Pizza picnic on the square

It's been gorgeous this week in Prescott. Today Ada and I popped downtown to have a pizza picnic with Beth and Jake.

Pizza face!

Jake refusing to look at me.

This is Beth.

Nine Month Update

Ada had her well visit today and here are her stats:

Weight is 21 pounds. So she is bigger than 87% of those other munchkins out there.
Height is 28 in. (67%).
Head circumference is 44.5 cm (68%).

So, basically, she's a wee bit bigger than average.

Everything else was good. She has a heartbeat, her ears were clear, and all of the ear infection/respiratory stuff she had going on is over.

This was not a shot visit, so overall it was pretty pleasant. Next checkup isn't until she's a year!

Nine Months!

Nine months!

She's getting more hair -- I hear on skype it looks like a mohawk -- but it still isn't enough to count as a head of hair.

Her crawling and cruising is now at expert level and includes some stair work as well. The next thing for her will be standing. She can currently stand for a few moments unscaffolded, but as soon as she realizes she's doing it ... CRASH!

I'm guessing the day she can stand and take a step is coming very soon and it may just involve outright running. She's a bit motor-driven!

She doesn't have any words yet. She says dada but not in relation to anything that is really a dada. This week she has added bababababababa to the chorus. Mostly she just shrieks. She loves to laugh and her fake laugh is hilarious, which leads me to laugh, which makes her laugh, which makes me laugh, and so on. There are many times during the day where we just sit there laughing at each other  for a few minutes.

She learned to clap a few weeks ago and that has transferred into "giving five" as well as a very excited arm wave. I've noticed she occasionally congratulates herself on something with a little clap.

Another thing she has learned to do is release. Turns out this is a major milestone for a human, because actually letting GO of something is pretty important. She's using this new idea to fling balls back to you and also to place them in a tunnel toy that makes a little song when you do it right.

Next week she starts a weekly music class -- I'm assuming just singing songs and banging around a lot -- and swimming kicks back in again. She and I have also been going to the toddler storytime at the library on Tuesdays. What a busy little kid!

On days when we don't have any activities and the weather is nice, we pop by the park to use the baby swings and try out the toddler slides. She can almost go down the slide by herself! I'll try to get video one of these days, but it's a bit difficult since I need to catch her at the bottom!

In the last few days I've been noticing a bit of separation anxiety sneaking in. She's a little more clingy. If she isn't engaged with something and you get too far away, there is some unhappiness. I'm hoping we can skip through this pretty quickly. At least we haven't hit stranger fears yet! She's still happy to give old ladies in the grocery store a big smile!

As always, you can watch videos of her at www.youtube.com/AZGautreaux.

Snow Day!

This morning we were greeted by the eery light of outdoor precipitation. It snowed about four inches while we slept!

Jeffrey snapped this view out back early this morning.

And a glimpse of out front.

But it kept snowing!

This is what it looked like around lunch time. See those railing boxes? Those had pansies in them. Maybe not anymore.

You can't even see the boulders any more!

The dogs still had to go out. Lucy seemed to enjoy tromping in the snow.

Lily did not.

Can you say Abba Zabba?

Yesterday the AZ Gautreaux group headed down to Scottsdale for the evening. Jeffrey dropped Ada and me off at the horse show and he went over to a spring training game in Peoria.

I never fail to have a wonderful time with the group from Sabino Equestrian. Tara and Kendall Weber are just some of my favorite people as well as the rest of the friends that come out to ride.

Ada first mounted up with Kendall on Abba Zabba when she was four months. Now at nearly nine months, she still looks game and ready to roll!

Ada on Abba, 4 mo., in October of 2011.

Kendall and Ada on Abba, now nearly 9 mo. Happy St. Patrick's Day, 2012.

I took video this time!

Now we just need a horse up in Prescott!

The ladies let me take Abba out to the training arena and put him through some paces. I miss this!

Infant Sensory Play and Snacks

I was reading a post over on TinkerLab about sensory play with a baby. She used a bowl of beans and other small objects so that her little one could mash her hands around in them and experience the different textures, weights, and movement.

Ada isn't quite ready for beans as, even with supervision, it is difficult to keep objects out of her mouth. Maybe next month! Today, though, while I was making rice crispy treats ... possibly for breakfast, yes ... I decided to pour a bunch of the crispies into a mixing bowl for her to have a little "sensory play" while I made the treats.

The poodle also enjoyed the game. What fun! Ada seemed to really enjoy getting her hands in there, swishing the bowl around, pulverizing them on the floor, testing her head against the cabinetry, and also just snacking on the bits.

It was easy cleanup with dogs around. Though Lucy needed some coaxing to join the poodle and the baby in the rice cereal buffet.

Hopefully soon we can try some other items like beans as the "not in your mouth" concept gets a little more concrete. I'd hate to explain to the emergency room lady how that bean got up her nose while I was Sitting. Right. There.

Baby Fort

Today while Ada napped, I rotated out her books and toys, moved a few things she likes to explore around the house so she can refind them, and made her a baby fort.

Here she is in the baby fort. That's right. It IS awesome. Pretty flowers surrounding a cool little under the table space. Heart bangles strewn between two legs with pom pom trim and ribbon. Stacking bowls from the kitchen, and a basket of new items to test out.

This, so far, is the only time she has spent in there. She's more interested in the paper recycling bin by my desk. I'm sure she'll get around to playing in there in a bit.

Maybe she'll be excited about the frozen banana dots I made her while she slept.

8 Whole Months

I'm a bit late in posting her monthly anniversary post. She and I both returned from NC with massively exhausting head colds. We're better now, thank you.

Ada is just fun to watch. She perfected her crawling and early cruising at my parents' house. Their heavily padded carpeting throughout the house made for excellent crash landings. Now home again on the hard wood, she hasn't slowed down an iota.

There are lots of videos out on www.youtube.com/azgautreaux if you want to watch her in action.

She spends her days exploring the house. I like to move objects and toys around for her to investigate in new locations. She likes to dig in the potted palm. Often her journeys find her hanging out in a dog crate or rummaging through the paper recycling by my desk. Occasionally she plays with actual toys.

The dogs are still tolerating her, though if i were them, I'd be pretty sick of this kid that keeps crawling over them, pinning them down, and sharing their crates. Yesterday I looked over to see what everyone was up to, and Ada had the poodle's head palmed and pinned to the floor. The poodle was fine with it because she was drinking the baby's bottle. Go figure. I guess they are a team.

Recent activities, besides really long airplane trips, have included her first swim classes with Jeffrey, trying out swings at the park, cruising around the house, a new game of napkin peekaboo, and ... TEETH! Two of them on the bottom: shiny, white, and sharp.


I have no idea how much she weighs. It feels like a ton. I have no idea how tall she is, but she's taller than the edge of the desk according to her head bruises.

She's a great eater and will eat just about everything. I think she has tried a little bit of everything we've had lately without exception. She's also using a tippy cup with water in it with near mastery (it's the shaking of it after she's had a gulp that is creating the mess). Hopefully we can be done with bottles soon. She'll even drink out of a cup without a lid, but tends to nearly drown.

Mostly, we're just hanging out having a great time.