Penny was able to be with us! Penny is going to school in L.A. and originally we were thinking she wouldn't be able to come down for the holiday but at the last minute my dad was able to get plane tickets for her. So that was very nice.

Here are some more random pictures of Mira - again in her high chair, I don't know why some of her best moments are when she's eating but there you go.

Attempting to feed herself some yogurt. She wants to try to spoon-feed herself but it doesn't usually end well for the high chair. But she does have this cute habit of holding stuff just with her mouth.

Her chipmunk cheeks after stuffing her mouth full of watermelon.

Interestingly, she does chew with her mouth closed... for now.

I should mention that watermelon is one of her new very favorite foods. This is definitely one of those foods that I have to space out or else she'd cram her mouth so full she'd gag herself. So far there are only a few foods that she doesn't like, so I consider myself lucky! It probably won't last (I understand little children tend to be picky eaters) but it sure is nice to know I can just toss some cut up food on her tray and she'll love it.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I suppose now I need to stop being in denial and just accept the fact that Christmas is the next holiday...

Big Steps

How is it that my baby is 9 months old already?? Crazy! It occurred to me that Mira has now been out in the world for about the same amount of time she spent growing inside me. As far as a fetus/baby is concerned, 9 months involves so much change! Nine months ago Mira couldn't even turn her head the way she wanted to, now she can do stuff like this:

I'm still trying to get a good video of her dancing. She'll be jamming it up and as soon as I get the camera going she stops and gets distracted with something else. Don't worry, I'll get a video! It's so cute to watch her bounce up and down (if she's standing she'll go up on her tip-toes) and she'll even put her hand up in the air and do a "raise the roof" type move. And she dances to pretty much any type of music she hears - whether it's on TV, while we're walking through a grocery store, one of her musical toys, from my iPod - she loves dancing! I think we've got a little dancer on our hands.

Yummy

Cutest little penguin butt ever

She pulls herself to a standing position like it's no big deal now and cruises around. She can even stand unsupported! That really freaks me out - it doesn't seem like babies should be allowed to stand on their own before they turn 9 months old. She could do it for 5-10 seconds at a time but then she fell forward onto her face on the hardwood floor and ever since then she hasn't wanted to do it as much. But she's definitely capable! She can crawl super fast too - and navigate around the barricades we have set up in front of the stairs in an attempt to keep her from climbing them. I suspect she does it just to get attention from us because she'll only get up on the first step and then turn and grin at us.

Why can't grown ups have car seats like this?

After months of procrastinating, we finally moved her to the big girl car seat! I kept putting it off because I didn't want to admit my little baby was big enough to outgrow anything but considering her feet were dangling off the edge of the infant car seat and her head was at the top of the head rest... it had to happen. Her new car seat seems so nice too. Plus it has a cup holder. :)

For the most part we've had a really mellow season so far (highs in the 50s some days, the grass in our yard is still alive and there are still lots of trees with leaves on them) but we did have one day with a few inches of snow. I put her in a snowsuit and set her down in the yard to see what she thought. She was not very impressed.

Seriously, why couldn't we have stayed inside where it's warm?

I'm so excited for Thanksgiving tomorrow! Thanksgiving is probably in my top 3 favorite holidays. Mira's diet has expanded enough I think she'll be able to try most food at dinner. She still only has her 2 bottom teeth so I'm not sure if turkey will be on her menu but she'll be able to eat plenty of veggies and, most importantly, dessert. I can't wait to see what she does with some pumpkin pie.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Halloween!

Halloween is such an awesome holiday! As I said before, we go all out with our yard for Halloween. It's better than Christmas (frankly, Christmas is not a highly anticipated holiday for Mark or me because of the stress involved - it's become way too commercialized). But Halloween is awesome because you can dress up in crazy costumes and scare the pants off people - and it's socially acceptable!

I had the hardest time figuring out how to dress up Mira for Halloween. I think it was hard because she doesn't care - she's too young for trick-or-treating, so there wasn't a lot of incentive to get her all fixed up. I finally just accepted a hand-me-down costume from a friend and called it good. Plus, I remembered at the last moment that my mom gave me a cute little "scrubs" set at a baby shower so I stuck Mira in that one too. So we got some cute pictures:

Cute little ladybug!

I don't know why my parents set me up here, but whatever...

The zombie isn't nearly as fun as this bone.

Maybe this is what she'll be when she grows up...?

We can totally reattach this hand...

Of course who cares about a hand when there are leaves?

I didn't get a video of our yard this year but I took one last year and everything is pretty similar this year so here they are. It's hard to see what's going on with the nighttime one on the video (it's more obvious in person) but if you watch the daylight one first you can kinda get an idea of what's there.

And yes, Mark did all of this himself. He missed his calling.

Well, now for some more Mira picture overload:

Napping on the couch

Gotta love that smile!

She just keeps learning and learning! It's amazing to watch the lights go on in her head as she figures stuff out - and then she's so proud of herself! She crawls really fast now, but every few paces she'll stop and sit, survey her surroundings as if making sure she doesn't have a more interesting place to go explore, crawl a few more paces, stop and sit and look around, and so on. She's always on the go, until The Simpsons comes on TV and then she comes to a complete standstill and stares at the screen. That just proves she's our daughter. (In hindsight, a really cute Halloween costume for her would have been Maggie Simpson... oh well, maybe next year.) She is really good at pulling herself to a standing position and a lot of the time she'll only hold on with one hand (and then grin really big at you to make sure you've noticed how grown up she is). And she's starting to balance so well that sometimes she forgets to hold onto anything at all and she'll stand on her own, completely unsupported, for a few seconds! (Someone please tell me an 8 month old will normally do that!) She's starting to "dance" to music - she just bobs herself up and down but it's about the cutest thing I've ever seen! I'll try to get a video for my next post. Oh yeah, did I mention that she discovered the stairs and actually climbed them???????? First time she'd ever noticed the stairs goes completely not the way I pictured. I saw her pull herself up to standing using the top step and then stop, and I figured that would be it - I mean, those stairs look really daunting when you're little! She stood there for a second, moved her hands to the next step up, got her knees on the first step... moved her hands up a step... got her knees on the next step... It looked like she'd climbed those stairs a dozen times already! She got a little over halfway up and then got distracted looking over the banister at something and started to slip - luckily I was right behind her. But she wasn't scared at all, she wanted to go right back and try it again. Later on that night when I was at work she apparently zipped all the way up to the top of the stairs (and was halfway up by the time Mark could get over to her) and then figured out how to push open the door to the bathroom! Unbelievable what this girl does, I swear. Mark and I have called her a determined over-achiever (and one of us always adds in, "Just like her mom," because if you want 2 words to describe me, there they are).

I've put off writing about this because I wanted to make sure, but I'm pleased to announce (drumroll please) that Mira is sleeping through the night again! Yay!! That was a rough few months there. But her sleep schedule is different now. Before, I would keep her up until 10 or 11 at night, she'd sleep 8 or 9 hours, nap in the morning (pretty much right after she woke up so she really wasn't up for the day until 10 AM or so), then nap in the afternoon. Now she's asleep before 9 PM usually, and with very few exceptions doesn't wake up until 8 AM. Which is great, but she will not nap in the morning anymore (so it's going to be rough after night shifts now unless I have someone to watch her for a couple more hours), and she will have a 1-2 hour early afternoon nap. Well, I'll take it. She still has a few days here and there where she'll wake up around the time I go to bed (midnight-ish) but it's better than waking up every couple hours at night!

Her babbling has really taken off too. So many cute noises and sounds to figure out! I just love this babbling stage. She still says "mamamamama" but doesn't associate it with me yet. But she is saying "dadadada" now! So that's nice for Mark but he still feels left out because she cries when I leave the room but not when he leaves the room. I still say she'll be a daddy's girl before too long, and then I'll be able to get some stuff done! :) Here's a video of her babbling - for some reason she's the most talkative during mealtime.

I Win :)

Watch the video and then the title will make sense. :)

I know, I shouldn't gloat, but even though Mira doesn't know what she's saying, I can still say that I was her first word! It is pretty cool, especially since from really early on Mark would hold her and chant "Dadadadadadadada" to her to try and "influence" her. She's really getting into this babbling thing and it is so cute! I do feel kinda bad for Mark though - he feels left out and keeps saying things like he wishes Mira loved him as much as she loves me. Mira has turned out to be such a mama's girl. When I walk into the room she gets a huge grin on her face and flaps her arms up and down, and when I walk out of the room she cries. I thought Mira would be more of a daddy's girl (and I think if we give her some more time she will be) but right now Mark isn't any more exciting to her than the next person. My mom keeps telling me to enjoy it while I can and that when Mira decides she prefers someone else over me my feelings will be hurt and I'll be jealous. I can see how that would be true, and I have to keep reminding myself to enjoy being the center of her universe and appreciate being able to solve all of a person's troubles just by being there (because that sure won't last forever), but honestly... I have times when I really wish Mira would want her dad more than me so I can have some time to myself!! I love Mira to death, don't get me wrong, and I love spending time with her and cuddling her and everything... but really, sometimes I feel like I would give my arm to have her prefer someone else for just a few hours. Is that awful? (Actually, no, it's not, because I've talked to MANY mothers who feel the same way.)

 

Well, I guess it's time for another update. Have I really not updated this all month? Holy cow. Well, I have a pretty good excuse. Mira came down with her first illness a few weeks ago. :( I should feel pretty proud of myself that I was able to go 7 1/2 months before she came down with something - and luckily, it hasn't been too bad. I think what she had was a sore throat - she had a few days where she was acting lethargic and wasn't as playful and interactive and her voice was really hoarse and raspy. Of course the PICU nurse part of me started freaking out ("Oh my gosh she has croup she has epiglottitis she has RSV she's going to obstruct her airway aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh") but of course she was fine. She was still able to eat and drink okay and had plenty of wet diapers and her fontanel never got depressed (yep, I know too much). So she was just getting back to normal and then it hit again - now she's had a runny nose for over a week but she's still acting like herself. She's playing and babbling and doing all the things she normally does, just snotty. Well, I can handle that. However, I started feeling sick a week ago and every day since then I've felt a little bit worse. Yesterday was the first day I woke up and thought, "Hey, I actually feel somewhat less crummy today!" (So of course I screw things up and go to work - not my brightest idea.) I don't know what strain of killer cold this was but it's been brutal! And it's almost impossible to take care of yourself when you have a baby that's demanding your time and attention. The silver lining is I'm sicker than she is - I would much rather take the brunt of it. It's been a challenge to try to make sure she doesn't get sicker though - I've been trying to not breathe on her and avoid getting close to her... yeah that hasn't been going so well since most of the time she's not happy unless she's attached to my torso. But fingers crossed, I've been keeping up with nursing and giving her those antibodies.

Practicing her yoga poses

Textbook Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward dog pose)

And in the middle of all this illness crap, Mark goes and gives himself a head injury. I keep teasing him that he's the most accident-prone person I know and here's another example I can use against him. At least once a year he ends up in the emergency room from a self-inflicted injury. We do our yard up really fancy every year for Halloween, and part of it is a fence that is only up for the month. So Mark was pounding a metal stake into the ground with a metal ... I'm not sure what it's called but its purpose is to pound metal stakes into the ground. Anyway, it came down on his head. He lost consciousness for a moment and was a little disoriented and nauseous - yes, I freaked out. His head really didn't bleed that much, surprisingly. The doctors said there was only a little bit of bleeding in his brain but not to worry, it's only a concussion and he should be fine. Yeah, like that's supposed to be reassuring to an ICU nurse who sees massive head traumas all the time. But he really is fine, just a helluva headache on the right side of his head and stiff neck and shoulders (he actually gave himself whiplash), and 10 stitches. Last year his ER visit was from a mountain biking accident, and the year before that he sliced his leg open working with sheet metal. I'm about ready to tell Mark he needs to wear a helmet and a suit made of bubble wrap before he's allowed to leave the house! He was supposed to go back into the ER or Instacare today to get the stitches removed but we both figured it was faster and easier for me to remove them myself. One of the many benefits of living with a nurse. :)

Too bad his hair will cover this up.

Being sick has not slowed Mira down at all. She's crawling like a champ now! Her arms look a bit like she's doing the goose step when she crawls because she keeps her elbows straight and lifts them way out in front of her, but she gets the job done. She kinda drags her legs behind her but that's because we have hardwood floors, and she's getting more coordinated with her legs every day. Sometimes she crawls on her hands and feet. Her food menu is really expanding too. I've been giving her some finger foods like cut up bananas and teething crackers and yogurt melts and she just loves this concept of feeding herself. I'm playing with making my own baby food, since the jarred stuff is so expensive. So far I've tried it with apples and pears and it must taste good because she ate a ton. She's learned how to control which direction she travels in her walker (usually she ends up going backwards or sideways), although usually she just likes to bounce up and down in it.

Hmm, what can I get into now before Mommy catches me...?

Ooh, a doggy nose!

I can almost reach it...

Mission accomplished!

And ... oh no! ... she's learned to pull herself up to a standing position! That really happened fast. For a week or two she would pull herself up to her knees and then she wouldn't be sure how to get her feet under her, but a few days ago I walked into her room to get her from her nap and this is what I saw:

You can tell she's so proud of herself.

Contemplating some mischief, I'm sure

The crazy thing is she doesn't seem to get stuck in a standing position - once she's decided she's done standing, she just sits down and off she goes. And she'll even stand with just one hand holding onto something too! It's so hard for me not to hover and catch her the second she starts to topple. I hate the idea of her falling and hurting herself, but she has to learn. The really hard part has been when she does fall to not rush to her and pick her up and start making a fuss over her. I try to just laugh and distract her and most of the time she just looks startled for a second, then she forgets she fell and goes back to exploring. So when she does fall and cry I figure it really did hurt - but even then she only cries for a couple seconds then she starts fussing because I'm holding her and she wants to be crawling around some more. The next thing will be cruising - and it's not far off.

Classic Mira expression

A lot of people have been asking me what Mira is going to be for Halloween. I really should have been all over this sooner - but I haven't even been able to think about what I'd like to do! I have a couple boring ideas ... I kinda feel like I don't have the time to put into creating something really awesome... but she won't even start to care about it until next year anyway. This year it's just about the photo ops. I'll have photos up in the near future, plus pics of our house once it's all done up for Halloween. It's pretty awesome. Stay tuned!

I Just Can't Keep Up...

It has come to my attention that there were some technical difficulties with the bath time video from the last post - so here it is again. :)

It's crazy how just a few days can go past and babies can go through so many changes! Mira has finally decided that she loves the doorway jumper. Lately when you help her stand up she starts jumping (or trying to jump) so the doorway jumper is great now that she's figured it out. Before when we put her in it she would just try to walk around in it. She's also learning how to clap her hands. Her version of clapping has been to flap her arms around but a couple days ago she started to bring her hands forward when she flapped, and eventually her hands make contact in the middle. So cute! She'll only "clap" a couple times and then she gets fascinated with her hands and will clasp and wring them together and examine them very closely. And then it's on to the next thing. She's just a busy, curious little explorer! And still as happy and sweet as ever. She's not really babbling yet but she does like to laugh and coo, and when she's really tired she hums.

I feel like she's gone through another growth spurt. I was looking at her today and thought to myself, "Holy crap, she's ginormous!" People keep making the comment that she's really long for her age. She certainly does seem tall. So hard to believe that I used to be able to hold her tucked under my arm like a football!

Oh and some more big developments in Mira news: she can crawl now! Last week she was just "lurching" around but a couple days ago she figured it out! She's only doing it for a short distance right now and she still likes to rock back and forth a lot but just give her some time and she's definitely got it. She'll crawl more if she's chasing something she shouldn't be getting her hands on, like an expensive watch or anything electronic. At the same time she seemed to figure out how to go from her hands and knees back to a sitting position. It's so exciting! I know I've been saying that I don't want her to be mobile but since she's figured it out I guess I ought to encourage her. Everyone keeps saying that she'll definitely be walking by the time she's a year old. I hope not but the way she's going that's certainly how things are looking.

Here are a bunch of videos. I know videos are more time consuming than pictures but I always feel like pictures don't capture the whole story. Here's one of her crawling.

 Here's one of her jumping.

And here's what happened when we gave her a pickle to suck on.

I was really surprised about the pickle. I thought the taste would put her off but she LOVED it and screamed when we had to take it away from her because she started biting off chunks of it. The interesting thing about this is to hear my parents talk about how similar Mira is to how I was as a baby. They keep saying that when I was Mira's age I also rocked back and forth a lot, I loved to jump, and I LOVED pickles. It's so neat to see that she is, in fact, my daughter. :)

So despite Mark recovering from pneumonia, last weekend we ran the Dirty Dash at Soldier Hollow. For those of you not from Utah, Soldier Hollow is where the cross country skiing events were held during the 2002 Winter Olympics in SLC. If I were into cross country skiing I would have loved this place - but I'm more into downhill. But anyway, the Dirty Dash is a mud run - a race that they make you run a 10K or 5K through the mud and all sorts of obstacles and the point is to get as dirty and muddy as possible. There's no way you could run this just to get through it quickly and make good time. There were THOUSANDS of people there to race, and everyone would get bottle necked at all the obstacles so really it was just for fun. And oh boy, was it ever fun! It was a lot more fun than we thought it was going to be! My dad and sister Sara got to watch Mira and try to get some action shots.

Mark and I ran with a team of people from PCMC (my work), and our team's name was Beauties and the Beasts and the men had to dress like women and vice versa. One of the best parts of a mud run is the costumes - you dress up in these really wild and creative costumes that purposefully get trashed by the end of the race. There were some awesome ones there - fairies with wings, people in cow suits with udders, there was a group of men wearing baby carriers complete with baby dolls strapped in, women in huge tutus - it was crazy! I really think Mark had one of the best costumes in the whole race. So many people would call out to him on the race and say things like, "Looking good, Granny!" And he totally played up the part too. And the best part is he started the race with a sunhat and a purse, and finished the race with a sunhat and a purse! While we were getting ready before the race started he overheard someone say something to the effect of, "Yeah, good luck finishing with the purse!" So since he heard that of course he became bound and determined to finish the race with that darn purse! And he kicked my butt too, even with sick lungs he probably would have finished the race an hour before I did if he wasn't nice enough to stick with me. (I think he got worried that I got trampled after we got separated early in the race.)

They had some really fun obstacles - swamps of mud to slog or swim through, climb up ropes while slipping in mud, crawl through pipes half full of mud (while getting blasted with snow-making machines), climb over hay bales and wooden fences, a huge Slip 'N' Slide - someone had a lot of fun figuring out this course! We started off doing the 10K course but ended up cutting across partway through so we probably ended up doing a 7.5K or something like that. It was exhausting too! It didn't feel so bad right afterwards but the next day we could barely move! I got some pretty awesome scrapes and bruises, which is how you know it was fun. It was so worth it though and now we're excited for the next one (which probably won't be until next year). My sister Sara wants to run the next one too. I'm already formulating our team's name and costumes in my head. :)

Here are some pictures of race day.

Mark and me before the race.

The start of the race.

If you look closely you can see Mark and me running through the mud.

"Granny" after the race.

I'm impressed my 'stache stayed on the whole time!

We survived!

Very fun day!

7 Months Old!

My excuse for taking so long to get another post up is "technical difficulties." Our wireless router is retarded and we couldn't use the internet for a couple of weeks. Just so everyone knows - Cricket freaking sucks. I'm so ready to switch carriers so we can have a reliable internet connection. Anyway, it's working now, so I'm finally getting around to another post. Mark has also been sick with pneumonia the last few weeks and it's really taken a lot out of him. It just started off with a URI (upper respiratory infection) and traveled into his lungs. He's prone to getting pneumonia since his lungs are trashed and have lots of scar tissue from previous infections (his first time was when he was a little baby), but this one has been pretty bad. He's been through 2 rounds of antibiotics and he still gets winded walking up the stairs so I don't know what's up. Hopefully we can get it figured out soon.

First, let me just say THANK YOU for the support I got from everyone after my last post. It really did make me feel a ton better to read the comments and talk to everyone. I have some great friends and lots of support, so here's a big general thanks to everyone, it really did mean a lot! :)

Eating is tough work...

Since we're on the topic, the sleeping issue is getting better. Mira still has some nights when she is up a lot (like last night, or any night when I have to be at work during the day) but it's not nearly like it used to be. She usually goes to sleep somewhere between 10 PM or midnight (I know that's late but that's on purpose since I work night shifts), sometimes she wakes up at 2 or 3 AM to eat, then again around 7 or 8 AM, and then is ready to get up with me at about 11 AM or even noon sometimes. Works great with my sleep schedule so I hope it sticks. No child of mine will learn that getting up before 9 AM is acceptable! :) I go into her room to feed her when she wakes up in the middle of the night since she'll usually nurse for about 15 minutes and then she's asleep again so she stays asleep in the crib. When she wakes up at 7 or 8 in the morning I'll bring her into bed with me so we can both sleep longer. At least it's a routine that I'm okay with. It's so much better than when we first had her sleep in her crib! It would literally take an hour to get her to stay asleep in the crib. You'd have to rock her to sleep, make sure she was in a good deep sleep, carefully put her in the crib, she would wake up and cry, so you'd pick her up and rock her for 10 or 15 minutes until she got in a good deep sleep, carefully put her in the crib, she'd wake up and cry... repeat... repeat... It was rough. I have this lavender and chamomile scented pillow mist that I sometimes use to help me fall asleep and I've tried it with her a few times on her sheets... doesn't seem to hurt anyway!

This is what happens when you leave blankets within grabbing distance

 I just can't believe Mira is 7 months old already! The time is just flying past. And she seems to learn something new every day. She hit some big milestones again since the last post. She can now sit up by herself - yay, what a big girl! She figured it out overnight it seems. I would set her down in the playpen and she'd sit for a few minutes and topple over, but one day she kept sitting, and sitting, and sitting, and just sat there playing with her toys like she was a pro at it. Since then it seems like she's been happier playing on her own longer (meaning not attached to my hip constantly), but she's still definitely a mommy's girl and needs LOTS of attention from me. Poor Mark feels so left out that when Mira's tired or upset she isn't happy until I hold her. It is kind of nice to know that you're that wanted, and there's nothing like walking into the room and your baby smiles and laughs and flaps her arms up and down because she's so happy to see you. But it would be nice to have a break once in awhile. I try to remind myself that when she's 16 she'll hate my guts and will try to avoid me at all costs so I should enjoy this while it lasts.

She has very good posture.

The other thing she figured out how to do was crawling. It's more like a lurch than a crawl right now but she is definitely mobile. That happened really fast too. One day she figured out how to push up on her hands and knees, the next couple days she was rocking back and forth and would either scoot backwards and get pissed off or rock forward so hard she'd face plant. Then the next day she was traveling forward! It's exciting but I was hoping it would be awhile before she figured this one out. Now we definitely have to baby proof. :( She is very determined and it's fun to watch the wheels turning in her head as she attempts different ways of getting from Point A to Point B. Yesterday she tried lifting her hand up off the ground and putting it in front of her to pull her forward, which is how crawling works best, but she only did it with her right hand so it didn't get her very far. She also does the yoga pose Downward Dog, which is really cute but as she's figuring out, doesn't get her very far.

 Here's a video of her "lurching" around. Notice what object she goes for. :)

 

I keep thinking she's getting ready to cut another tooth because she's been cranky the last couple of days and particularly drooly but nothing yet. We must be ready for one soon because it's been 2 months since the last one came in. I'm hoping for some new teeth soon so we can start trying those teething crackers. I guess she can try gumming those but I'd feel better if she had some more teeth first.

Of course she's still such a happy baby! When we go grocery shopping she, for some reason, always starts laughing and giggling as we wander through the store. I'm not sure why shopping is so funny but it sure is cute. I still get asked all the time if she's always this good, and of course the answer is always that she is. I really lucked out with this one. She also likes blowing raspberries and loves it when you sing interactive songs with her. Her new favorite is "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and still likes Patty Cake. She still loves to have help to stand up and she just looks so proud of herself! I can't imagine what it'll be like when she can stand by herself.

Here's some more bath time fun.