Six Month Review!

Ada's six-month anniversary was actually last week, but since her checkup wasn't until today, I held off on reporting since I didn't have any stats.

Now I do.

Weight: 18.4 pounds. We were convinced it was more like 30... 18 seems much more reasonable sounding.


Height: 25.75 in. Her pants are all becoming capris.


Head circumference: 43.2 cm. Um, yay? I never know what this stuff means.

To sum up: She's awesome.

It is hard for me to believe it has been half a year already. From not fitting into her smallest onesies in the beginning to sitting next to me right now as I type this (playing with blocks and trying to figure out how to hit the switch on the bouncer for music), I'm amazed at how she has grown.

Her skill sets are adding up nicely -- she has great core strength, excellent hand/eye coordination, she likes to feed herself, she is rolling around to destinations she can't crawl to (yet!), and can sit for a really long time and entertain herself with toys. She's also a scoundrel. Her little walker has enabled her to zoom around the house getting into trouble. Today she found she could get across the carpet and twang the doorstop, much to her delight. There are videos of her strutting around the house on www.youtube.com/AZGautreaux but it doesn't do it justice. You'll just have to come visit us and see!

She also is developing her palate: bananas, sweet potato, avocado, peas, carrots, regular potatoes, vanilla ice cream, saltines, graham crackers, pizza crust, and apples. She did not care for pears.

What she doesn't know is that tonight we start the "crying it out" phase of Project Ada Sleeping. She's not going to like it. Our pediatrician assures us it will make for a happier baby. I don't know. The baby in these pictures looks mighty happy to me ... and she woke up four times last night with demands.

A few more Christmas weekend moments

Lily (the little one) got a new sweater for Christmas. Not to be outdone, Lucy pulled out the argyle. They both also received new collars -- light blue leather with rhinestone flowers -- but they are not pictured here.

Because nothing says happy days like Jeffrey holding the cutest Ada in the world. My mom made the hat and it is now a new favorite!

Ada gives a taste test to "Paulie" the polar bear, a gift from Katie and Elliott. That's an ADA-approved bear!

On the day after Christmas, we went on a short drive out of town to see some beauty. We found some!

Ada's First Christmas!

Ada's first Christmas pile is not small for a 6-month-old! As every package was unwrapped, each gift was given a little mouth time in appreciation. Thank you to everyone who sent her a little something! This kid sure is lucky to have such excellent gift givers in her life!

We videoed the event, and I'm going to put it up on the YouTube channel as soon as it is done processing.

Merry Christmas!

Lunch with Ada

Look! Hair!

That's avocado in there. She loves it!

Side view of hairs.

Snow and other updates!

It is cold in Prescott. On Friday of last week, it started to snow. Then it stopped. Then it started again. It was getting mighty wintery out. Saturday, it kept snowing. The term "driving snow" could be used to describe what was going on during the annual Prescott Christmas parade -- those poor marching band kids must have been freezing.

Last year at this time, Jeffrey and I were in Phoenix and our hilarious idea for a Christmas card was us getting a tan in our backyard under the grapefruits. This is us this year. We're too cold to contemplate Christmas cards. Maybe next year.

There is still snow on the ground a week later -- and icy patches in the shade. Ada's first Christmas might be a white one.

This weekend we're going to get our tree and do some Christmas decorating. I'm also planning to find a Santa and foist the baby at him for some pictures. If he gets away with his beard intact, we'll consider it a success (she's a little grabby!)

In more Ada news, she's getting pretty sturdy. She isn't a large baby, but she's getting to be quite the chunk. She's been enjoying trying out new foods -- they aren't really sustaining her nutritionally, they are just experiential at this point -- and her favorites are carrots, peas and sweet potatoes. She likes to drive the spoon into her mouth, though she is still working on gauging depth.

She's also still not sleeping through the night. She goes down easily but we get to hang out with her frequently throughout the night. Jeffrey is now having to pitch in a bit so I don't get all "Fight Club" from sleep deprivation.

Other actually fun things she's doing include using her walker with near proficiency to chase the dogs and I suspect we'll have some crawling in the next few weeks. She needs just a little more arm strength and I think she'll be off. She can get a knee under, but it topples her onto her face. She doesn't seem to enjoy that.

She'll be 6-months-old on December 22, which I find astounding. For me, this has been the quickest feeling six months of my life.

GPaG's Visit

Ada got a good dose of Husker logowear when Grandpa Terry flew into town for Thanksgiving.  Here are a few shots from the visit!

So cute, it's worth posting again.

One of the "floats" at the light parade.

The Prepster! We called her Muffy all day in her green and pink ensemble.

That's an ATV under there!

Ready for the streets with her hoodie and cellie.

Walking Lucy.

"On the paper, not in your mouth." You can see she already decorated her face.

Ada's First Thanksgiving

I whizzed a few of our dishes through the food processor for Ada. A little mashed potato, some peas -- which she loved, and some apples for dessert.

But of course, what first Thanksgiving would be complete without the shot of her wielding a turkey leg?

Her own thighs have gotten so large that in order to get her out of the Bumbo, it takes two people -- similar to the Winnie the Pooh story where he gets stuck in the hole. (We have the play tray that goes on it, but we've never been able to use it because her legs obstruct it.)

I think it is time to get a high chair... one with large leg openings!

Other Little Red

Going to have to rethink my Thanksgiving menu now! Thank you Krouse group for my new mixer. I feel like a real grown up now with my very own Kitchen-Aid mixer!

(Red color not affiliated with the Nebraska Huskers or their fans)

Little Red

Grandpa Terry is here! You can tell by Ada's new sweatshirt...

Beep beep!

We brought home a walker for Ada to try out. She so badly wanted to be vertical, so we thought she'd like it. When we plunked her in it, though, her feet were a good three inches shy of touching the floor.

That was only a week ago.

All of a sudden on Tuesday she was able to touch a foot to the floor. Did she seriously grow that fast? Can't be. She must have figured out how to shift her weight. That or the sling in it stretched under her quickly becoming considerable mass.

She's really enjoying pushing herself around, though she can only go backwards and often this results in joy but also frustration as she zips under her own power away from the thing she was trying to get to.

She's getting really good at it! For the last two days she's only been using her left foot. This morning she was able to push off using her right. The day she can touch both at once is going to be an exciting one. She figured out how to get both feet down at the same time, as you can now see in the video.

The wood floors haven't been great for the dogs, but they are going to be excellent for Ada to zip around on and as long as no one leaves the front door open, the main floor space is a safe room for her to do it in. Fortunately, we don't have a lot of tippy stuff on tables or anything since dog proofing at this stage is fairly similar to baby proofing.

Go, Ada, Go!

Beautiful or Useful?

My dad had never seen an episode of Hoarders before, so while he was visiting, we Netflixed up season 1 and watched the first episode. Horrified and disturbed by the episode's particular hoarders -- piles of spoiled food in one house, piles of stuff in the other -- we both agreed we'd probably have to attack our respective homes immediately.

I'm not a hoarder. But I have stuff. Some days it feels like I have a lot of stuff. When we moved from Tucson to Phoenix, I methodically went through all of our belongings and discarded or donated a lot of said stuff.

The move from Phoenix to Prescott was not so organized since there was a newborn to deal with.

After the episode of hoarders though, I've recommitted myself to going through every little nook and cranny and removing the excess.

William Morris, a British craftsman and wordsmith, said:

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

So that's the standard.

It is too easy to accumulate things. The fear of wastefulness so frequently has us tossing old rubber bands into a drawer only to find them disintegrated months later unused and it is so wrongheaded. What really should be the goal is to use up what we have, never bring anything in that isn't inspiring or extremely useful, and not attach too much emotion to objects.


That being said, I'm not a person who enjoys stark spaces. I love things. I love layers of things. But I also like organization. So part of my attack on the house is to take the detritus I deem beautiful but messy (photos, little decorative boxes, Ada's most special newborn clothes) and figure out ways to house them that don't feel like they are taking up more than their share of space.


Once I get it all together, we'll probably move again.


Today a huge garbage bag of my clothes, a smaller garbage bag of Ada's old clothes (she's getting so big!), and boxes of extra kitchen crap went off to Goodwill.


What will this week bring?!

Snow Day!

This morning I woke up and the light outside seemed a bit ghostly. The rocks were reflecting the odd light and it turns out it is because it snowed! There was a thin blanket on Saturday -- just a whisper of snow. But this morning, the rocks and trees are boasting a much more substantial blanket--not Nebraska substantial, of course. It has been 8 years since I have seen snow in person!

Zombie Baby!

A terrible pestilence is about to be unleashed throughout the world, unknowingly, through a sweet, innocent infant .... ZOMBIE BABY!!!!

She woke up this morning feeling a bit ... odd ... she didn't cry for her mommy ... not yet ... ZOMBIE BABY!

That's when the terrible hunger came over her. She wailed for her mother ... ZOMBIE BABY!

Good morning, my sweet! Are you going to give me a kiss?

THE HORROR! NO ZOMBIE BABY!!!!!!!!

Moving on to her next victim, her father, getting ready for work ... ZOMBIE BABY!!!!

Who will be her next victim ... it may be you!

ZOMBIE BABY!!!!!!

Reporting in...

Ada is now four months old. Today she had her checkup and now, after great trauma, is sleeping soundly.

The report!
Weight: 14 lbs 2 oz
Height: 24.25 inches
Head circumference: 41.3 cm

She's apparently very average in all her measurements, which I see as being a very good thing!

So as some of you know, the two-month-old checkup didn't go smoothly for us. A different pediatrician told me that Ada may have craniosynostosis. Why did she think this? Well, Ada does have pronounced sutures on her skull ... After a lot of crying by me and four additional doctors unofficially manipulating her skull, the consensus was that there was nothing wrong.

Dr. Hinton confirmed that today. He said, "She has a beautiful head!"

So there, crappy other pediatrician with the stupid boring Band-Aids.

One of the things I pestered Dr. H about today was her sleeping. She doesn't do much of it. At night she wakes up about every two hours and seemed like she was starving. He said she probably was! Some babies just have big appetites, so guess who gets to try out some new foods? I wasn't given any rules, just the thumbs up to let Ada start trying rice meal, fruits and veggies.

A week ago I let her suck on an apple slice and she seemed delighted, so I think I'll puree a bit of honeycrisp apple for her later today and see how she feels about it.

Woo!

This is not good ...

Ada is now back to 100% after a quick cold. And what does she decide to do? Work on crawling and coming dangerously close to coordinating her efforts.

Thankfully, she's only getting the back end and the front end isn't scooching.

Weren't we supposed to get more time with a sackapotatoes kid? She'll be clicking over to month four next week. This is looking way too close to crawling for my taste. Going to have to hobble her.

Understand, the total meltdown at the end is part frustration, part pure exhaustion as she'd been at this for about 15 minutes while we ate our dinner.

Sick to death of being sick

Ada and I have both been enjoying a cold.

You know what isn't a good idea?

A sick mommy.

Sick mommies have trouble keeping it together and running on little sleep (plus they can't get better without sleep, pffft ... who came up with this system!!!).

Okay, well, dealing with a sick baby hasn't been that bad since Ada is a superstar sick baby. She never really got horribly icky like I did. Just a little cute, phlegmy cough. I took her over to the doc to make sure there wasn't some new miracle infant cold cure (there isn't) and to make sure it really was just a little cold (it was) and away we went home again. Ada has been in a great mood and although she sounds like a pug when she breathes and snores like her GPaG Terry in miniature when she sleeps, she's still having a lovely time.

I, on the other hand, am not making much headway. I've even pulled out the neti pot and done a little saline irrigation on the nose parts trying to help eradicate the symptoms (I know the symptoms are part of the fight against the cold virus, but they suck and I want my head back.)

Jeffrey has not been afflicted, fortunately. He rarely gets sick and when he does, he thinks he's dying.*

Today, however, I feel like fighting. I WILL NOT HAVE THIS COLD ANY LONGER! OUT DAMN SPOT! (wait, wrong play...)

I have coffee, Hostess Donettes -- chocolate covered, and many boxes of tissues. YOU ARE GOING DOWN, COLD!

Now if I could just get a nap...

*Jeffrey had a fever once a few years ago and kept saying, "this can't be normal sick, are you sure I don't need to go to urgent care?" I gave him some meds and he was fine within 45 minutes. Death averted!

In Ada news:

• She can now assist in holding her own bottle -- though she often ends up with it in her ear,
• She is tentatively taking "steps" -- if you hold her up and give her a little nudge forward, she slowly marches right-left-right,
• She can also now rollover from her back to her tummy and when she is on her tummy she doesn't panic. There is some pre-crawl beetling of the arms and legs, but fortunately she hasn't figure it out yet. However, she can only roll to the right. Like Zoolander, she isn't an ambi-turner,
• She has added the Beach Boys's "Barbara Anne" to her song list as well as me singing Iron Man while making her toys head bang. Her taste in music is bizarre, and
• Her new favorite toy is a stuffed chicken. There is nothing funnier than a baby clutching a fairly regulation-sized stuffed chicken.

Awayness

We've been pretty busy the last few weeks. Ada traveled to Colorado Springs for The Last Gautreaux Boy wedding.

We didn't take pictures of the actual wedding, and hopefully someone will send us some so we can remember the lovely event.

We DID take pictures of Ada and a little semi-impromptu family portrait.

Also, while we were gone, my brother, Eric, stayed with the dogs. He was able to stay over a few extra days and so I put him to work babysitting Ada while I visited the dermatologist (another precancerous spot, man, the sun HATES me!) and he snapped a lot of her making faces. My dad is constantly amazed at how quickly her facial expressions shift across her face. Eric did a great job illustrating this point: these pics were taken within seconds of each other.