E's first contest

Cute baby contest!

please go and vote for my sweet E to win this cute baby contest.  you can vote everyday!
http://photos.parents.com/photos/parents-cover-contest-2013/2013-04-22/x4cv

E at 4 months

Is it the 15th already?  Oops! Between mommy being sick and the baby being fussy we missed singing to E again this month.  We also didn't take the penguin picture or make her footprints.  We shall do most of these things tomorrow!  Good thing E has no concept of dates yet.  It will still be special tomorrow!


three generations of beautiful, smart
talented ladies!

This month has seen some great firsts for E!
She had her first...
...trip to the zoo
...time on the swings and slide
...day at home with Oma
...time in the stroller the "big kid" way
...time in her exersaucer
(she loved it the first time, even though she's still too short to reach the floor.  but now she fusses each time we put her in.  I think she's afraid of the chameleon toy)


bluebonnet baby!

...time to roll over
 (though not for mommy and daddy yet)
...finger painting session
(at day care...next time I'm asking them to strip her to her diaper as the fingerpaint stains don't come out of white onsies!)
...pictures in the bluebonnets. 
(for those of you not from Texas this is a big deal, yearly tradition, right of passage kind of thing)
..."kiss" from a boy - and didn't like it

zoo!

(one of the boys at day care "kisses" people by headbutting them.  He crawled over to E on her boppy and gave her a "kiss" and she started to cry)
...birthday party invite - Happy Birthday Gian!
...Easter and Easter egg hunt
...puppy kiss
and so many more that mommy's sick and tired brain can't think of.

Family picture!

E can now...
...hold weight on her legs.  She LOVES standing up, though has zero balance while doing so.  She especially loves to stand up while on mommy, daddy or Oma's lap on the porch swing, while it is in motion.  Aunt Krista says this is a sign of a gymnast in the making.

puppy!

...babble.  She will "talk" to her grandparents and her oma (hopefully her ojisan too once we get him on skype again).  She talks more to them than at any other time.  We think it's because Skype makes  people's voices a little higher pitched and she likes high pitched noises.

...bring things to her mouth.  If she grabs it, it's going into the mouth.  This includes but is not limited to: toys, mom's fingers, bluebonnets, clothes, bibs, and watches.

 ...manipulate toys a little bit.  She's trying to figure out how to.  She can  shake her rattles and her sensory octopus.



swings are awesome!

...recognize songs.  When Oma tried to sing her bedtime song in the middle of the day she looked at her with a "what are you doing, it's not bed time and you're not mommy!" expression.  Twice.

...play peek-a-boo.  She always looks super startled when you reveal yourself!  She usually smiles after looking startled

...sit up when propped up, without slumping to either side.  She can even hold her balance for a few microseconds without propping...microseconds.

especially with mommy!

...do a "mini pushup" that all the baby books describe.  Not a fitness kind of push up but the kind where she gets her head up at 90 degrees and puts some weight on her hands.  It's supposedly a precursor to rolling over.

...roll over from tummy to back - yet to be seen by mom and dad
...laugh.  They are rare and so, so, so precious and never caused by the same thing twice.  But utterly adorable when get them!  Usually she's laughing at mommy.

...recognize mommy, daddy, grandma, grandpa, auntie Krista, oma and her daycare friends.  She "talks" to these people and smiles a different kind of smile than the one she gives strangers.

...snuggle.  She tucks her head to the side, burrows it under your chin and throws her arms open.  She doesn't hug or anything yet but it is most definitely a snuggle and she loves to be snuggled back!

Invisible firsts - a working mother's lament

E rolled over for the first time today!  This brings me great joy, terrible sadness and a little guilt. 

She's great at tummy time!

Chief among these feelings is the joy.  My baby girl is developing, growing and doing the things normally developing babies do!  She is on track to being developmentally on target. All the fun playing and exercises we've been doing with her have finally paid off! We can advance to exercising the next recommended set of activities with her to prep her for sitting.  She'll be crawling soon, then walking.  So many fun things we can do once she is mobile!  She has reached another huge milestone.  (Ken and I are near-constantly babbling mama and dada at her respectively of course hoping for her next milestone)

I'll probably save this for her scrapbook

But there is a terrible sadness to this joy because I didn't witness the moment.  It wasn't even that I walked in to her flipped over on her playmat and concluded she'd rolled.  I was told.  I love my daycare.  love love love them.  They are kind, caring, they don't put the kids in swings or bouncers.  They make sure they are getting lots of floor and tummy time.  They even had my 3 month old finger painting (and the made sure she didn't eat it...)  Almost every day they give you a little snippet sentence of something your child did that day.  And that snippet sentence is how I found out she'd reached her milestone.  To me, it's an invisible first.  It's there, she did it but since I didn't see it, it's not really her first.  It won't count as her first until I see it. 

And then there's the guilt.  It's very small but it's there.  I feel guilty because I feel like I should have been there to see it.  There are no pictures of her post roll as I imagine there would have been if she'd rolled at home in the presence of her father or me.  I should have been the one who applauded and cheered her on but I wasn't.  I should have been there to celebrate this first.  But I wasn't.  She had her first but no one around her was family.  And that makes me feel guilty. 

E at day care.  they may not be family
but that doesn't mean she's not loved.

But then I remind myself that where there is a first, there will be a second, and a third and we will celebrate those with her.  The first time she rolls over for me her invisible first will become a tangible one, and oh how we will cheer.  And hopefully the cheering will chase away the terrible sadness of an invisible first and the nagging guilt of the working mother's conscience. Because in the end it's all about love.  E may not be with family for all her firsts but she will always be surrounded by people who love her and care for her and that's what's important.

New Discoveries!

hands together and rollin...trying to

E has been making lots of new discoveries lately.  She's growing and changing so fast it's fascinating to watch.  She's constantly staring at her hands.  She loves to play with her fingers and just move them around against each other.  Apparently bringing hands together is a milestone.


She's discovering mobility.  She's starting to wriggle her little body around to get herself into better positions to play with toys and she's so very very close to rolling over back to front.  She can get about 3/4 of the way there and then gets stuck, though I don't think she minds because in this position she can easily suck her thumb.  She shows little progress in rolling over front to back, but this is mostly because when she gets tired of holding her head up in this position she simply leans down, sucks her thumb and is happy.



thumb is yummmmm

She has very obviously re-discovered her thumb.  She's a champion at finding it now, though not always at keeping it in her mouth.  Despite our best efforts to have her prefer a pacifier, she's starting to spit out the paci in favor of the thumb. 

first egg hunt!

She's also starting to discover things with her ears.  When she hears birdsong she gets very quiet.  We think this means she likes the birds, either that or she's waiting for them to attack.  She turns her head towards noises occasionally.  At her first egg hunt she seemed to take some noticed of the other kids.  Though mostly she just stared around at everything.

With her new found fingers she's really starting to explore textures.  She loves the sensory balls she got for Easter and immediately tried to eat them, then satisfied herself with rubbing her face on them.



everyday a new surprise!

We also think she may be starting to teeth, the drool, it's incessant!  She's great at making spit bubbles.  She also chews on her hands, a lot.  This hand chewing led to yet another discovery this morning...her gag reflex.  She was chewing on her hands as Mommy was saying goodbye to her and as mommy snuggled her close E's hands went a bit too far into her mouth and then her breakfast came rushing out...all over mommy's work clothes.