Mid Week Special: Water Baby

Elizabeth is mesmerized by water... just like her mommy. I have a feeling this is good news... bad news. I'm a fish and I totally expected my daughter to be one as well. In the tub she is already putting her face in the water trying to get or find the silver colored plug. She does not mind having water dumped or splashed into her face.

When I water the garden in the evenings I've been taking her with me... all she does is stare at the water coming out of the hose. Tonight I allowed her to put her hand in it... lots of opening and closing of the fingers. Very cute!

I really cannot wait until the neighborhood pool opens in a few weeks... we'll be there quite a bit!

As you can see by the picture below... her hair is getting quite long. I have mixed feeling about having it cut. Although, I may be quickly out numbered. Daddy and Grammy are both plotting the first haircut!

Mothers Day

Pictures: Top: after I installed the gate Elizabeth sat in front of it for about 10 min. pouting and whining. Middle: Elizabeth can now pull herself up on the couch, coffee table or me to stand. As you can tell from her face she is still unsure of herself and her balance. Bottom: our happy girl smiling.

It was a busy week, like all weeks. However, Jim has been sick with the flu and has been banished to the bedroom for the past three days. I'm taking up residence on an Aero Bed in the computer room until he is symptom free.

Elizabeth continues to crawl all over the house therefore I purchased a baby gate and installed it yesterday. Its permanently attached to the kitchen entrance for the next couple years. Elizabeth continued to enjoy cat food so we had to keep her away from that. Yes, I do feed her, but she seems to go for Emily's food as often as possible. Its IAMS so the main ingredient is chicken, now I'm just sure she'll love poultry when I feed it to her.



We've had several crash and burn episodes where Elizabeth thinks shes bigger, stronger, or faster than she really is and she'll crash by rolling over things or by crawling over them and doing a face plant into the floor or onto a toy. She appears to be klutzy like myself, so I'm sure we are only at the beginning of the many cuts and bruises to come.

Only 10 days of school left in the year for teachers. Pat gives me the daily count update each day. Tomorrow she'll tell me only 1 more Monday. I finished up with 5th grade art this past week and have two more classes with my 1st graders. The little ones are so much fun to work with! Six days left with the 8th graders and the full 8.5 of the rest of the lot.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and cousins who touch the lives of children every day!

Seven Months Old

Friday Elizabeth celebrated seven months of life! She's into EVERYTHING these days and has discovered trash and treasure all over the house. Many things have been move up to avoid breakage or injury. She has also learned how to drink from a sippy cup. Apple juice is now served in the cup, not a bottle.


I continue to make homemade baby foods for Elizabeth and got a little carried away yesterday when making squashy sweet potatoes with apple. I now have a gallon zip lock bag full of frozen cubes. Good news: Elizabeth likes it!

I only have 15 days of school left in the year and am very ready for summer. I counted today and it looks like only 11 days left with my 8th graders (Pat, correct me if I'm wrong on that count).

I went through her clothes again and switched out many of the items that no longer fit. I wish I could get a new wardrobe every few months. Thanks to all the hand me downs we have yet to purchase any clothing for Elizabeth to date. I'm sure that will change as we reach the 1 year mark, if not before if she keeps getting longer.

Crawling Along

Soon we'll have a bumper crop of tomato, zucchini, squash, and peppers. I've also got cantaloupe and watermelon growing, but Jim does not show any indications of sharing. Pictured above are the squash blossoms.

The big news this week is Emily caught a bird! Actually she caught two of them. Unfortunately she only injured them and Jim had to "finish 'em off." We've decided that since Elizabeth is crawling and will soon be chasing Emily that Emily needed something to chase. We figure the bird community will soon label our back yard a no fly zone since we now have a killer kitty!

Elizabeth continued to perfect her crawling skills this week. At Miss Sonia's she found the bathroom and was discovered by Ruben sitting on the floor talking to herself. Then she drug Clifford, the big red dog, from the front of the house to the back then took a nap on him for a brief time. I wish we had video of that. Sonia and Ruben are amazed at her skills and feel that soon she'll have those little boys doing whatever she wants. You'll be happy to know that we had to break out the outlet covers and all exposed outlets have been covered to prevent electrocution of our little munchkin.

In addition she managed to self -feed herself the Gerber fruit puffs. Previously she played with them and ate them from my fingers. A note to grandparents and great aunts/uncles & cousins; They are the cheerios of the new millennium, they are star shaped puffs that melt in baby's mouth so it encourages self feeding and hand eye coordination, but do not pose a choking hazard. They even taste pretty good, so far I've tried banana and peach.

Elizabeth continues to love her bath time and I think she gets food in her hair each night at dinner so I have to give her a bath nightly, instead of every other. Still no teeth, but a lot of drool and chewing on everything. We think one will arrive any day now...maybe.

Spring has Sprung

Not much happened this week. Back to usual with Jamie's departure on Sunday morning. Elizabeth and I were back in the swing of things early Monday morning returning to school and the sitter.

Elizabeth continues to work on her crawling and scooting around the house. Jim got all the electrical cords off the floor so we don't zap our little angel.

We stated plums and squash this week, she likes them both, especially the plums.

She is very good at sitting and changing positions. Most of the time when I put her on her back its only a matter of moments before shes flipped over and sitting upright. The Bumbo seat is only used when she eats banana or puffs.

Not much on the agenda for the coming week - I think. My school year continues to wind down, but I'm working on several projects this summer to (hopefully) include curriculum work and a summer program another teacher and I are coordinating. Jim starts classes again, after taking a break to study for his promotion test.

My garden is growing like crazy. I should have listened to mom when she said I only need one or two of each plant, not the 6 I bought. I'm sure soon we'll have lots of tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and summer squash. I'll have to research recipes of all the things that zucchini and squash can be included into. I'll post pictures of the garden next week.

Pictures: Top - devouring a banana through he mesh feeder, middle- Sitting with Brother Bear - a gift from Jamie & Bottom - chewing on Elephant.

Easter

We had a very busy week. Jamie was here for his spring break to meet his sister and spend time with Jim. They did various things; to include letterboxing, movies, hiking, ghost town hunting and much more.

Elizabeth had her six-month well-baby check this past week and to quickly summarize: she's tall with a big head. Acutally, she weighs 16 lbs 9 oz, 27.5" long, and a head circumference of 44 cm. Since birth she's gained just over 10 lbs and grown almost 10 inches. She has been working on several new skills this week of sitting up on her own and holding her own bottle. But wait... the previsoulsy mentioned skills are awesome accomplishments for a six month old, however on Friday night she started crawling! YES, CRAWLING! She continues to work on her crawl and is now mobile between scooting and crawling to go anywhere she wants.

She continues to be a good eater and sleeper. She loves her fruits and veggies, her current favorites are carrots, sweet peas, and peaches - she eats all the others that I've made but does have her favorites. This week we'll try squash and plums. I'm making homemade baby foods and have discoverd you cannot just make a little. At her age according to the experts (whomever they really are) she should be on Stage II foods, but we are still working our way through the fruit and veggie purees. I think by summer we'll be to the Stage II foods. No teeth yet, but a lot of drool and chewing still going on. Biter Biscuits are a favorite. She's become too long for her infant bathtub, so this week we graduated to the big tub since she can sit up on her own. Tubby time is becoming a fast favorite. Even moreso since I added some of cousin James' baby toys.





Speaking of cousin James, he had his big third birthday party over the weekend. Jim, Jamie, Elizabeth, and I drove to Gibert on Satuday morning so I could help out with the toddler party. Actually I really wanted to see what I'll be in for in just a few years. A good time was had by all the kids and parents as the kids decorated easter buckets, colored eggs, busted a pinata, searched for eggs, and then ate pizza and cake. That was party #1, around five Lisa's family arrived for Easter dinner. It was wonderful. After Jeff, Lisa, Jim and I amanaged to get all the "kids" to bed we collapsed on the couch before giving in and going to bed ourselves.

Happy Half-Birthday

Elizabeth is now six months old. Its amazing that she's half way to her first birthday. Big brother Jamie arrived on Saturday to spend his spring break with us.

Sunday afternoon we headed up the Catalina Highway to go camping at Molino Basin in the Coronado National Forest as Elizabeth's first camping trip. The weather was perfect on Sunday. Sunday evening Pat and Jack joined us for dinner, a benefit of camping only 30 min. from home. The wind picked up again by morning so Monday we packed up and headed down the mountain for home. Elizabeth did very well, in my opinion. She was somewhat out of sorts due to being outside all day and sleeping in the tent. Jim and Jamie did a hike with amazing views and even remembered to take a camera with them. Letterboxing was not accomplished due to the wind, maybe they'll make it back up this week when the wind calms down.

Elizabeth is now sitting up on her own. She can also get up onto her hands and knees then will drop back down to the floor and scoot with her arms pulling and legs pushing. We don't think it will be very long before we have a crawler.

This week Jim and Jamie will do a lot of letterboxing around Tucson as well as take Elizabeth to her six month well baby check up. I'll post next weekend what her current measurements are.