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.