old parents

We must be turning into old parents...I realized I haven't taken any new pictures of X this week. A few iPhone pictures, but nothing great and noteworthy! And she's only 9 months old...I wonder what this means for her 9th birthday? Or the second child?

However, I am reminded that I used to post a lot before there was a baby to dominate this blog with her adorable photos. So this will be a photo-free post, but I promise there will be more coming soon.

So...baby news first! Among her adorable traits are a few I'd return to the sender if I could. For example, her tendency to throw herself backward headlong when she's mad or frustrated. I can usually catch her...but why do babies do this? Or is mine the only one? I'm trying to discourage it every chance I get, but that's not having much effect yet.

She's also not sleeping through the night yet either. She was doing really well and only waking up twice a night the first 4 or 5 months or so...but, we (because we didn't know what we were doing) failed to train her to self-soothe and go to sleep on her own so now she doesn't. And she wakes up between 2-5 times each night. Sleepy momma=cranky momma=not as much fun for baby. If she knew how much more fun I could be with a decent amount of sleep, I'm SURE she'd comply.

However, my griping aside, we'll still keep her! Her good traits abound and far outweigh the not-so-bueno. Her giggles, smiles, dinosaur chomps, raspberries, and other "words" are delightful and always make me happy. She has the cutest crawl in the world (bumgenius diapers are really big, so she looks like she's swinging her hips) and has ceased to be so adamant about being on her feet with one of us walking her around all the time--now she can get there (and anywhere else she wants) faster on her own. She has learned to wave hi and bye, she claps her hands soundlessly, pulls herself up on anything and everything, can crawl up and down steps, loves Wii baseball (and has a Mii, and a wii fit avatar), can drink from a juice box through the straw, and is really good at feeding herself and eats everything (yes, even carrots! when they are mixed with rice or something else). She looks like such a big girl sometimes, I can't imagine what the future holds!

And, the rest-of-us news. Work, school, home, life is going well. 2 weeks ago I was diagnosed with Chronic Migraine Disorder. Not a big surprise for those of you who know me well enough--3 or so headaches a week isn't supposed to be normal, yet it's been my normal for years and years. Good news: it's treatable. Bad news: not while nursing. So...hanging in there for a few more months at least.

Yesterday we did the Cowtown race, Ricardo did the half-marathon (his last until next December), I did the 5K with a group from church...but they messed up the 5K!! There was police re-routing people the wrong way, so after maybe .8 of a mile, we were sent directly to the finish line! I got a great time for a 5K, but I'm hoping the next one we do is better organized. There's a 5K at the zoo in April--how fun!

X is asleep, time for me to doze off too, while I can.

Love to you all, good night!

valentine

i printed valentine pictures of X for valentine's day...thought you might enjoy them. The rocking chair she's sitting on was mine when i was little (uuuuuuu-ocking chair).

Sweetest Valentine

snow geeks

We got snow!

It was lovely. I've heard lots of different "official" amounts, but it looks like it was over a foot at the airport. Not sure we got quite that much, but it was a good 10-11 inches (unheard of for Dallas), and Feb. 11th went down in the history books as the snowiest day EVER recorded in DFW.

It meant I got a day to work at home instead of the office (Xaris and I love those days), and the hope of a lovely long weekend since I still had friday and saturday instead of me! The bad news is we were supposed to go to Houston to see my parents on Friday, but with slushy, icy conditions we decided not to risk the roads. And then, our power went out on Friday, and stayed out all day. Friday evening when our house was 58 degrees, and no sign of electric heat in the near future, we went to a hotel. (Early Valentine's treat! We watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics and Ric ordered us room service!)

The heat was on by the time we came home on Saturday, but it went off and on and off and on several times that day. I started cranking up the heater every time the electricity came on, just to get the house as warm as possible before it went off again!

It's all gone now, (but I'm hoping for more--anything to avoid the extreme summer temperatures as long as possible) and we're back to normal life. I did enjoy the pause that this record-setting snow put on our lives though.

Thursday morning--a few inches already sticking, and it's still falling!

X wakes up to snow

Learning about snow with papa...before he heads to work. He had to go in that day--but then his campus closed early!

Of course, we went outside to play!

It was too deep for her to crawl in...she couldn't figure out why she couldn't move. She just couldn't lift her arms high enough to move forward!

Snuggles with papa's cold nose

We built snow geeks. The first one X and I built while papa was at work. When he came home we built the other two. It's a baby snow geek (Chi for Xaris), a papa snow geek (Pi for papa...and for the fact that he's a math geek), which left me with a mama snow geek, (Mu for mama).

I think she liked the snow, but not being so bundled up she couldn't move.

First snow angel!

First snow geek!

And some other random pictures from recent weeks--to catch up with our quickly growing up girl!

Anyone else have a baby who LOVES to be upside down? Like...all the time. No matter what's going on, if we flip her over, she'll smile, laugh, and be happy.

First taste of lime. Didn't deter her though--she went back for more.

9 months some more

At 9 months old, Xaris Sofia stands a whopping 27.25 inches tall (40th percentile).

Her head circumference is 17.24 (45th percentile).

Unfortunately, she's only grown longer, and hasn't gained any weight in a month, so she's at 15 lbs, 10.5 oz, a mere 5th percentile. We've got a long, lean baby for now. She was getting pretty chubby several weeks ago, so I suppose it was just preparation for this growth spurt in height!

We had a traumatic day at the lab getting blood taken for some routine tests (lead and anemia I think?) However, it was so difficult for them to find a vein (2 sticks and lots of digging around), before they decided to do a finger prick and just "milk" the blood out. I ended up yelling at one of the phlebotomists--she came to help, but didn't listen and shook the vial of blood without putting the top on first. Result: blood spilled everywhere and they needed to take more from Xaris.

Final result, X doesn't seem any worse for the wear, but I'm still mad that we had to do this and called our dr's office to talk with the nurse and the office manager. I let them know that I would not be taking her to get any more "routine" blood work or anything else of the sort unless they can send me to someone who specializes in infants/peds. But I'm curious--for those of you who have 9 month or older babies--did you have to do these tests? I might start fighting some of the things they just want me to automatically do here, unless the dr. convinces me how necessary it is. What were the 9 month things you had to do? (Or---maybe I should think ahead--what happens at 12 months? 15?)

Not sure if this is just one of those living-in-the-south things, or if it's actually a horrible ordeal that we just have to endure?

9 months!

These cupcake shots are getting harder and harder...she's getting more and more curious, and also more and more mobile and able to get them!

Such a big girl!

I'll do her 9-month Dr's office shot sometime soon...with all the good info!