seven months already.

my, how the time does fly.

on sunday when i was taking her 7 month pictures (soon to follow), she crawled over to her exersaucer and pulled up on the thing. that crazy girl! she pulled herself up and started playing with the toys on it. today, she did the same thing, and was walking around it to get to different toys. this kid is not going to stay on the ground for very long.

i made some more baby food today...peas and apricots. she had some peas tonight and that seemed to go over fairly well...we'll try the apricots next week and see how that goes.

i'm so excited about christmas, and perhaps even more excited that today was derek's last day of work until january 5. it will be fabulous to have him at home for a while. i need the company. things can get overwhelming at times, and it will be a much-needed break for my full-time mothering all day long.

we bought charis a snow suit this weekend and are anxiously awaiting the snow required for her to wear it. can't wait to see what she thinks of that. there will definitely be video.

so merry christmas to everyone! i'll try and post early next week, but we'll be out of town over the weekend so don't be too anxious for those first christmas pictures!!

ch-ch-ch-changes!

so yesterday, i was wrapping christmas presents. charis saw all that crinkly paper from across the room and apparently was interested enough that she finally pushed past all that rocking and belly flopping and actually crawled! she came right over and grabbed some scraps to munch on. so now our little girl is officially crawling....time to baby proof! we are frantically trying to find baby gates that fit our needs and discussing what things we have to put in storage for safety's sake. we already made a few changes after thanksgiving in anticipation of her crawling, but we definitely have a lot left to do. my sister-in-law just laughs at me because our house is about the least baby-proof there is...she always had such a hard time bringing her kids here becuase there was so much for them to hurt themselves on, and for them to break :) so apparently we're getting our fair due :)

this morning charis modeled for evenflo for the 2nd time...both photo shoots were for packaging images for snugli carriers. both of her shoots will be on boxes for products that come out in june. derek also modeled this morning, but he had a four-week old baby in his snugli, and the four-week-old baby's mom had charis... charis did well, but refused to smile this time. oh well! the nice thing about those shoots is that they shoot a portrait for us afterwards, and since derek was there as well, we were able to do a family photo. they'll send us a disc with the images we selected in a month or two, and i'll post it then. it was our first official family photo!

this afternoon, i discovered that charis' top right tooth finally broke through! we've been waiting for weeks for this to happen, and finally that stubborn little tooth has decided to cooperate. i'm nervous about how this will affect nursing, but i am glad that i'm plugged in to our local LLL chapter and can get some help if i need it.

she's still not eating much in the way of solids, but we keep working at it every day...last night she slept 7 hours straight, which gave us some much-needed sleep. a nice reprise from her habit of being awake every 2 hours. i'm hoping that her habit is about to be broken, because i am in serious need of real sleep, and i think derek is too.

on sunday, charis will be 7 months old! we can't believe how big she is getting and how she is turning into a little girl :)

looks like mayonnaise...

so. a funny anecdote from this evening.

we were visiting with some friends we haven't seen in a while, and they invited us to stay for dinner. they had some honebaked ham they were planning to have for sandwiches, so there was plenty to share. i made mine with one side mayo, one side dijon...some lettuce...no cheese, of course.

it was a casual thing, we just made sandwiches and sat in the family room while charis played on the floor in front of us. i sat down to start eating, and as i had a bite of my sandwich, charis fussed enough that i thought i should pick her up and try to hold her while i ate.

so i picked her up and she thrashed around in my arms a bit before settling down.

"you have something on your chin," offered derek.

"oh," i thought to myself, "i thought i felt something wettish on my chin...let's just see, shall we?"

so i wiped the palm of my hand on my chin and looked at what was there. "oh," i thought, "it's mayonnaise...i must have gotten some on me when i took that bite of sandwich." so i licked it off my hand.

but oh. no. that's not mayonnaise at all. that has a strange sour taste, and...

"ew!" i spit it back out.

somehow, charis had managed to plant a glob of cheesey spit-up on my chin. but it wasn't on my chin anymore.

and now that i have you all grossed out, allow me to share some photos from last night...derek and i went to "the winds cafe" in yellow springs for an anniversary dinner. it was our 5th anniversary yesterday and we had a lovely dinner.

sign of the times.

so this morning, i had charis in her high chair and was feeding her some rice cereal mixed with pears... (mixing with pears is the only way she'll eat it) so she ate a couple bites, then started kind of yelling at me and wouldn't eat any more... i was just kind of looking at her, trying to figure out what she wanted, when i looked at her hands, stretched out at her sides. they were squeezing into fists and releasing repeatedly...

now, this is the ASL sign for "milk"...but even though we've been signing with her for a couple months (and not always consistently), i had never seen her doing anything resembling signing back at me...in fact, i was starting to wonder if i would even recognize when she signed back to me.

so this morning, she's doing the fist thing, and it occurs to me, "maybe she's asking for milk?" so i sign back to her and say "charis, do you want some milk?" she immediately stopped being mad, smiled, and flapped her arms in excitement.

holy cow, the kid was telling me she wanted milk!!!

i can't wait for the next sign she chooses to use!

six months???

holy cow, how time gets away from us. here we are with snow on the ground and charis is six months old. ...not to mention how soon thanksgiving will be upon us. i am so behind on pictures here, and i do apologize. we're going to play catch-up today...

meanwhile, charis is growing up so fast...we've been trying different solids with her every day...we've finally gotten to the point where she doesn't gag on everything we give her (that was attractive)...and how she's actually beginning to ingest some of it. we got her a little booster seat, so now she sits at the table with us during dinner and learns about gravity (drops toy, looks longingly over edge of high chair at toy, mom or dad picks up toy...and again and again).

she's working so hard to crawl, but can't move forward yet. she gets up on her hands and knees and rocks like a banshee, but hasn't figured out how to pick up her knees and put them forward. she is, however, very good and quick at scooting backwards. and she rolls over so quickly now, we've had to start paying attention to what's on the floor around her.

she has not been sleeping well at all lately...she's been getting us up about every 2 hours, if not more frequently...it's really taking its toll on derek and i...we are pretty exhausted. it's pretty obvious though, that in addition to that 6-month growth spurt that she's probably in, she is teething again...i think it's only a matter of days until that first top tooth pokes through.

i'd have to say that one of the sweetest things with her lately is that she has learned the sound of the front door opening and closing. even when she can't see it, she knows it means someone is coming or going. so when derek gets home from work every day, she hears the door and looks in that direction, anticipating who's coming in...when she sees it's derek, she gets a HUGE smile on her face. has to be one of the best parts of my day. i'm sure it's derek's too :)

charis and i went to ikea with a friend yesterday to pick up some furniture for charis' room. i'm planning to paint and re-organize things in there so it looks proper. i'll post some pictures when it's all complete -- which may be a while :)

we're looking foward to thanksgiving and i am just enjoying the snow on the ground. now for some pictures!!!

my first batch of home-made, organic baby food, ready for the freezer...mmm, sweet potatoes.

bath time in the sink

halloween cow (the irony of which was pointed out to me by a friend yesterday...
the kid who's allergic to dairy dresses up as a cow for halloween.)

a few shots from her baptism on nov 9...

finally eating sweet potatoes!

and here she is at six months old!

making history.

well, regardless of how you all voted, hopefully we can all agree that it is very exciting that history has been made...barriers have been broken. personally, i'm excited to see some young kids in the white house...and who doesn't want to see a puppy on the white house lawn???

our little charis is making her own history... she's started scooting backwards on her hands and knees...lookout stereo, it's almost time to child proof. and the girl is a squealer. when she gets happy, she just goes nuts with her little squeals...it's ADORABLE. we've started giving her baths in the sink and it works really well. she sits up on her own and for derek and i, standing up makes it so much easier to bathe her.

we've been trying some foods with her once in a while...the other day we gave her a piece of pear in one of these thingies (http://www.bestbabygear.com/nibblerbynuby.html) ... she was really into it...we took some video of her making faces and getting the shivers while chewing on it...but she kept going back for more, so i think she liked it. we still get gags when we try and spoon feed her anything. i made some sweet potatoes last week and got the gags from her... i read that the oversensitive gag reflex goes away when they're ready for solids. so we'll just keep trying every week or so and see how she does.

the warmer weather this week has been amazing. we've had the windows open, gone for walks, etc. makes it easier to be at home all day.

i promise i'll post some new pictures soon...the batteries to the camera are dead and derek had the charger at work all last week. so i'm charging it now and i'll post when i can. we've got halloween pics, baths in the sink, and a few other things :)

harvest, wedding and 5-month pics!

here are some recent photos...from pumpkin patches (she didn't take to those)...to homecoming at taylor...to a cousin's wedding last weekend...to her five month pictures (taken today...check out those teeth!) :)

time for an update?

well, i've been hearing from a lot of people that i need to update the blog!! i can't believe it's been three weeks since my last post... she has changed soooo much!

she is now sitting like a PRO. she can sit indefinitely and loves to sit on her quilt and play with her toys. she'll just sit there and pick one toy after another, moving them behind her when she tires of them. we have a set of stacking cups for her, and she loves when we make a tower of them so she can knock it down. that's a game that can keep her happy for as long as 10 minutes sometimes :)

she loves books too, but mostly seems like she just wants to put them in her mouth :)

about two weeks ago, we decided it was time to move her out of the co-sleeper and into her own room. she was waking up almost hourly and derek and i were not getting much sleep. life was beginning to seem like one long, crazy dream. we don't have a crib yet, but we've been using the peapod instead. things started out a little rough, but after only about a week, she started sleeping consistently for 7-8 hours at a time. last night, she slept 10 hours straight!! derek and i are loving this new trend, and are greedily catching up on sleep...and we're enjoying having some time together in the evenings as well. we're getting a crib soon and will be putting together a proper nursery...

we have taken the condo off the market for the time being...with the economy the way it is, we don't think it's likely someone will buy in the next couple months, and with the holidays coming up, we thought we'd rather have less stress about keeping things clean. so we're planning to re-list in february or march.

our search for a new vehicle has concluded...we bought a 2005 honda odyssey last week. it's dark blue with grey interior and it was a welcome accessory to our trip to illinois this past weekend. boy did that make packing a breeze! we were able to have everything we needed, as well as several things we took to loan to derek's brother's family.

tomorrow, charis will be 5 months old. i can't believe it. i can't believe i've been home with her that long! she is getting so big and strong, and i fear she'll be crawling in no time.

i'll try and post some 5-month pictures over the next couple days.

a crazy week.

well, charis is 4 months old!!! she turned 4 months on my birthday last week, september 21. it was a frustrating day...we had planned a great day at the aquarium in newport, but as we were putting charis in the stroller in the parking garage, i threw out my back. i could hardly stand or walk, but not to be thwarted, derek got me a wheelchair so that we could still enjoy the aquarium. i held charis, and he pushed us all the way through. it was somewhat disappointing, but we did our best to make it a great day in spite of it.



we were fortunate that my chiropractor was willing to go in to the office that day (on a sunday!) to adjust me and get me some relief...but leaving his office, the car's exhaust slammed on the curb and impact broke the catalytic converter! so we're frantically trying to find a replacement vehicle at a decent price that will last us...i think we've settled on a used honda odyssey, but we've yet to seal a deal.

the friday before my birthday, charis had a really rough day...very irritable, wouldn't nurse, etc. well, saturday morning we discovered the source of her discomfort -- a tooth! yep, she cut her first tooth, one day shy of 4 months old. she's about to pop that 2nd one through as well...it should show any day now.

so most of this week has been spent trying to find a new car (or van, as it may be). but when we haven't been focusing on that, charis has been becoming a fabulous little sitter, sometimes sitting for as much as 10 minutes at a time. she is really starting to reach for things, including our dishes at dinner time. she's getting really good at grasping and figuring out how her hands and arms work in 3d space...and when she is on her stomach, she is pushing up on her arms, getting herself so high above the ground! she's also trying to get up on her knees, and it seems that she is building the muscles she'll need to crawl. this little girl is growing up way too fast!

i'll leave you with a few pictures from her 4 month photo session. my sister has been begging for profile pictures, so i made sure to shoot a few this time. enjoy, sis! :)

(well, the first one is actually from celebrating my birthday at my mom's on saturday night)

learning to sit.

well, she's not spectacular at it yet, but charis is slowly and surely learning to sit. she is always trying to pull herself up when she is laying down, but obviously still needs help to get up. derek jokes that she's building a little baby 6-pack in her belly.

she gets very excited when we help her into a sitting position, and she's getting better at balancing. we like to practice with her on the bed so she can tip over and not get hurt...that way, she can still build the muscle tone and balance she needs, but isn't bonking her head on the ground all the time.

this morning, she was sitting for more than a minute at a time, which was by far the best she's done so far. it's fun to see little improvements in skills like this day by day. makes me really glad i'm at home with her, and makes me sad for the next kid that i won't be able to spend as much time doing stuff like this because i'll have charis to take care of as well. :)





here's one of charis mid-tip...



she's also really digging her exersaucer (insert shameless plug for evenflo products here).



and on a final note, for those of you who have had kids, how stinking amazing is it when you can make your baby smile and laugh???? oh, man. it's the best.