Rosie's first shiner

Well, Rosie is a very busy girl and in the process of being busy (not to mention pretty darn independent), a person can get hurt. Not sure how it happened, something to do with a DVD case, Rosie gave herself a pretty good shiner:

Not on Rosie's Wish List

We'll have to keep shopping for Rosie's first books, because unfortunately, these little gems were never published...

Congratulations Lt. Dan!

The Crippled War Veteran Learns to Crawl
Rosie exhibited a real live crawl today! She quickly realized that the Lt. Dan move is much faster so she reverted to that, but all she needs is a little practice!
Incidentally, at Gymboree yesterday she was right in the middle of all the 8-month olds. Some could crawl, some could not, but she was the only mobile non-crawler. Also, she was the ONLY 8 month old who could go from the prone position to a sit! Even the young crawlers hadn't mastered this move, so she should be very proud!

It's called TEETHING not TOOTHING

We don't have a tooth coming in, we've got teeth
Rosie is springing teeth faster than you can say cheese. I've been so focused on watching the top teeth come in, I didn't even notice there are two new ones on the bottom. Unfortunately I am unable to take a picture due to Rosie's very protective nature, so I have drawn a replica of her mouth. Not to scale of course:

Now, you will notice that the top left upper incisor is just a nubbin. Therefore:
Current tooth count is 5 ½.

Five and a half! Just last week she only had TWO! White nubbins are appearing on the top where the next two incisors will be, so I know it won’t be long.

Let’s talk breastfeeding if you don’t mind. Can I feel the teeth? Yes. Do I fear for my safety? Yes. Do I watch her mouth every second as if there is a piranha attached to my boob waiting to strike? Yes. But, no significant bites. In fact, the last time she bit me and it hurt was before she even had teeth so I’ve been lucky.

You can see she’s affected a bit by all this activity in her mouth – who wouldn’t be? Four teeth coming in at once can not be comfortable. She’s trying to stay positive, but she’s a bit tense. She’s struggling to eat – not much is getting in. Solids, I mean. She’s compensating by nursing more (twice in the night last night – ugh).

Let’s hope the teeth come in fast and we can have our baby back!

My fat ass is going to get in shape

I'm going to be a runner again!
I bought a treadmill!!! I'm so unbelievably excited. I get it in two weeks, I hope. It's a very nice NordicTrack 2270. My only problem is that it took me this long to finally do this. I guess I thought I wasn't a real runner if I wasn't running outside. Woohoo!
On a side note, all this talk of getting in shape had us motivated to go to the gym. So we took a family trip to 24-hour fitness, and dropped Rosie off at the Kids Club there. I am pretty sure she was the only baby - lots of screaming older kids. At first Rosie was a little scared, but she warmed up to everyone pretty fast. When we picked her up she was sitting in one of the worker's laps playing with toys, content as ever.
I am super duper excited about the treadmill!

"Lieutenant Dan, don't come over here!"

Rosie's got the army crawl down pat. She can make it across the living room in seconds! The only problem is... she looks like a wounded soldier! The other night, Leo was cracking almonds on the floor and Rosie, of course, was extremely curious. Leo kept trying to move around to keep her away, but it was to no avail. At one point he said "Lieutenant Dan, don't come over here!" Lt. Dan, if you recall, was the injured Vietnam vet in Forrest Gump. Well, this guy had a missing leg, and fortunately Rosie's are both intact, but if she was to lose one, she'd still be pretty mobile.

Not one but two..... teeth

Rosie decided that smiling through one tooth coming in wasn't enough. Leo pointed the second one out to me last night - she's got two coming in at once! Her top middle teeth. And you'd hardly notice it. I know something is up, but it's very subtle. Naps are a bit shorter, she's stubborn with mealtime... but really other than that you wouldn't know. What an amazing little girl!

Stealth teether strikes again

Where did this little thing come from? I was so surprised to see it this morning when she was nursing. She has been in the best mood lately, and sleeping really well. Hmmm.... well with her bottom teeth she didn't make a fuss about it till they started poking through, then she struggled till they finished coming in. But this top tooth is completely through! I think we *may* have skimmed past this without even knowing it.

I'm sure the other top tooth will follow very soon. This new one is the upper left incisor.

Rosie's first real accident (blood included)

The more mobile a kid is the more likely they are to get hurt. Poor Rosie, last night she was moving around in the kitchen and banged her lip on the floor. She started crying, so I picked her up to give her a hug and she had blood on her lips. Aw, poor baby. I gave her a wet paper towel to suck on and she was so happy about that she forgot about the bloody lip. I never did find the cut.

Unrelated to the injury, when I put her to bed last night I did the dumbest thing. After she went to sleep she started crying at about 9:30 or so. Not too normal for her, so I went in to check and HER LIGHT WAS ON! I felt terrible!! No wonder she couldn't sleep. What a dork I am.

I turned off the light and got her back to sleep, and wouldn't you know it she was still asleep at 7 am when I woke her up for the day. Not a single night waking!!! Amazing - that does not happen very often.

A great weekend! New tricks, and, Rosie loves the beach!

We took a long weekend to go visit Dad & Alice (a.k.a. Grammy and Papa). We had a lot of fun. Rosie is turning into a great little traveler. It's a long drive to get there - 3 hours - and she doesn't mind it too much. She sleeps very good in the car, usually taking 2 naps on the way down. She plays with her toys and rips up magazines (a favorite pastime). She only really gets fussy on the last half hour - by then she's ready to go go go! We don't have to stop though, which is nice. When she gets hungry, I hook up the breast pump and feed her what I pump. It's a good system.

It usually takes Rosie about an hour to warm up to Grammy and Papa. She gets a little nervous with all the activity, so there is a bit of sad time before she makes friends. But in no time she's giggling at the puppies and smiling at her grandparents. She enjoys hanging out with Papa.


Weekend Highlight: Trip to the Coast

Rosie loves the beach!!! She was amazed by the crashing waves. She rode around in the Girasol and just had a ball looking down at the water.

Check out the video clip! It is so funny. You can see all the pictures here on her website. Then, we played in the sand.

I was worried she would try to eat the sand but she was more concerned with its amazing texture than anything. On the way home, she was totally exhausted and crashed most of the way.

New Tricks!

Any possible way that Rosie can drink water is a huge motivator, so when I tried to teach her to drink from a straw it wasn’t too hard. Most babies would chew on it – not Rosie. She figured it out pretty quickly and was sucking down water like there was no tomorrow. I read somewhere that children do not learn to swallow in succession till around 18 months or so – either they are very wrong or Rosie is crazy ahead of schedule because she can chug with the best of them. Guess when she goes off to college, Dad will need to have a discussion with her on the appropriate use of beer bongs.

And another fun trick, she can clap! It’s so cute! You can see a rudimentary version of it in her beach video clip. She gets better at it every day and it is just adorable.

Not really a new trick, but I think I forgot to mention it in the blog – she can go from her tummy all the way to a full sit now. This takes serious strength! She’s very good at it now.

So, that’s the weekend update!

If the house is haunted, this ghost really sucks

So last night it's about midnight and we're just about ready for bed when suddenly... we hear the tinkling of music. We both look at each other like, what the hell? Immediately thinking, one of her toys came on downstairs. But then I noticed the little red lights on her monitor... holy crap is that coming from her ROOM??? Somehow, the cd player in her room started playing - her baby einstein lullaby cd. And it was LOUD. I was sure it was a ghost who turned it on. What else could it be? And what does this ghost have against a soundly sleeping baby? Obviously something. Thanks a lot, Ghost.

Leo tried to creep in but little miss ninja doesn't miss a thing, so of course she woke. I nursed her, trying to get her back to sleep, but she was doing a lot of grunting and I was so sure she pooped. So, I changed her diaper - something I haven't done in the middle of the night since she was 2 months old. Of course, my instincts were wrong and it was just pee. So by then she's fully awake, and it was a bit of a chore to get her back down.

Up again she was at 4:00 am from a visit from the other ghost in our house - the Crawl Fairy, who tells her to practice crawling whenever she is in her crib. And then, 6:00 am came up awfully quickly. Oh God will we ever get a full night's sleep again???

Sippy Cup Success!

Rosie is an official CUP DRINKER! You know she just loves water, so she was pretty motivated to learn this skill. She's been doing really well at drinking from the cup when someone holds it for her, but until yesterday she was not able to hold the cup, tip it back, and drink from it at the same time. Last night, she figured it out and now she's an expert! You can click here to see it on film!