Mobility

It's been longer than I thought since I last posted to our blog! Things are going great here, and there should be some photos with this posting, but it's all I can do to just write something right now. I'm way behind on getting pictures sent out and you all deserve more, but they're coming! We're super busy these days with school, work and keeping up with Zoey!

She started crawling forward this last week -- hooray! Two days after turning 8 months old. She has been pushing herself backwards, and getting herself into situations she couldn't get out of (like under the bookshelf), for quite some time now, but the forward movement has just begun. She's quite mobile now, rolling around, crawling, pushing herself to sitting up, quite enjoying herself. It has been a lot of fun to watch her expand her boundaries.

Eating solid foods has been a hoot -- Zoey very much likes to eat and hasn't yet found anything she doesn't like. We've been carefully adding new foods, one at a time. Jason had a whole lotta allergies as a child, so we're taking things slow, feeding one food for several days in a row and watching for any reactions. So far, so good! She has tried apples, pears, carrots, pumpkin, yams (loved these!), bananas, sweet potatoes and peas. We've got a few jars of these baby foods, but for the most part, we've just been steaming the fresh veggies and pureeing them or running them through a little food mill. The girl likes to eat!

She's got a few new toys that she's been spending her waking time with these days. One of our wonderful neighbors is letting us borrow her doorway jumper, and once she got the hang of what she was supposed to be doing in it, she has really had a blast jumping around. One day she had a little blowout in her diaper while in the jumper, and boy was that fun to clean up! One of our other good friends has brought over a saucer that Zoey can sit in the middle of and swivel around, with all kinds of fun musical sounds and counting and ABCs. We've also been watching our Baby Einstein First Sounds DVD that Grandma Donna & Grandpa Joe sent us for Christmas, and working on "mama" and "dada". We've also started using some signs with her, mostly the signs for "milk" and "sleep" and "eat" right now.

Have I mentioned what an amazing neighborhood we have moved into? Zoey has lots of little friends here, 6 or 7 babies born in 2008 and all but one of them are girls. We have a mom's group that meets once a month, and have had lots of excuses to get together over the holidays these past weeks. We've begun a monthly project, where several households get together at one or two houses and tackle a big project. Last weekend we removed 31 arborvitaes from a hedge at the neighbors across the street. What would have probably taken them weekends upon weekends to do themselves, the group wrapped up in less than 3 hours together. Next month it's our turn, and we will be putting in a couple of raised garden beds -- very exciting!!

OK, it has taken about 4 hours for me to get this much written, and it's close to our bedtime. As we approach the making of history with the inauguration of Barack Obama this week, we're holding much hope for the healing of the country, the economy, our environment, and the future. Happy 2009!

The second tooth, moving and solid foods

We've had a very busy couple of weeks since my last post! Zoey's second tooth came in on Tuesday of this last week (Dec 9th), which was a full 2 weeks + 2 days after the first one. It was a hard couple of weeks! She was generally fussier, and really couldn't sleep through the night as she had been, requiring several comforting spells in the rocking chair to get back to sleep. She's doing better now that the second one is in, but we're not quite back to an 8-hour stretch of sleep yet. The photo above was taken on the day that the first tooth came in, while we were packing in our old apartment -- you can see her feeling it with her tongue! She still does this most of the time, so it's nearly impossible to get a picture of the teeth, but we'll keep trying.

We moved on Dec 1st into a house we're renting in a great neighborhood, about 4 miles from where we lived before. The neighborhood is infinitely quieter -- we haven't had a single police car go screaming past our window yet! It's a bigger house with a large back yard, and the best part is that there are many families in the neighborhood with babies under a year old! We're so excited for Zoey and see ourselves spending the next several years here. The photo above was taken a couple days after moving in; Zoey spent time in the backpack while we unpacked boxes.

The only downside so far is that the house has fleas! We are battling them valiantly, and our poor kitty is taking the brunt of the problem, but I think we're starting to get the upper hand. We've chosen the non-chemical route for obvious reasons; Zoey is eventually going to be crawling around on this carpet and we don't want chemical residue there from flea bombs or other treatments, so we are using other means. It takes a little longer, and unfortunately we can't really put Zoey on the floor until the fleas are gone, so crawling practice has been postponed for a while. :-(

And then we started solid foods, finally! With all of the hubbub around moving and teething, we waited to introduce solids until things settled down a bit (mostly because Mommy could only juggle so many major milestones at once). Applesauce was the first food, and now we're on pears, and hoping to try carrots and broccoli this week. We have a little food grinder, and it's kinda fun to steam the food and run it through the grinder. We're staying on one food at a time for 3-4 days to see if she has any kind of allergic reaction before moving on to the next. Daddy had lots of food allergies as a child, so we're taking it slow and easy. Zoey seems to really enjoy eating from a spoon -- she gingerly opens her mouth and gums at the edge of the spoon for a few bites, and then eventually she just grabs it with both hands and puts the whole thing in her mouth. Nom nom nom...

We're having a winter storm this week! We got a couple inches of snow last night and it has continued to snow a little bit all day today. It's very blustery, so it's hard to tell how much snow has accumulated, but even just a couple inches tends to shut things down in Portland. There is usually a layer of ice that goes down first before the snow hits, but then the city doesn't really have a whole lot of snowplows or sand trucks either, so people generally just stay in. And the people who go out are not the ones you want to be on the road with! Just an hour ago, some idiot came around the corner too fast and ended up S-turning through a few of our neighbors' yards (and ours!), narrowly missing a couple of parked cars and a light pole. The temp is supposed to stay below freezing through next weekend, so there will be plenty of opportunities for accidents around town until the snow melts. We're hoping to just minimize our driving altogether and coccoon in our new home!

Hope everyone out there is staying warm and having a wonderful December!

The first tooth is here!

Woo hoo! Fun discovery this morning! Zoey's first little tooth is coming in, on the bottom front. She took my finger and showed it to me, and I'm kinda giddy with excitement! It's actually a little surprising to me that I am having some strong emotions around it. I guess it feels like a 'big girl' milestone, that our little baby is growing up. As if weighing 20 lbs wasn't enough. As I wrote last night, there are other milestones coming right up with starting solid foods and crawling, but this one sorta took me by surprise!

I've read that the first teeth generally come in pairs, so I imagine the other bottom tooth won't be far behind. We'll keep you posted!

Superchunk indeed.

And here it is, almost the end of November already! I've had a list of Zoey happenings waiting to be written to this blog, and all of a sudden two more weeks have gone by since I wrote them down. Argh!


Well here's the big news -- our girl weighs 20 lbs! It has been a couple of weeks since our 6-month visit with Zoey's naturopathic pediatrician where she was weighed and measured, and our jaws are still on the floor. I was thinking 18 lbs tops, but when the scale swung to 20 lbs, I just couldn't believe it. Her length was 27 3/4 inches, just shy of 28. She is just above the top line on the charts for both weight and length, so at least she's proportionate. But sheesh! I know some 1-year-olds who are just getting to 20 lbs. I have a belief that babies who are breastfed cannot be "overweight", that mother's milk is exactly the composition and amount that this particular baby needs, and our doctor agrees with that philosophy. I'm certainly not overdoing it on sugar in my diet; in fact, I'm probably not eating enough in general. So frankly, I'm not sure how in the world she got to 20 lbs already, but she is proportionate in length so I'm just going with it. She might lose some of it when she starts crawling, as many babies do. We'll keep you posted! (And for what it's worth, in the picture above, she's got a big ol' cloth diaper on but you can still get an idea of her girth!)

And on the topic of crawling, Zoey is certainly getting close! It has been such fun to watch her practice her crawling behaviors -- first up on her hands, then on her knees with her butt in the air, but never both at the same time yet. So cute! She can scoot around pretty well on her belly, pushing herself backward with her hands and and forward with her feet, and she's becoming more mobile on her back too. One of my favorite things to watch her do is prop herself up on her hands and then flex her spine back and forth, arching and hunching. Sometimes she sways side to side too, just practicing different movements. Sometimes we find that she has turned herself 90 degrees in her co-sleeper before falling asleep. We're going to have to get her a crib soon, because she will be able to crawl out of that co-sleeper onto the bed and potentially fall off. Which would be bad.

She is still experimenting with her voice, which has been delightful to listen to. She went through a phase of a week and a half, maybe 2 weeks where she was mostly grunting really hard all the time, and that was the primary sound that she was making. Sometimes her face would even get red, she would grunt so hard. It wasn't even like she was doing anything at the time -- a few months ago when she was practicing standing, she would grunt when she extended her legs, but lately it's just to hear the sound it makes. These last couple of days have brought back the squeals, though. I think it has something to do with the fact that we're moving soon and have taken down the drapes and things off the walls, which has changed the acoustics in the living room; sounds bounce off the walls more and squeals echo better!

We haven't yet started solid foods, but I think the time is coming near. She is still mostly just watching us eat, but occasionally she will reach out for a glass that we're drinking from or... the other day she was sitting on Amy Jo's lap (Amy Jo is our incredible office manager for our midwifery practice) while we were eating lunch, and with lightning speed, Zoey slapped a whole bowl of lentil soup out of Amy Jo's hands onto the floor. Splattered all over the rug, couch, chair, coffee table... she was quite delighted with herself. :-(

We're moving next weekend and I'm hoping that we can make it until then for both introducing solid foods and starting to crawl. Mostly for my own benefit, I think -- I'm trying to manage just one major event at a time. Of course Zoey is on her own agenda and couldn't care less about how I would like to have things unfold, as it should be. I've heard it said that our children are our greatest teachers, and in these 6 short months I am already starting to see how that could be the case. (I know that I haven't even begun to scratch the surface -- those of you with toddlers and teenagers are scoffing at me right now!)

We have developed a fun little bedtime routine that consists of taking off her diaper and letting her spend some real quality time with her toes for about 30 minutes. It's almost like her legs are spring loaded -- when the diaper comes off, the toes go straight up to her face and she grabs onto them for all they're worth. She really loves her toes. She will roll around, giggle, put them in her mouth, just has a great time for those 30 minutes. We lay a few cloth diapers down on the floor to catch the inevitable moments of peeing. We play a 30-minute CD of African lullabies, some of which are a cappella, and when she hears the voices, she just stops what she's doing and listens very intently. When the last song comes on, we put on our nighttime diaper and our jammies, say good night to Daddy, and then we tank up for the night and she goes to sleep. For the most part, she sleeps from 8:30pm until somewhere between 3-4 am when she's hungry again, but she goes right back to sleep after I nurse her and sleeps for another few hours. When she's ready to wake up for the day, she generally wiggles herself awake and plays quietly with her fingers or the blanket until she's ready for more attention, then she starts making little happy squeaks until we wake up and play with her. She's such a great kid...

Well, that's all for tonight. Wish us luck with the upcoming move! I probably won't post again until we're in our new home, so we'll see you back here after Dec 1st.

Time Flies... !!

All of a sudden we're nearing the end of October! What happened! Jason and I have been busy with our classes -- Jason is taking two this quarter (more pre-reqs for paramedic school) and I'm teaching two at Seattle Midwifery School. It felt like things kicked into high gear when September hit...

Zoey is just a delight. She went through a little transition in her napping schedule a couple weeks ago that threw us off from her predictable-ness, but I think it's for the better. She now is having a nice long 2-3 hour nap most mornings, and sometimes another 1-2 hours in the afternoon, interspersed with short naps here and there in the evening before going down for the night around 8:30-9:00 pm. She usually sleeps until around 3am when she nurses and goes right back to sleep for another 3 hours, nurses again and goes back to sleep at 6am, then giggles herself fully awake around 7:30-8:00 am. She seems to like sleeping more on her tummy these days, usually for the afternoon nap where she stretches out on Great Grandma Wynkoop's quilt on the floor and falls asleep to some nice piano music. :-)


She has been watching us eat now, very curious about what is going into our mouths. She hasn't insisted on sharing yet, but I have occasionally let her suck on an apple slice to see what she thinks. We're not in any hurry to get her on solids just yet -- she's only 5-1/2 months and the recommendation is full breastfeeding until 6 months, and I think we'll just let her decide when she's ready. Several of the babies in my mom's group have let their parents know when they're ready by grabbing at the food or being more vocal when they're eating, so I'm hoping that Zoey will give us some obvious signals too.

We've all been sick this week -- Zoey's first cold! :-( She got it first, then I got it, and now Jason has it. And I have to say out of the three of us, she has handled it the best. She's still in a great mood, even when she's so stuffed up that she can't breathe through her nose. Meanwhile, Jason and I have just been laying around and moaning. It seems to be a short-lived cold though, as Zoey and I are already starting to feel better. Lots of chicken soup!

Zoey finally rolled over tonight! She is a super-chunk of a girl so she's got some weight to heft, but she finally did it. She has been dramatically flailing herself on and off the breast while nursing for many weeks, but I think she has just put it together for herself that she can control her body like that whenever she wants. It's been fun to watch her discover what she can do with her hands, toes, abdominal muscles, legs... oh, and her voice! Just about every day, she spends time testing out some new sounds that she can make with her voice, and the louder they are, the more delighted she seems with herself. We've been trying to get some of them on the video camera for you all, but the second she sees that little red light, she just stops what she's doing and stares at the camera. We're working on it!


Remember all that hair she had? That picture above was from 2 months. She's now down to just a little mohawk of curls on the top of her head and a little bit at the bottom in the back. The next batch is coming in nicely though, and we're looking forward to seeing what it will look like.

We're moving! Through a wonderful twist of fate, we've found ourselves with the opportunity to rent a 1940 home in an amazing neighborhood in Portland. There are several families on the street with babies within a few months of Zoey's age, and many of them are girls too (envision the tea parties!). The house has a great back yard, low crime, good schools, and best of all, it's QUIET! Much unlike where we live now. We are so looking forward to not having wailing sirens and rumbling semi trucks going by and waking Zoey on a daily basis. We're hoping to move by Dec 1, which is just around the corner. I've never been so excited to move in my life!

OK, that's all for now. Hope you're all having a wonderful fall!

Leaps and Bounds

Zoey seems to have taken a nice developmental leap in the last week or so, and it's thrilling to watch her intellect unfold. She is fascinated by her fingers, and even more so by our fingers. Her current favorite toy is Mommy's hand. She'll grab the pinky with one hand and the thumb with the other hand, and after studying it for a bit, pull my whole hand onto her face. I especially love when she weaves her little fingers between my big fingers. She's playing more with dangling toys, too. Her favorites are the little soft toys that hang from the handle of her car seat. She can't even reach them, but her whole face just lights up when she sees them and she gives them a big smile.

She has also discovered her toes! Just the left ones, though, and only when she's on the changing table. She's not quite as interested in the right ones just yet. For a few days there, she was also sucking on her top lip, but only while on the changing table. Now she's past that, it's old news already. :-)

Zoey's absolute favorite way of viewing the world is upside down. The girl loooooves to hang her head upside down -- off our lap, off the side of our arm, off the end of the sling that I hold her in to go to sleep. She remains quiet and content the whole time that she's looking at things that way.
She still loves to be outside, too. Can't get enough of those trees! It would be so great to find a mobile that has sticks and leaves on it. I'm sure they're simple to make, I just don't have the creative brain to do something like that.

Another thing that she seems to want to do more and more is sit upright. Her head wobbles around a bit as she is working on her balance in that position, but she's getting better and better. We pretty much hold onto her the whole time at this point and just make sure that she is well supported all the way around in case she topples over.

And the big development of the week -- giggles! Real giggles. Daddy got them first, and then when Mommy got some, she broke down crying because it was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. Mommy is such a softy that way... Zoey is pretty much giggling about once a day now, and we're trying hard to get a good video clip of it. She gets distracted by the camera, though. We'll send it out to the whole world when we get it on video, believe me.

Jason is about to start school again, working on prerequisites for paramedic school while working almost full time for Metro West ambulance company. I am also starting school, but on the teaching side, with two classes at Seattle Midwifery School. I'll be taking Zoey to Seattle with me two days a month through December to teach in the classroom, and in the online classroom for the rest of the time. I've decided to not take any classes for my Public Health degree this quarter, as it would be too much to juggle.

That's all for now -- hope everyone is enjoying these late summer days!

All Arms!

Zoey has been using her arms and hands so much these last couple of weeks. Much to her daddy's delight, she is using her left hand and arm much more deliberately than her right side; Jason already has big plans for her t-ball and fast-pitch softball careers as a lefty. Turns out that babies will switch back and forth for almost a couple years before settling in to a left or right preference... but a father can dream, right?

Zoey has a wood rattle that she loves; it's basically just a small wood cylinder with some beans in it, and she'll grab hold of that (with her left hand) and just flail it all over the place. Totally adorable. She is also quite interested in whatever is behind her at all times, especially while nursing. Hooray! Aside from it being a little painful at times, it's really kinda cute how interested she is in the world around her. Unfortunately, that also comes with waking much more easily at every loud truck that passes on the street outside the bedroom window... The police sirens actually make her cry now. :-( Ah, for the days when she could sleep through anything...

Speaking of sleep, she is still sleeping soundly through the night, for which we are very grateful and lucky. Now if only we would go to bed at a reasonable time and take full advantage of it!

Zoey and I are taking a trip to Alaska on Tuesday night to join my family in celebrating the life of my grandfather, who passed away on Sunday. He was 88 years old and just as strong and independent as he was 30 years ago. He had been struggling with blood clots for several years, and last Monday he had a massive stroke from which he did not recover. He won't get to go on that moose hunting trip he had planned, but he is happily joining my grandmother who I'm sure he sorely missed for these last few years. I wish that Jason could come with us, but with his new job, there's no vacation time yet... So Zoey and I are going it alone and will be staying with family in Alaska. Here's to you, Grandpa!