Sydney Does Stuff

Wow. It's been two and a half weeks since my last update. Sorry it's been so long. I'd like to say it's because I've been working on editing my story for NaNoWriMo. But it's not. I haven't even touched it. Honestly, I've been busy with baby, work, uploading music into an iPod I saved up for and bought and playing a game in my spare time.

Ah, well.

Sydney's sixth tooth (the other incisor) finally broke through the other day. I'm not sure if it was Wednesday or Thursday, but my bet would be Thursday. She was not a happy baby on Thanksgiving.

Anne volunteered to work on Thanksgiving so she could have Friday off. (Otherwise she'd have to go to bed early on Thanksgiving to go to work at her regular time on Friday morning.) I worked day shift on Thanksgiving since Grandma and Grandpa M were here to baby-sit. Aunt Marta, too, since she had arrived on Wednesday.

We went over to our friends Diana and Ruffy's for dinner. Diana is our friend Jackie's mother (Ruffy is her Step-Father). She lives two doors down from Mark and Jackie. (Jackie's grandparents live in between.) Mark and Jackie went to L.A. to spend Thanksgiving with Mark's parents.

(Diana and Ruffy are the ones that came over to help Anne with Sydney while I was at work when Anne threw her back out several weeks ago. They came over that Monday before Grandma B arrived for her last visit.)

Since Diana knew Anne, Sydney and I didn't have any family here they invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner. Then Anne's parents' plans changed and they came up. And Aunt Marta came over from near Seattle. Diana invited them over, too. So we all went.

I went straight from work and everyone else had arrived about a half hour before. Sydney was not a happy baby. She hadn't taken an afternoon nap and she hadn't fallen asleep in the car on the way over. She was fighting sleep really, really hard and not happy about being in a strange house. She cried for a long time, though she settled down ever so slightly while we ate. She still cried, just a little more intermittently.

After dinner Anne took her in one of the bedrooms, blocked her in with pillows on the bed, and laid down with her. She finally fell asleep, though very fitfully. We all survived and Sydney doesn't seem any worse for the wear. We're all pretty sure it was a lot of not taking an afternoon nap, a lot of teething as that tooth came in (though that may have been earlier and why she didn't take a nap) and a little bit of being in a strange place.

But now onto other good, happy Sydney news and not unhappy, crying Sydney news.

Sydney has been getting her regular practice on her stomach. We keep trying to get her to rollover and know that one of thee days she will decide she's ready to do it.

On Your Mark...


Sydney has good form here. She's raising herself up on her arms, which is a good sign of upper body strength. (I made that up, but it sounds good, right?) She's got quite a thoughtful look on her face, doesn't she?

Get Set...


Here she really starts the process. The arm gets flung out and back. The opposite shoulder dips. Not shown in the picture is the hip and leg getting kicked over.

There She Goes!


And just like that Sydney has rolled over. She's very proud of herself when she does it. She smiles and laughs as Mommy and Daddy (and Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt) cheer. She enjoys doing it so much that it's hard to "reset" her. If we try to roll her back over on her stomach to do it again she will start trying to rollover before she's even back.

Eating is going very well. Sydney has tried a variety of fruits and vegetables and doesn't seem to have anything she doesn't like yet. She eagerly eats whatever we feed her.

After her dinner of vegetables she gets a little water from her sippy cup to help keep her hydrated. Before she had water too many times she was trying to hold the cup and put it to her mouth herself.



Better than a third of the time she actually manages to get the spout of the cup up into her mouth on her own. She's still rather jerky with her movements, though, so it frequently doesn't work out as well as I'm sure she would like it to. And, unfortunately, once she gets the cup up to her mouth she doesn't fully understand that she needs to tip it up to get the water she wants to drink.

As mentioned, Grandma and Grandpa M came up for a visit over Thanksgiving.




As usual, Sydney wasn't quite sure of them when they first arrived. It didn't take long for her to warm up to them, though, and you can see she is very comfortable with both of them. They've had a wonderful time playing.

Grandma and Grandpa M arrived the Wednesday a week before Thanksgiving. They will be going home this Wednesday. Unfortunately, I'm sure Sydney will miss them just as much as she missed Grandma B when she went home from her last visit. (The morning Grandma B left she left before Sydney woke up. Anne was already at work, so it was just Sydney and me when she did finally get up. As I was feeding her she kept craning her neck around to find Grandma B where she always sat on the sofa while Sydney was eating. Sydney would turn back to look at me, then crane her head again to look for Grandma B.)

Aunt Marta came for a short visit over Thanksgiving, too. She arrived on Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving and then left on Saturday. Sydney was a little hesitant around Aunt Marta, too. Before long they were playing together, though. I wasn't there for the picture taking, but it appears that Sydney out-played Aunt Marta and just wore her right out.

By Request

By request from Grandma B, here's an update on Sydney's introduction to food.

Sydney gets some solid food in the morning with her first meal. She gets some solid food in the afternoon with her last feeding.

Sydney has taken to it very well. She seems a little hesitant at first. The first spoonful is tough to get her to open up for. After that, though, she takes it easier and with some enthusiasm.

This week we started her with fruits, too. I do a fruit for her in the morning and then Anne does a vegetable in the afternoon. Most feedings so far are composed of the food mixed with rice cereal. Some of the foods have been a little strong tasting, we thought, and Sydney didn't seem to know what to think of the strong flavor. So the rice cereal is mixed in to help soften the flavor.

On Wednesday morning she got bananas with cereal. Almost every spoonful I gave her she would reach out with her left hand and grab the spoon stem to help put it in her mouth. It was tough to get her to let go of it so I could get more food. Sometimes she would try to put the spoon back in her mouth again before I could get it out of her hand.

(She grabs it with her left hand because I'm feeding her holding the spoon in my right hand. When I tried it with my left hand she grabbed it with her right hand. But since I'm not very good with my left hand and she's not coordinated with either hand, that spoonful was a little messier than the others. The rest were done with my right hand.)

When she's close to finished eating she will stare off at nothing. She doesn't pay attention and it gets harder to get her to open her mouth to eat. When she starts doing this we can usually get her to take a couple more spoonfuls before she clams up completely and doesn't want anymore.

This morning Sydney got applesauce for breakfast. And she got it straight without rice cereal. She really enjoyed it. She eagerly ate almost every spoonful offered to her (though she didn't try to grab the spoon very much today).

Toward the end of the bowl she started her stare off thing. I held the spoon close to her mouth and called her name to get her attention. Suddenly, Jaws attacked. Sydney opened her mouth and jerked her head forward, getting the spoon cleanly in her mouth. When I pulled the spoon out she smiled her big, toothy (and applesaucey) smile at me. We'll have to wait and see if she's invented a new game.

Seven Months (Plus One Day)

Saturday was Sydney's seven-month birthday. We knew we needed to take a Fievel picture but every time we mentioned it we either weren't home or weren't in a position to take care of it right then. The last time we remembered she was already in bed for the night.

So we did it first thing Sunday morning.



While I was clearing off the area for the picture we had her sitting up in the middle of our bed. Anne stuck Fievel up there next to her, so we had to take a picture of her there, of course.



This is my new home desktop picture. It will soon be my work desktop picture when I get to work on Monday.

When we have her sitting up we usually have the Boppy Pillow around her to help protect her from falling over. She will frequently reach out for her toys in front or beside her. She leans over and then sits back up. If she leaned too far backward and to the side she couldn't get back up. Sometimes she would even just let herself back to let her head hang, apparently. (She likes it sometimes.)

Recently she has been trying to sit back up from this position on her own, though. If she's flat she can't get to a sitting position. But if she's at a bit of an incline she can usually manage to sit up. Sometimes she just needs a minor nudge to be able to sit up, depending on how far back she's reclined.

When she takes a bath she doesn't like to recline back in the bath chair. She sits up on her own. She has to be held back against the recline when her legs and lower body are washed. As soon as we stop holding her down she sits up.

She still isn't rolling over on her own yet, but we're not worried about it. It will happen when she's ready to have it happen.

Her teeth total currently stands at five. One of her incisors has poked through on the top. The other one is close, but hasn't broken through the gum yet.