Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Almost 6 months and almost crawling

Yesterday we went for a walk. It was overcast and chilly here in Denver, so I put her in her poncho and cloche hat from Great Aunt Bunny. Isn't she a doll! Roan does this thing when we go on walks where she has a meltdown about 20 minutes after we leave home. Usually it's just because she's right on the edge of falling asleep and needs a little help getting there.

Yesterday as you can see, she made it past meltdown and on into dreamland. She was so out of it, she was hanging half out of the stroller. Ah to be able to sleep like that and not get a crick in your neck! I love the little frowny face she gets when she's sleeping. She gets that from her daddy!


In other news, we are getting incredibly close to crawling (heaven help us!)

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Pterodactyling

She kept this up for about 20 minutes...

Thursday, September 13, 2007

On sitting and crawling

[Note to readers: This blog entry has been sitting unpublished here for about a week. Oops!] Now that I'm caught up on past entries, I thought I'd fill you in on what's been going on more recently. Roan has been so much fun this past week. She seems to be happy all the time. This week we started our regular schedule with two days with the nanny and a half day at Mother's Day Out. When I picked her up after her first day of MDO, Miss Charlie said "I don't know what you've been doing with her at home, but she is the happiest baby!" I can't take credit for her disposition. As far as I can tell, she was just born that way.

We've been having lots of fun just enjoying the everyday normal stuff together like bathtime, playtime and mealtime. She is so intriegued with the world around her; it's neat to see the wheels turning in her head. If I put her in a seated position she can stay there for a while before she topples over. And when she's on her tummy, she's started drawing her knees in and balancing on her elbows or hands. She's thinking about crawling, but hopefully we have a little while before she gets fully mobile. She loves watching Sasha and Hallie, and I think being able to chase after them is her main motivation for learning to crawl.


She's been an excellent eater lately. She eats several tablespoons of cereal most nights. I've given up making my own babyfood for the moment since the applesauce was such a flop. (Hmm, kind of like the cloth diapers and that whole natural childbirth thing...) This week we tried some storebought winter squash and pears, both of which she ate with enthusiasm.

The sleeping has been hit and miss. For a week or so she went back to sleeping 9 pm to 8 am which was soooo nice, but more recently we're lucky if she sleeps till 6 am. We got a little cold snap in Denver the other day, and that night she kept waking up every hour. Eventually we figured out she was freezing cold. She was only wearing two thin layers and I accidentally left her ceiling fan on high. Her little hands were popcicles. Bad mama! So we zipped her up into a fleece sleep sack and slept her between us that night. That did the trick. The only thing is, every night since Arwen keeps wanting to sleep her with us. The other night I had put her down in her crib and in the middle of the night he went and got her. When I asked him about it in the morning he said, "I missed her." So cute.


She is making a lot of sound now, the most adorable cooing and babbling sounds you can imagine. They seem designed specifically to turn a parent's heart to mush. Occasionally it gives way to pterodactyling, but that is more rare. She is getting going with the consonants, mostly mmm, bbbb, and dddd. When she really gets on a roll it sounds like she's having a conversation with her mouth closed. It's kind of funny.


Not a day goes by that I don't look at her and marvel. She seems like such a miracle, already an amazing person. I wonder sometimes how it can be that she is so full of joy. I feel lucky to have this little creature in my life that fills me with a renewed sense of appreciation just to be alive.

Catching up

So *finally* here are some pics from Josefa's visit here a few weeks back and Arwen's birthday. Here's one of a happy baby with her Grandma Feefa in the same chair Grandma rocked her daddy in.

One thing we did while Josefa was here was go out to Georgetown, a cute historic town nearby, and ride the open car scenic railroad. It winds through the mountains and over a river with gorgeous views. Here they are looking out the window at the view on the train.

And here Roan is with her daddy on the train ride, all bundled up.
We've been feeding Roan some solid food for the last month or so. Mostly organic rice cereal. I made some applesauce for her with organic apples in the blender and so far she has hated it. Here she is with her first teething biscuit, which she absolutely loved.

It gave her a chance to actually hold on to the food herself. She always tries to grab the spoon out of my hand when I'm feeding her, and mean mommy that I am I won't let her have it, at least not when it's loaded with cereal.
She had a good ol' time with this biscuit though. There was dried on cookie mess all over her face, in her hair, crusted to her eye, caked to her feet, etc. We went straight to the bath afterwards.
Here's another one with Grandma Feefa in the chair, this one at mealtime.
While Josefa was here, Arwen's cousin Thomas, his wife Vanessa and their seven adorable kids came over and had dinner at our house one night. They just had baby #7 about 3 months before Roan was born.
Here are Thomas, Vanessa and their whole clan in our backyard. And here's Roan on cousin Nick's shoulders. With six brothers and sisters he's had a lot of practice.

Arwen had a birthday while Josefa was here. One of the things I got him was a book of 100 dayhikes in the Denver area. We've been here a whole year now and we've hardly done any nature stuff. So on his birthday he picked a hike in Evergreen, and even Sasha got to go.
Jen made the cutest bug-shaped cakes for Arwen's birthday. Everyone got to pick a cake (or two) and decorate it with colored icing, chocolate chips and sprinkles. Here he is with his dragonfly birthday cake - undecorated. Before I knew it, he'd decorated it and swallowed practically in one bite.

All in all, it was a good birthday and a great visit.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Man I'm a delinquent blogger

I have *got* to make time to post an update. I just noticed that blogger has a (new?) option to post a video, so I'm gonna try that real quick. Let's see if it works.

Hopefully that'll tide you over till I can take the time to write down some *actual words*...

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Finally a moment for a quick update. Here's my new 'do. I gotta say it makes me feel so much more me. It's fun and easy to style and much less likely to get sucked into any nearby vacuum cleaners.



And here's an attempted shot of the back. Notice the reflection of me in the mirror awkwardly taking the shot.

I don't have long to write, so I'll make it quick. It's 10:30 and Roan is up waaay past her bedtime, determined to fight sleep as long as possible. She's wiggling around on the bed next to me like a maniac, playing peek-a-boo with her lady bug blanket and cooing up at the fan. I however, am so beat I could just drop. But even so, I have to say that looking at her sweet smiling face I am relishing this time with her. She is a little charmer, I'll tell you.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a chance to catch up on the latest. But right now my little girl is letting me know it's time for this mama to pay her some attention.