Only stalling

I haven't been actively looking for my camera cord... but I have no idea where it is. Which is a real shame, because I need to get these pictures off my camera. Free up space to take more cute pictures! And, you know, share the ones already on there.

So, even though there aren't adorable pictures, I can assure you the baby is adorable. She's had quite the month - we moved at the beginning of August, went to my in-laws a week after moving, and then a few weeks after that, she had her surgery. I'm happy to say she is quite well recovered from surgery; in fact, she started crawling and walking (very slowly) the day we took her home - got sore the next day - and within a day or two after that, got to being active again. Moving slow, but moving. We were actually a bit disappointed actually. Baby girl really isn't much of a cuddler, and we were enjoying our cuddle time for a few days. Ah, well, it's good that she recovered so fast. She had some plastic tubes to help ease the passage of urine and they removed one last week, and with any luck, they'll remove the other one tomorrow, maybe Tuesday. It's kind of weird, actually (TMI warning) because they just cut the stitches that held it in place on the side of her incision and just pulled it out - it was in about 6 cm maybe?

So anyway. We officially have a walker, and she's getting quite good. However, she still likes to hold my hand(s) when I'm around, which is cute, except that if she doesn't get to hold my hands when she wants to, she usually sits down and cries about it. I remember hearing you can't spoil an infant, but unfortunately my baby isn't an infant anymore, and I think I may be spoiling her sometimes.

We're also branching out into new foods. I know she can pick up food and put it in her mouth, she just doesn't really want to sometimes. That's one of the reasons I may be spoiling her - she expects and prefers when I put it in her mouth for her. At least I know she can do a pretty good job chewing her food. So tonight I made some really lackluster black beans and rice for dinner (to see if she'd pick up any of it and put it in her mouth... just a tiny bit of rice, otherwise no go), and she ate it with me. I then fed her some baby food that must have been much more delicious, because I tried to give her more black beans after it and she just spat it out. She only recently started spitting food back out... luckily she enjoys most foods, and only does that when she isn't hungry or was eating something else she really enjoyed right before. So far.

That's a basic update. Maybe I should have spent the time searching for my camera cord instead.... how many pictures do you suppose I can fit in one post?

Hiatus?

Looks like I haven't written in a while. For one thing, it's hard to take good pictures now that the baby is in constant motion. (I do have some pretty good videos, though.) Also, I'm doing summer term, which is fast-paced. Between school work and baby, and the occasional housework, I'm pretty swamped. However, as long as I pass physical science, I will graduate in August! Finally!

You know what else is happening? We're moving. All we need to do is sign the contract and put down the deposit, and we'll have the keys. So, of course that happens the week before finals. At least we aren't moving super far away, and I only have maybe one class to attend after we officially move. And I'm so excited about this new place, because the carpets are actually soft and it feels a million times bigger than our current place. Yes, part of it is because it's empty, but I'm pretty sure the master bedroom is at least as big as our main room - bigger, if you count the ginormous walk-in closet and master bathroom. Hah! I am so excited. It's more expensive, but the way I figure it, our current complex was going to raise our rent (without providing internet & cable like they used to) and so it doesn't work out to much more than we would be paying for much more apartment. And... there's a pool. I feel pretty good about it.

There's my quick update. Probably the last one until the end of August or sometime in September. Maybe sooner if we happen to get a jump on baby's next surgery. (Our next doctor appointment is August 1st, so I doubt it, but it would be kind of nice to get it over with.)

To my dad

I just wanted to give a quick happy father's day to my daddy. My husband is wonderful, and I'm so glad he's a great father to our baby, but today I was thinking about my dad. I've always been especially fond of my dad - not quite a daddy's girl, though only because I was just as much a momma's girl. In the past five or so years, though, our relationship has changed a little, and I'm not sure which one instigated the change. It's become more... spiritual. My dad loves to tell me stories from his Primary children (he teaches 11-12 year olds at church) and things he learned or experienced as a result of studying the scriptures. I think that's pretty great, and I love the way he does it. It's very childlike... and tender. Special, like he's sharing a little bit of himself. It is almost a perfect embodiment of our relationship, I feel... tender and a little childlike. Sweet and innocent, yet with a touch of perfect Godly love.

I'll never be able to express how much my relationship with my daddy means to me. I told him how I shared the example of how he tells me stories from the Primary children during a church class today, and I hope he understood a little bit of how I appreciate him.

And, of course, being a family studies major, I appreciate him for numerous reasons. (Father-daughter relationships can have many positive outcomes.)

So, to my dad, and all daddys who love their children.... thank you.

No more excuses!

Sooooo I started this post maybe a week ago. Then my baby got good at crawling and I've been super exhausted. Now I have no more excuses.

Okay! So I found my USB cable for my camera today and uploaded a bunch of stuff! I have taken a TON of movies since my last upload, though, so I probably won't put them all up here. I'm actually considering a youtube channel for the grandparents and other interested parties of the ones that I don't think will entertain the masses, though as a parent I still love any video of my daughter (so I think her grandparents would, too). Without any further ado, here is a video of baby girl trying to catch some sun.

Yes, she is literally trying to catch the ray of sun. We had just gotten up and were playing before breakfast when I look over... and grabbed the camera. It's mostly from behind because she usually gets distracted when I pull out the camera.

And now, a picture dump.

I put her in her car seat for a nap, because I thought she would feel more "cradled" (she was having a hard time being put down), but then I hear some funny noise, and she had just slipped right out! This was before she could sit up on her own.

A common occurrence during mealtimes, but I think I took this picture for the funny way her legs were sticking out.

She can kneel. Pretty cool, huh?

Apparently she sleeps like this a lot now.

Squish face!

I've had a few circumstances where I've actually had to get my baby out of bed (horrible, right?), and I've come in to find her sleeping on her belly with her little bum slightly in the air. I have a theory it's her version of cuddling, as much as she can with a mattress, anyway. SUPER cute, yes?

Stalling

Back in the day I said something about not being able to find my camera, which is why I haven't really posted. I found it, not terribly long after, but was just lazy for a while. Today, I thought, shoot! Let me upload some cute pictures! And now I don't know where my usb cord is to download the pictures. Oops. Buuut I'll look. Maybe I'll find some time to upload them on Monday, when my hubby is home from work.

I don't have any photographic evidence yet, but baby is starting to crawl! Watch out apartment, we won't know what hit us... so far, she really only crawls a couple inches before forgetting what she needs to move next and falling over, but she did figure out that if she's on her hands and knees, she can sort of back up until she's sitting up. Cool trick, baby girl!

Other fun news: my parents are up for the weekend. Literally just the weekend; my dad doesn't get time off, so they drove up today and are leaving Monday morning (after breakfast). Fortunately we got to have dinner with them tonight, as they made excellent time. At first baby was a little serious and standoffish, but luckily she warmed up quickly and was very smiley! Yay baby girl!

So, remember when I used to let my baby cry it out? Well... umm... I don't really do that any more. Occasionally during nap times, and if I know she's so super tired that she'll fall right to sleep. Anyway, last night was not a good night. I'll often get up a time or two, feed her for a few minutes, and she'll go right back to sleep. I'm okay with that. Last night, though, she did not want to be put down, so in frustration I let her cry for a little while until I was calm enough to deal with her some more. By then... she was super awake. Sigh. And she'd gotten up twice before that. At least the night before was pretty good! We have good nights and not-so-good nights. Unfortunately, last night was not one of the good ones. Fortunately, she's been a pretty awesome baby today.

Also. Penzeys spices. Mmm. I wish they would come to Utah. I have no idea how my sister found out about them, as they were buried somewhere in the outskirts of Portland, but I recently found out they are in Beaverton, way easy to get to (from my old home). So I got some hand-delivered goods today! I am so excited. The cocoa smells like a chocolate bar, the cinnamon is a dream. I got some extracts, too... yummy. I think, if they came to Utah, I would get all my herbs and everything from them. I would order them online, except that I dislike shipping fees so much. If my parents didn't come up this weekend, though, I might have caved because I almost ran out of the cinnamon I had before, and I just can't go back.

For not having pictures, this turned into a really long post. That said...

The end.

Sometimes I see pictures of women cuddling with their newborns right after birth, and I get a little twinge of jealousy. It almost makes me want to get pregnant again just so I can have that moment to look forward to. Then I think of my gorgeous baby and the snuggles I get with her (and the sleep!) and the feeling goes away. Usually.

In other news, the camera is buried somewhere on our couch, which has become the semi-temporary home of things we find our baby rolling to get that we'd rather not have her chew on. So, when I find it, I should have some gems. My favorite of which is a video of baby trying to catch the sun. It's killing me to not be able to show it off.

Giggles

I recently learned that my aunt checks in on my blog every once in a while. So, if I post the same pictures here as I do on Facebook, well, at least hopefully I'll have better stories here.

Lately Baby has been super giggly. It's very fun. Most of the time I don't even try to do anything and she starts laughing, or I'll do something I've done a thousand times and she'll suddenly laugh at it. (Or I'll do something that made her laugh once a thousand times to never hear a giggle from it again. Babies.) Yesterday I was mindlessly rolling the rings to one of those stacking toys when suddenly...

Boom. Giggles galore. She also really enjoys peek-a-boo when she's in her carseat and I'm outside the car. It's fun... except that the doors are usually shut, so I can't hear the giggles. Sad day.

Another giggle video (since you can't have enough, right?): baby was happily bouncing in her little jungle-bouncer-thingy, and she was just sooo adorable that I had to go play with her. Turns out she likes my hair. :-)

I had a successful round of peek-a-boo giggles first, but Grandma pulled out the camera and then she was just intently watching the camera instead.

Also, my baby now has little baby teeth! Her two front ones decided to come at the same time. We saw them hanging out just under the gums for a little while, but now they are definitely peeking out. Not quite razor sharp, though probably only because she hasn't bitten too hard yet.

Okay, so they may be hard to see in this picture. Work with me... baby teeth are difficult to capture. Hmm. Other precious moments lately.

She has learned to clap! I have a video of that, too, but I wouldn't want blogger to have an upload heart attack, so I think two videos is enough for this particular post. I think it came about partly because I gave her two plastic bowls to bang around. She's very good at the up and down motion with her arms, so when she had a bowl in each hand, they sort of smacked each other when she banged them down. Well, that was so cool that she just kept getting more and more horizontal motion instead of just vertical, and now she loves banging everything together. She likes to clap my hands, too. And her hands, of course. I love it when she claps; it's like everything is exciting and new.

Speaking of bowls, I've finally started letting her play with everyday items these past few months. A measuring cup, a medicine spoon (she actually stole that one, and I didn't feel like I needed to take it away), and the two plastic bowls. Another toy I let her have:

Things wrapped in plastic! In this case, a granola bar. Maybe that's bad parenting, but I figure she really goes for crinkly plastic things, and this way at least I know she's contentedly munching on a granola bar wrapper instead of trying to get at some bigger plastic object. It's also handy in distracting her from trying to eat all the paper in sight... or at least placating her when I take the paper away. (Am I missing some boat? Do other parents just let their babies suck on/eat paper?)

Speaking of bad parenting. Heh. I occasionally let her fall asleep while nursing and just hold her. Especially when I'm super tired (like first thing in the morning. Yes, those are my jammies). So this is post-nursing nap, and I loved the way she fell asleep with her hands all clasped.

One more picture just for kicks. This Sunday, we played baby dress-up, as usual. And, as usual, she was adorable.

Love this baby girl.

A tale of two Emily stories

There may be more than two Emily stories, but I have two in particular to share.

I believe last time I referred to her dislike of squash. Well, Gary was feeding her yesterday evening and we decided to give it another whirl. Sooo I got the camera out. She actually ate more of it, because Gary kept trying to get it in her mouth and succeeding, and she kept making some amazing faces. I guess that's only one story because I have some sweet pictures to accompany it.

Sweet, unsuspecting Baby

Not sure what to think....

Leaning towards dislike...

Yeah, this stuff is gross.

I'm probably just a super mean mommy, but that disgusted face just gets me. I love that picture.

Another picture I love? Let me preface it with a short story.

Our naptimes are sort of in a state of flux - I tried to set naptimes, but she kept falling asleep before them, or she would be out with a babysitter away from her crib, sleep until an hour before her next naptime... things like that. Usually, though, our ten o'clock nap is pretty solid, within twenty minutes either way, she's exhausted. So, last week, I had put her in her bouncer for a while in the morning so I could do some homework, and I got up to do something maybe five minutes before her nap. Time ran away from me, and next thing I knew, it was 10:15! Whoops. I thought for sure the baby had been bouncing around and playing, but when I went to get her....

Fast asleep! She would occasionally twitch in her sleep, though, causing her to look like she was still playing. It isn't immediately obvious, but she was facing into the corner at the time. So precious. So hilarious. That's my girl!

And just a picture this time:

Happy Sunday!

Not so teeny

Well, we started pulling out the 9-month clothes this past week. My husband had pulled out a cute little outfit a little over a week ago, but it was way too summery and it was only supposed to be, umm, 50 degrees or something outside. It came out again, though, since we had a 76 degree day, and it fit like a dream. I'd looked at the 9-month sleepers about two weeks ago, asking Hubby if he thought it might fit baby, since her 6-month sleepers were getting too short in the leg, but he said, nooo, looks too long still. Out of curiosity, I put one on her a few nights ago... and it fit like a dream. That makes part of me a little sad! So I'm packing up her 6-month ones, because really, it's too short in the legs, though the onsies are still kind of okay. And I was thinking about her little tiny newborn clothes, and how ginormous I thought her 3-6 month sleeper was... my little girl is growing up.

Today she rolled on to her belly and started pushing her torso off the ground! She doesn't get real far before she starts scooting backwards, since we still have her on a slippery play mat. I had visions of her starting to scoot and crawl around... yikes. I better get ready for that, quick, because I am definitely not ready now.

And random funny story: I saw some baby foods on sale when I went to get her some oatmeal, so I decided to try a few new vegetables out. Tonight I pulled out the squash, and I thought it smelled pretty good - kind of a mix of the yummy-smelling carrots and sweet potatoes, both of which she loves. She took a bite of the squash, her eyes got kind of wide, and she opened her mouth in that adorable "feed me" kind of way that she usually does with carrots (she loooooves carrots) or foods she likes. She did this for a few bites before she looked almost like she was gagging. And boy, did she not open her mouth after a few more bites with that grossed-out face. Hah! I was totally fooled! Maybe she was too. I might try a few bites tomorrow.

Here is that adorable 9-month outfit: it has a little skirt! Also, that little grin just kills me.

A hairy situation

We had a little incident with the vacuum the other week where it was accidentally placed over a sock while the hose was being used for some detail work... and the sock got sucked up and the vacuum stopped whirring. Fortunately we're pretty sure only the belt broke. Unfortunately this belt has been a complete pain to find. Fortunately I vacuumed possibly the day before this incident. Unfortunately, baby has been pulling out increasing amounts of my hair. Today she even started pulling it out with her toes (as I nibble on her tummy after diaper changes). Gross. Hair everywhere. Even worse, we have baby on the floor a lot. Hair all over baby's toys, play mat, you name it, there's probably a stray hair or two to be found on it. 

On a completely different note, two papers and one essay test is all that stands between me and (temporary) freedom. I haven't completely decided yet if I'm going to do my last class(es) independent study or during the summer term - if I can get a high enough score on the physical science exam, I could keep the credit hours and take my other class free with a scholarship. Even if I don't take physical science, I could still potentially get leftover pell grant money to help pay for tuition. If I can stand to be in 2+ hours of class a few times a week. Oh, this baby. So... I might still do the course independent study. Just so I don't have to commit to class hours and due dates. 

Also. I don't exactly know where my camera cord is so I haven't downloaded many new pictures since my last update. And the pictures I've been taking haven't been super high quality. But what is this blog with out my cute baby? So here's one I took of an outfit I especially enjoyed. Overalls that were too long and a smidgeon too small around baby's adorable chubby gut. Which is a shame - I may not put her in those cute overalls ever again.

PS. I only really put those bows on her head for church and pictures. Occasionally events like wedding receptions. I find they don't stay on her head well enough during daily activities, especially with nursing. So I put it on her head and then took it off shortly after the picture. :-)