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!

iPhone photos

So many times I have a baby doing something really cute, but my camera is not handy. Thank goodness for the iPhone, which allows me to not only take pictures of the cutie, but also e-mail them to her papa at work, her grandparents in Houston, and post them on facebook as a "where is she now?" contest!

The drawback is that sometimes (like these last few weeks), I sacrifice the "real" camera on the altar of iConvenience...and don't have many new pictures to post. Here are a few of the latest iPhone pictures. Lower quality, but still cute!

Chilling in my office...

Being a clown on the way to Houston

Sweet girl

It was time to lower the crib...

I love this one! We were watching a movie or something while I fed her, and she fell asleep in my arms. I don't know how long it was before I looked down, but I was afraid I was going to wake her up I was laughing so hard! She was asleep like this!

Eating her puffs

With Gramama yesterday!

Bed head

Just because her crazy hair ought to be shared for the entertainment of others.

It's crazy in the mornings too--but this was after a day of ponytail wearing.

Holidays part 4

How many holiday blog posts can I do?!?!

The last (but still one of the best!) parts of our holiday was meeting Susanna and spending a few hours with Caleb and Abby!

Susanna and Xaris played and played...and Abby and I talked and talked.

Good friends sharing the toy

We tried to get a mother/daughter shot...friends with baby friends.

It was really difficult though to get anything great! Babies looked different directions, mommas forgot to smile or closed their eyes! We weren't very successful, but they are fun shots anyways!

Holding hands...

So Xaris is about 2.5 months older than Susanna. But Abby and Caleb are both much taller than Ric and I so we were curious to see how our babies would measure up! X is still taller (not by much) than Susanna. But we decided that Susanna is measurably heavier than Xaris (we don't know exactly how much they weigh at this point...but she was enough heavier to notice when holding each of them). My guess is that Susanna will pass up Xaris in height pretty soon too!

This is the best one I found on our camera...although Ric took some with Abby's camera too, maybe they are better?

This was also Xaris' 8-month birthday!

Bring on the cupcakes! We shared...Susanna got 5, and we took pictures of her too...

Too cute! Sitting up like a big girl!

Xaris did some damage...a few of the cupcakes had finger-puncture marks by the time we were done with the picture-taking. I love this one. The cupcakes were a pyramid, but here you see the top one mid-fall as she goes for it.

Happy 8 months darling girl! We love you...and we love everyone who was a part of our holidays and those we miss and didn't get to spend time with!

Happy 2010!