Aug 27: 15lbs of hurt

Holy Cow! What a week! Two teeth, the zoo, cruising, blueberries, black eye, waving, kneeling, clapping, watermelon, first high chair, first shopping cart, swim lesson, 3rd foods, and I'm sure I'm leaving something out! You see how we finally had to slow her down :)

Scarlett has sure had an explosion of activity and growth this week--- she is really becoming a little girl.

It is amazing to see the increase in her curiosity and her exploring. And, it is incredible to see her motor and cognitive system developing together. She's pulling herself on tables because she can see what's on top (because she is so curious). Evolutionarily, curiosity is the major driver that pushes infants to become mobile and work on crawling and standing. Infants start developing attachments to items as their memory capacity improves, and that happens right around the time babies start walking, because as it happens, they wanting start carrying possesions with them, and crawling just gets in the way.

In all her adventures, she's taken a couple of hard spills, including catching the edge of the table under her eye, giving her her first pseudo-black eye... needlessly to say, we invested in baby proofing foam the next day--- good thing Frank Lloyd Wright can't see all our craftsman furnature covered in gray foam!

We added peach and pear yogurt to her diet this week along with blueberries which instantly became her favorite food, by far... eating dozens of halves per meal... that was until she tried watermelon... she went crazy... but we try to limit the watermelon because of the high sugar content (one of the highest sugar content of any fruit). But she has just become a solid-food machine, eating everything in sight--- she's even skipping bottles she's eating so much food. We're also transitioning her more and more to adult food; the end of a baggette, cheerios, a roll at dinner, water from our glasses, you name it, and it has really made going out and eating with her so much more fun and so much easier.

So with this big uptick in solid consumption, she's finally putting on a little weight. After gaining only four ounces the previous 2 months, she's gained 12 ounces in less than a month... putting her a blonde hair over 15lbs... that's only 5th percentile, but at least she's back on the chart for weight now. It is hard to measure a squirming girl, but she may have also gained at least 0.5", putting over 29".

Mom took Arlely to the zoo for a girls day out... it was a little cold (poor animals and babies) and she's a little young to understand the whole concept, but everyone seemed to have a great time.

Other fun things, she's started waving to new people (or to herself in the mirror), Mom's teaching Arley to clap (we have some great video, I'll get up soon), she's starting to take her first unassisted small steps side ways while holding onto the coffee table (called cruising), she's kneeling so she can play with (teethe) object (see left) and daringly, just today, she's start taking her hands off the coffee table while standing up, testing her balance.

Her second tooth is also coming in. It is funny, there is an old wives' tale about babies getting congested right before a tooth comes in. Twice, out of no where we thought she had gotten a cold but it seems like she was just getting her teeth in... chalk another one up for the old wives.


I'll work on getting the crawling and clapping videos up soon---

Aug 15: 8months and busy!

So how do you keep an 8-month-old busy for 20 minutes? Give them 4 Cheerios.

That's about how long it takes her to gum them into a paste....Turns out the large push for eating solids coincides with their ability to do the pincher or grasping motion with the thumb and first finger. She loves this, and besides acting fascinated with her ability to grab a single Cheerio (and she will only grab one at a time... it is pretty cute), she can now also pinch noses, cheeks, etc... so watch out. Her diet is expanding into yogurt (her new faovirte food by far) and cheese.

The bigger news is little Scarlett is 8 months old and having a tremendously monsterous week. Doesn't she look devilish in Craftsman-endtable lair?

First of all, she is getting her first tooth. So the answer to the inevitable question, Daddy, which tooth came in first, is front bottom right (central incisor; tooth P using the universal numbering system for baby teeth for all you dentists out there). Talk to us in 5 years and see if it is the first one to fall out...

But all this teething has the downside of leading to quite a fussy week.. with lots of senseless crying and crazy teething. She also loves drinking out of adult glasses, so it is pretty neat to hear her little single tooth tapping on the glass. The other downside--- 19 more baby teeth to come go---

She is also really getting into standing up, using every possible surface she can to pull herself up into a standing position: the coffee table, the TV stand, the dog, my leg, you name it... unfortunately, this leads to the inevitable falling backwards... luckily she has her mom's hard head. I would have had 3 (more) concussions by now.

Finally, she's transitioning into a sitting position from a crawl or laying down. She's been able to stay in a stitting position on her own for a long time now when we put her in that position, but she hasn't been able to get into that position on her on. For several weeks, she's been doing what we've called the "tripod" sitting all jaunty off to one side with her hand out e.g., in her Craftsman lair picture above. This week, however, she's been able to transition from laying to tripod to a full upright sit. Pretty exciting.

Basically I've been too busy trying to keep up with her to take many photos, but several people have asked to see her crawl, so I took some video and will get it up in the next post...

10 August: Petite monstre

Almost 8 months....
Loosely translated petite monstre is little terror... literally translated little monster. She's officially gained 0.5" and 4oz in two months, putting her at 28.25" and 14lbs 4oz... 90+ percentile for height, off the charts for skinny.

So what is the plan? All is well and time for human food! Here she samples her first non-baby food. Sure she's had apples, bananas, peas, green beans, pears, you name it, all mushed up. But turns out adult food is much higher in calories, so we're jumping in... not with wonderbread, mind you, but with organic artisan chibata from the local farmers market... life is rough. Since then, we've also started her on yogurt, pureed chicken, and liquified thanksgiving I call it (turkey, carrots, sweet potatoes all pureed together).... and of course, Cheerie-Os:

Although it doesn't take Scarlett long to figure out that food also help her make new friends:
She is active as always... nothing gets in her way (notice who now never is far behind):

Turns out though, crawling is a total case of becareful what you wish for.... our little monster has also quickly learned another way to make friends... opening the screen door! This was totally spontaneous... YIKES!

Finally, more leg strengthing... but I thought it was a sweet shot... ever since she was a baby she has loved gazing outside to watch the trees... now she can crawl over and do it any time she wants...

1 August: Moving day!

Houston, we have a mobile baby.

She's crawling. Maybe not the perfect crawl, but she is doing something between a commando crawl under barbed wire and an inch worm... anyway, it is enough to get her *where ever* she wants to go. Was it the new carpet? Was it dressing in brown and watching the dog? Was it just time? Who knows, but now, no one's toes are safe.



So much to get caught up on... yes... we moved to a new place on the peninsula.... it did take us a while to unpack the important things:Grandma came to visit and in the few days she was here, Arley learned to catch a ball and lift it over her head. It is amazing really, that Arley really started to mimic us... it it pretty neat.

Scarlett also started to take her first swimming lesson at the local Y. The water was 89, so she had nothing to complain about....



Afterwards, she still had energy enough to wave to the paparazzi
Finally, despite the massive heat spell because of global warming, we've already had one cold morning with fog, so here is dad's road crew that accompanies him on his morning walk for coffee...

So just to add to Arley's triathalon of cognitive milestones, she has started pulling herself up on the windowsill practicing her standing... good grief... is driving that far behind????