Sunday, February 26, 2006

Not Much to Report

Well, I wish I had more to report.

Sydney's teeth haven't come in yet, but they also don't really seem to be bothering her that much. They may have just been starting to come up, but weren't ready to make that final push yet.

She is starting to get the hang of chewing. It's still a little difficult with only eight front teeth and no molars. We think a lot of times she tries to mash it with her tongue. But she is biting pieces off baby snacks and apparently chewing (or mashing) small pieces. Sometimes she tries to swallow chunks without chewing. She coughs and then tries chewing.

Today she was playing with her sorter box toy. She hasn't figured out how to get the little blocks into the appropriately shaped holes in the side. She hasn't figured out to try to get the wrong shaped block into the holes in the side. Heck, she hasn't even figured out how to get the blocks into the big hole in the top.

But she has figured out that when the blocks are in it she wants them out. Even if she just throws them to the side and doesn't play with them they don't belong in the box. They must come out. All of them.

She has a similar mentality with her stacker. If the little rings are stacked on it that is not good. The rings must be off it. And if she doesn't hold two and click them together they must be scattered across the floor. (Unless she decides to only hold one.)

Sydney Plays and Drools

Here is one of two pictures posted on Picturetrail of Sydney pulling the blocks out of the box. In this smaller, resized version I'm not sure if the drool is easily seen. But I decided to keep it since we haven't had a good baby-drool picture in a long time.

There are also a few other pictures posted today. They were from Anne's cell phone camera. Two of them are older (her first month or two) and the other two are more recent. We hadn't uploaded them so we did that on Saturday so we could print them and share them.


Sydney at Applebee's

That picture was taken at Applebee's a month or so ago when we went for lunch. That was during her phase when she would cock her head to the side to look at you. Of course, she never did it when we had a camera. Or else she didn't do it long enough to snap a quick shot of her. But Mommy got her with the camera phone this day. (There are a couple other shots that were after this one that have already been posted in the albums. One was from Christmas.)

And I'm sure I mentioned this before, but Sydney now knows the cameras. She will stop and look at the camera when it comes out. Trying to get a candid shot of her doing something cute is almost impossible. But with over a 170 pictures taken of her from just her parents I guess I shouldn't really be too surprised.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Roll-bile Baby

Practice has paid off. Sydney is now mobile.

Sometime in the last week Sydney has gotten used to the idea that rolling from her back to her stomach is all right. She did it sporadically and when she felt like it (of course). But in the last two days she has been doing it very regularly. And she will also roll either way instead of just to her right.

This morning (Tuesday) when I went to get her when she woke up from her nap she had rolled over onto her stomach. (Probably to avoid laying in the really poopy diaper she was currently wearing, but that's beside the point.)

A little while later she was playing on the floor of our room while I folded her laundry on the bed. She threw one of her toys about five feet away. I told her she would have to get it herself if she wanted it. Over the next several minutes she rolled over to it. (Sort of. Her aim is a little off and her path curves a bit. But she was close and I nudged the toy a couple inches toward her so she could grab it.)

I put her back sitting up in her play area. I didn't make her get back herself.

Later when I was at work Anne called to tell me that Sydney had spent approximately the last half hour rolling back and forth across the bedroom floor. (There was other stuff she told me, too, but that was the most important part.)

So she's definitely gotten the hang of it.

She's still not crawling yet, but she is starting to rock a little bit when we have her up on her hands and knees.

She also can't sit up all the way on her own. If she's propped up a little bit she can sit up, but if she's flat on her back she can't get to a sitting position. She does try, though, so it's only a matter of time before she gets those muscles strong enough to do it.

New teeth still haven't come in yet. Her gums are a little bumpy, though, so we can tell they're on the way. They just haven't gotten close enough to break through yet. It seems to be taking a long time. (Luckily she doesn't get really upset from it very often.)

Let me know if there are any important matters I need to give updates on. Usually I have things I think about and then can't remember once I get home and actually get a chance to post.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Super Sunday - Double Digits

Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday. It was also Sydney's ten-month birthday. She's hit double digits.

Sydney and Fievel at Ten Months

So there she is next to Fievel, as expected. Anne really loves those pants she's in. She thinks the bell-bottoms are just so cute on her. (Sydney has a pair of black ones, too.)

Have I mentioned that her one-year picture with Fievel will likely be the last one taken on a regular basis? She's so long now that there's not much sense in taking pictures next to Fievel anymore. But I'll stick it out for a year to get a full spectrum of pictures.

And as has become tradition more recently...

Sydney, Fievel and Octopus on the Bed

There are a few other pictures over on Picturetrail that are worth checking out, too.

We're still waiting on other teeth to come in. Sydney constantly has her hand in her mouth massaging her gums. When we can look in we can see her gums are white where the teeth are starting to push through. They just haven't come through yet.

Sydney is a trooper, though, and hardly seems bothered by all this. She just happily sticks her fingers in her mouth and occasionally sucks on the cold teething ring when we give her one.

Anne and I had a long weekend this week. I always take a couple extra days off around Super Bowl. It is my little vacation. Anne took Friday and Monday off with me. We had a couple friends over on Sunday to watch the game.

I am a Washington Redskins fan, but I do live in the Northwest now. I will admit that I was disappointed that Seattle lost. And that the referees had such a major influence over the outcome of the game.

And now I'm done with that.

The rest of the weekend was mostly spent working around the house. Even more so out in the garage.

Last week we got the garage insulated and dry walled. This weekend we mostly spent cleaning up, organizing and generally working out in the garage. We have new cabinets we put together. We power-washed the floor. (We're not going to put sealant on it because we won't be able to until late spring. We don't want to leave the garage emptied out in Grandma and Grandpa M's garage (they're not moved in yet) that long and don't want to move everything back out again to do it later.)

Over the next few weeks we'll be moving things back over from next door and organizing it. We'll be assembling the Bowflex we bought and hopefully starting to exercise and workout. We both need to exercise and workout more.

We're practicing with Sydney almost everyday on crawling. We put her up on her hands and knees. She can stay up for a minute or two on her own, but hasn't quite figured out the actually movements needed. When we crawl around her to show her she just laughs. And after a minute or so of being up like that she stretches out on her stomach (because we usually have a toy out there for her to try to crawl to) and then roles over onto her back.

We'll keep practicing and she'll get there eventually.