Bonk. OWIE!

Sydney likes to get into the cabinets of the entertainment center right under the television. She pulls the movies out. (They're all "her" movies, so we let her.) She scatters them around the immediate area in front of the entertainment center. Sometimes she'll stack them haphazardly back in one of the cabinets. Sometimes she sticks them in the magazine rack.

It usually looks a lot like this (except without Grandma B and with a lot more movies on the floor):



On Monday (Memorial Day) Sydney crawled over to the cabinets and opened the left one. As she leaned over to open the right one she lost her balance and fell over. She hit her head on the bottom of the cabinet. She got upset and cried, of course. But while being comforted by Mommy she almost acted like she didn't want to cry and was trying to make herself not cry.

It took a minute or so before we realized where she hit herself. We thought it was on the side of her head on her cheek. But it wasn't. She got a small scratch right at her eye.



We tried to put ice on it but she wouldn't let us. Luckily it didn't swell up. There was no damage to the eye. (We didn't see a doctor for it, but there was no visible damage to the eye.) We just had a slightly upset baby and more upset parents and grandparents (Grandma and Grandpa M were visiting).

Sydney is still bopping away to music. She's still trying to feed herself, though she hasn't gotten the hang of using a spoon. It's almost exclusively hands right now. (Two pictures in the photo album of her eating pasta that I won't post here.)

She is just starting to get her canines. Another week or so (or month if they're like her molars were) and we should be getting them coming through. Right now there are just the faintest hints that they are starting.

Mother's Day

This is a little late, but happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there that I care for and/or that read my blog. Especially to my lovely wife.



It's been a long time since I've updated, but I'm not sure there's been a lot to report.

Sydney is a little over thirteen months old now. She doesn't talk, but she does a lot of baby babble. She says "da da" a lot, but it's seems to be in reference to anything she feels she can say it to or about.

As I think I reported earlier, she gets really excited around dogs. When she sees one she will say "do...do." That is pronounced like "dog" without the G on the end. She only seems to say that when she sees a dog and she seems to have a real purpose to it. So I guess that "dog" is her first word - more or less.

Sydney eats well. For breakfast she gets most of a scrambled egg, part of a piece of wheat toast and some fruit baby food with oatmeal mixed in. While the food is be cooked she'll get a snack to keep her occupied. It is either the stars she likes so much or Cheerios.

We're actually trying to get some Alpha-Bits for her. They apparently changed them and they are no longer sugarcoated cereal. They wanted to compete with Cheerios and baby finger food so they are now just multi-grain, non-sugar cereal bits. Sydney had some a week ago when we had a cook out at Kathy's house. She loved them and kept shoving them in her mouth even though she had just had dinner. We have been unsuccessful finding them in a store yet, though.

Sydney is fine drinking out of a bottle or a sippy cup. She usually has juice with breakfast and drinks that from a sippy cup. Water with lunch or dinner is also from a sippy cup. Her whole milk (fed to her separate from a meal) is from a bottle.

We are slowly mixing in "real" people food with her meals. Last night I had a real scare.

We grilled some chicken breasts and had potatoes and onions with them as well as baked beans. (Bush's Original are the best - except for the baked beans the convention center at my work makes.) We shredded chicken for Sydney and she ate it fine. She had some cooled off potatoes and onions and she ate them fine. But she didn't seem interested in the baked beans.

I was terribly afraid that I was going to have to disown her for not liking the Bush's baked beans.

Luckily she was just more interested at the chicken at the moment. After a few minutes she ate the beans fine and seemed to enjoy them.

*Whew!*

Sydney is still crawling all over the place. She doesn't seem interested in trying to walk yet. The closest she comes is getting up on her knees. We figure it will be another month or two before she's ready to start trying to walk.

She has been in dance mode for about a month now, too. She would dance before, but it was just the occasional thing. Lately, though, she dances to any music that is played. Her ABC song - she dances. A commercial jingle or television theme song - she dances. A piece of ballet music (from a PBS Kids show) - she dances.

She will wiggle and bop to anything. If she is laying down (like when we change her diaper) she will wiggle her butt and/or shake her feet in the air and move them in circles.

She has a big, yellow duck with a rain hat on. Aunt Leana sent it while Anne was still pregnant. If you squeeze the duck's foot it bobs its head back and forth, flaps its wings and sings Singin' In the Rain. Sydney loves that duck. (Now. She used to not like it so much - but that was long before the dance phase.)

When it's done singing she squeals and wants it to go again. It has become practically mandatory to have it singing when we change her diaper in her bedroom. And it's rather hard to change a diaper when the baby butt is wiggling around to the music.

There's all you latest Sydney news. Happy Mother's Day and I'll try not to wait so long to update next time.