T shirt o' the day

"Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good."
Friedrich Nietzsche

while boys play mariokart

Amelia went to bed pretty early tonight. I think she is using a lot more energy now that she is crawling consistently. I changed her diaper after we ate dinner, and she was still fussy. It had been barely an hour since her last bottle, and she had some corn puffs and juice while we ate dinner, so surely she wasn't hungry. So we tried the teething ring, we tried walking around, standing and rocking, crawling after the dog, singing, still ....

"WAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
Baby Translation: I am so mad! Why don't you guys understand? You are ruining my life! This is terrible. I am in distress. Do you not know what wah means?

Enter bottle, and sweet contentment for the 5 minutes it takes her to chug the formula. Some extra calories are required to triple your size in a year.

I might be temperamental if I had teeth poking through my baby gums, too. Other than these fussy times, though, the munchkin has proven herself to be pretty easygoing and smiley. As we approach her 9-month birthday this week (which happens to be the same day another candle is added to my cake) I am floored by how fast this year has gone. I hope we can continue to make time for fun together like we did this weekend.

Rick & I took her to Crown Center on Saturday. While we munched tasty sandwiches at Streetcar, Amelia watched the people stroll by and ate her corn puffs. Rick tore up some pieces of his french fries for her(sans salt or ketchup). Oh, Amelia, we've only just begun. French fries are a mere speck in the vast junk food universe. She seemed pleased. We will definitely be back so she can frolic in the Crown Center square fountain. Got some pretty cute pictures of letting her dip her toes or fingers in one of the geysers. By next year, she just might be out there running through the spray with the other kids.
This girl wins the awesome T-shirt contest:

That's right, it says I heart tater tots.

Good times.

the wiggle worm goes outside

Going to make more consistent updates. (at least try) Some major areas of baby development:

crawling: see previous post. You can tell she's so proud of herself when she looks up at you cheering her on. She got to wiggle in the yard this evening while Rick and I did some lawn work. The feeling of the grass doesn't bother her at all.

Teeth: 2 center bottom teeth have been present for about a month. Left top canine broke through while we were in Colorado. And, just this evening, we notice at the dinner table that she's making chomping noises at us. The left front tooth has just broken.

socialization: party animal! Was seen recently awake at 1am on a charter bus. We all had a great time at Jon & Suz's wedding.

Eating: mostly the soft stuff. Pureed fruit and veggies, one I'll mix some cereal with for a meal. But, she loves trying to gnaw on a big teething biscuit, and ate some small chunks of banana on Sunday.

Shutterfly collection of photos: http://randkdiaz.shutterfly.com/action/

I love my Grandpa!

Little wiggler

I'm going to call it. Amelia is officially crawling! A momentous event motivated me to finally post again. She's been rolling over for a while now, and getting better every day at pushing herself up with her arms. She has been crawling in little circles for a week or two but finally some forward momentum. Tonight she was moving from one side of the room to the other. I could never capture the big movements, and the video is a little dark because we were in the basement, but her face was lit up!

hear no evil, speak no evil

Good & bad news in babyland. We'll get the bad out of the way first. Amelia has had a cold and then got an ear infection. The cough has been one of those deep, chesty coughs that just makes you cringe, especially when it comes out of a baby. She's taking antibiotics for the ear infection, and I think she's on the upswing now.
So, good news is she's getting better, although she didn't let it get her too down anyway. There have been times when she was a little fussier, but overall the munchkin was a trooper. She's doing lots of babbling of the bababa dadada gagaga variety. Lots 'o fun; you can tell she is very pleased with herself as she makes her sounds. She also sat up unassisted on Saturday night. Time is going so fast, I can't believe she is 5 months old already. Now we're ready for some nice spring weather so Amelia will know what it feels like to be out of doors! At any rate, I think we'll hit the Auto Show this weekend. We can at least go somewhere but it's not weather-dependent. Everyone I know has cabin fever. Here, have a T-shirt, it will make you feel better.

babbbbbbabbabababble

Baby babble is priceless. Amelia's really been vocalizing lately, mostly the ba-ba-ba sounds, that is, when she is not shoving her blanket or her bib in her mouth. Or, she decides to unleash her inner Mariah and let out a high pitched squeal.

T shirt o' the day

Amelia says, "I'm innocent!"














"The doggy did it!"

T shirt o' the day

For your viewing pleasure, straight outta elementary school.


Milk, milk, lemonade....










....around the corner :

development

News on the baby front:
Around the beginning of January, while wiggling on her favorite play mat from Fairy Godmother Dana, Amelia decided to flip over from her stomach to her back. Hurray! Brian and I cried with glee. We let her gurgle and play on her back, then I flipped her back to her stomach, and she turned over again. And hasn't done it again since. Hmm. Babies are hard to figure out.

4 month checkup on February 6: she's up to 15 lbs (75th percentile), head size is 90th percentile. Yeah, go big brains! :) I took some really great pictures with my camera phone at the doctors office of Rick walking Amelia on the exam table. Please direct hate mail to Sprint as I lost those pictures on my phone's old memory card. boo. But, I have many more pics to share.....

Such as the ones of Amelia's first solid food! After getting the blessing from the pediatrician, we've starting trying to give her baby rice cereal. She'll still be getting most of her nutrition from the bottle for now, but we start introducing the solids so she can slowly adjust to the idea of real food, and start developing the motor skills for it. Needless to say, the first night of cereal produced comic results


We did plain cereal a couple of times, then I tried sweetening it (just a little, cause the kid will already have a sweet tooth with my genes) I've done pineapple juice, mashed banana, and her favorite has been applesauce. I mix the cereal with some formula until it looks like cream of wheat, then add a tablespoon of all natural unsweetened applesauce. Now she knows that when the spoon comes under her nose, she opens her mouth! We'll work on that a little while, and then be moving on to veggies and other fruits on their own. Exciting stuff. I'll be sure to post pics of the diapers solid feeding leads to.

Turning it up to 11

Yes, today calls for turning it up. Singing (or screaming) at the top of your lungs in your car because no one ever told you it was going to be this frustrating. Oh, yes, as the Shirelles told us, "Mama said there'll be days like this...." but she didn't tell me.
And so, a homage, to the-end-of-the-work-day, get-me-the-hell-out-of-here, and get-me-a-beer, sing-along-with-the-songs-you-don't-listen-to and sing-in-front-of-other-people-montage. That's right, we need a montage. Beware of my weirdness and way out of date musical tastes (and my wrath, because I'm one angry dwarf, and 200 solemn faces are you.)
1. Bulls on Parade, Rage Against the Machine
2. Song for the Dumped, Ben Folds Five
3. One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces, Ben Folds Five
4. Megalomaniac, Incubus
5. Let It Be, The Beatles

OK, I'm really lucky, and my drive home from work isn't very far, so I only had time to listen to 1 angry dwarf a couple of times so I could sing "kiss my ass goodbye now, look who's tellin who what to do...." On the outside, I'm a goody-two-shoes wimpy conformist; but beware of the anarchist beneath......it helps to release.

Coming home from work when you have a kid is so different. I used to come home after work on a rough day and turn into a vegetable in front of the TV for seriously, literally, hours. I don't have that choice anymore, which is OK, because things I never thought I would have had the strength for before, I am finding I do now. Case in point, having a really crummy day at work and managing to not totally melt down. Aaah, maturity. I guess I had to find it sometime. Every day, you really just have to push through the crap, and hope for a better day the next time the sun comes up, because laying down and giving up is just not an option. Although that sounds nice, cause, man I've had this pain in my neck and back all day; I miss massage. (Giving them and receiving them)

Getting rid of all selfish, whiny thoughts



now!

OK, I have exorcised the demons. Now I can give you all some sweet updates on the bebe.