Celebrating the Fourth of July (a very late post)

First, apologies for the delay in publishing these photos!  Where I once was able to blog at least once a day, I am discovering that I am excited if I remember to post once a month now.  It's terrible, and I sincerely apologize to those of you that read this!  That being said, here is a little something about our Fourth of July celebration this year :-).

We were lucky enough that Katie, Sahil, and Lark came to visit us for the holiday again this year, so it was even better than a day of grilling, sunshine, and parades would have been with just us.  The weather ended up being perfect, so we started the day by enjoying a local park (The Bog Gardens).

We dressed in our patriotic best, Willa chomped her carrier and got bored quickly

It's a long system of wooden walkways that takes you by a lake through a forest area.  Lark and Sahil noticed that it looks a lot like Endor, which made them enjoy it just a little more, I think!

They looked for speeders and ewoks the whole time!

The outdoor festivities continued throughout the day with Lark, Katie, Willa and I playing in our neighborhood playground.  While Lark had a great time with the plastic playhouse and the slides, Willa snoozed away in her carrier on me.  I'm very excited for the days when the two of them can cavort together, but for now it was nice to be able to sit and savor the feeling of her sleeping on me.  By random chance a local candidate for city council arrived for our neighborhood parade while I sat quietly with Willa, so I asked him about the start of the parade.  He told me a full forty five minutes before I thought it would start, so we hurried home so that we could get ready to attend it with everyone.

The Kirkwood parade is a neighborhood tradition that dates back to the end of World War II when a street called Independence Drive was populated by veterans making good use of the GI Bill.  Four families on the block decided to dress patriotically and parade up and down their streets with bicycles and wagons to mark the occasion.  Since then it has been an annual tradition and gets a little bigger each year.  With the Republican primaries for local government seats coming up soon, this year was very heavy with politicians.  As it turns out, the city councilman I spoke with earlier in the day was mistaken and we ended up being extremely early for the parade; interestingly, I think his mistake was deliberate because he had a large set-up of food and supporters meeting before the parade.  Perhaps he was trying to get us to come too early, have too much time on our hands, and hear his message?  

Anyway, I digress.  Here are some cute pictures from the parade:

 Katie and Lark got a prime seat

 Willa was confused by the concept of "selfies"

 Then she took this photo of the sky. It may have been an accident, but baby's first photo!

All of the floats were lovingly made with a patriotic theme, and most threw candy

 We will have to take this family portrait at this corner every year, the parade is a fun tradition!

My favorite picture of the day, taken as Lark waited patiently for more free candy

There was a moment when I was speaking to Jeremy's dad about our day, saying that we had just gotten back from the parade, Jeremy was lighting the grill, and Lark was about to run through the sprinklers that it hit me.  We had the perfect Fourth of July celebration.  Future celebrations will probably be compared to this one because we had such a good time.  To top it all off, Jeremy and I got to take in a movie later that day while Willa stayed with Katie and Sahil.  This was only the second movie we had seen in the theater since Willa was born, and it was a movie we were both very excited to see.  It was also completely deserted because most people choose to take in fireworks after dark on the Fourth.  Again, it was perfect.  We are so lucky to have great family that made it all possible!

6 month state of the address

Willa had her half birthday!  Our little miss is 15 pounds, 1 ounce (lower than my rough at home estimate, I'm terrible at those!) and 27 1/4 inches long.  This puts her in the 24th weight percentile and 93rd (!!) height percentile!  The doctor says she looks great, is hitting all of her developmental milestones, and was surprised that she already has two pearly whites!  We are very proud of how well she is doing.

This month has been marked by lots of new discoveries and adventures:

Sporting a Moroccan outfit from her godfather

She can stand for a little while after we prop her up!  The doctor recommended no more than 15-30 minutes of standing time a day for now, but she definitely impresses me with her balance during that time!

Why buy expensive toys?

She has also recently discovered that she, like many other little ones, loves the tags on things.  She can spend a nice long while chomping away at one, as seen here with my nursing pillow.  Forget those musical toys and ones with moving parts, she'll take a tag every day of the week!

Can I help you?

Finally, she also discovered that super attractive baby in the mirror that likes to follow us around.  She started to try to kiss it, and in this picture she seems to be letting me know that she is a little busy at the moment!  I don't blame her, she is quite kissable :-).

Willa continues to amaze us every day with how fast she is growing, and how much she is learning.  We couldn't love her any more!

Entering a whole new, delicious world

It's milestone time, the first solid food!  We served her some rice cereal mixed with breastmilk, and to no one's surprise, she was very pleased and ate it all!  It only took her a bite or two to get the hang of it, and most of it was actually swallowed.  She ate equally well with Jeremy and I, and will eat it runny, porridge-y, warm, or hot.  I'm very impressed with her and am excited to start on fruits/veggies when she's 6 months old!  Here's a photo array of that special time!

 I want what's in that bowl, you're not going fast enough, I'll just grab it!

 Slurping every last drop

 Mastering the lip purse to keep it all in

All done, very full, somewhat messy face, VERY messy tray!

So proud of our big girl!

Swimming part two

So I know I just did a whole blog post on her first time swimming, but I just had to share her second time too.  This time, Daddy got to come too.  Maybe it's because we were both there, or maybe it's because it was her second time, but this time around, Willa was much braver and sat by herself in the yellow floaty. 

Just chillin' like it's nothin'

As you can see, she has yet another ridiculously cute outfit, this one compliments of my wonderful Aunt Gail.  What's not to love about a perfectly coordinated hat, suit, and terry cloth cover up?

Close-up cuteness

She had lots of fun floating between the two of us in the water, and didn't ever seem scared.  She was very focused on her toys, and on avoiding getting splashed by the bigger kids doing cannonballs on the other side of the pool.

 Mommy, those big kids are getting very close!

Loving her toys

She did so well that we got to stay until we got all pruny, and let me tell you, the only way that tiny tootsies get cuter is when they get wrinklier!

I couldn't stop kissing them!

Our second time went so well, I'm sure there will be many more to come.  Our little fishie is progressing very well!

Getting her swimming legs

On May 31, Willa got to play in a swimming pool for the first time.

Seen here, getting her sniffer zinc-ed

My friend Audrey's mom, Karlan, who takes Willa for us sometimes, invited us over for a baby pool party at her townhouse complex' pool.  It was a perfect pool for little ones, 3 ft deep at either end and just 4 feet deep in the middle.  I was very excited to start her in the water at a young age, in the hopes that she will be comfortable in the water for life.  So I dressed her in the ridiculously cute suit and hat I got at a recent church consignment sale

Pictured: ridiculousness

bought her a yellow floaty thing for the water,

of which she was very skeptical

and set off with hopes of getting lots of cute pictures!  As you can see below, I think we achieved our goal!

She was the happiest swimming around with me holding her

By the end of the day she was relaxed in her floaty rings, playing with her chain link toy as happily as she would on her playmat.  Karlan took pictures of that time, so hopefully I will get copies soon so that I can share them here.  For now Willa is geared up for a long, swimmy summer!

5 month state of the address

Willa is five months old, wow!  This month has seen a host of new experiences, like swimming in a pool and Kindermusik, as well as the basics like her feet and the joy of chomping everything with her two new teeth.  She is about 15-16 pounds, based on the difference between my weight holding her and alone and is still long and thin.  She has great head and neck control, excellent grabbing skills, and is improving in sitting up alone.  During tummy time she is starting to scoot with her first half consistently, and can move across the floor if we help push her lower half.  She has rolling from her front to her back like a champ, but is still working on going from back to front.

Right now her favorite toys are her chain links and the Jumparoo, with the playmat starting to get boring.  When she's in the Jumparoo, she moves and grooves a lot with a big smile on her face, so it seems like this will be the Summer of Jumping for little miss.

She is still sleeping through the night, although most nights she wakes up needing to burp a couple of times before she goes down for the night.  She is still exclusively breastfed, but we will start her on rice cereal in the next couple of days.  As a bonus, she has started to hold her own bottle for Jeremy and the sitters, which is quite impressive.

One handed, no less!

Stranger danger is starting to develop too, which makes me glad that we have had the same babysitters since the beginning.  We went to a craft event at church yesterday, and there were a lot of very nice people that wanted to hold her, but she was very shy.  I think she made it a couple of minutes before she was ready for mom again.  This, plus her reaching for me, makes me feel very loved indeed.  I just hope she doesn't hurt people's feelings during this stage!

Right now we are loving life.  She knows us, is sleeping through the night, eats well, and stays where we put her.  It seems like a perfect sweet spot, and I'm excited to see where it goes from here!

Teething Queen

Despite it being a little early, Willa has officially sprouted her first tooth!

My finger is just over it in this picture, its the lower right incisor

Closer shot, but it's still hard to see!

We could tell that it was coming in for a little while, with her excessive amounts of drool and uncharacteristic fussiness.  Once our sweet girl started being irritable all day, every day, I knew something was on the horizon.  To help her deal with the pain, we tried a few different suggestions from books and friends.  She was very confused by the cold teething ring and didn't really take to it right away.  I bought a vibrating teething ring, but it's activated by strong chomping, and she can't sustain a bite that strong yet, leading to me having to squeeze it and getting very tired thumbs.  

The thing that seems to have brought her back to her usual self is the necklace you see pictured above.  It's an amber teething necklace bought at a local baby boutique.  I was skeptical of this, as I usually reject all baby jewelry as silly and excessive, but after hearing strong testimonials from more than a few friends, and doing some research to make sure it isn't just "magic," I decided to give it a try.  I bought it with a gift card to a store where there wasn't much else I could use it on, so I figured if it didn't work, or I was too concerned about her safety, there would be no big loss if I tossed it out.  As you can see, I didn't toss it out!  Placebo or not, she has returned to her usual self.  She still gets crabby, but she isn't crabby all day.  I make sure she's never alone with it on, and I definitely take it off of her when she sleeps, but for the time its on (playtime and nursing) she doesn't seem to be in pain.  Such a relief for Mommy!

So far it's only one tooth, but we are incredulous that our little one is growing so fast!