Park pics, baby toes, gravity and Snoopy

Holiday is practicing sitting up.



Holiday and daddy at Kubota Gardens near our house.

Holiday and mommy at Kubota Gardens.

Baby feet!

Holly started grabbing her toes last week. Actually she's a lot more 'grabby' lately in general. Now she swats at my fork or my plate and has knocked stuff onto the floor. She's been tossing her toys on the floor too. Thus, Holly has discovered gravity. She's been making this funny sound for a while. The best way to discribe it is the sound that Snoopy makes if he's unhappy about something. Remember those old cartoons! It's pretty funny, even funnier if you're bouncing her on a knee.

4 Month Check-up

Holly's doing really good, we just need to make sure she's getting enough calories. She tends to fight us a little bit on eating. We'll do a weight check in a couple weeks to make sure she's on the gain. It's kind of like when we were monitoring my blood pressure during pregnancy, it's just something we have to watch. I think she remembered getting shots at the 2 month check up because she started crying really bad when the nurse was getting the shots ready. She turns beet red and cries really, really bad during the shots. Holly can actually scream when she's really mad, it can make you feel like a bad person when a baby screams. Last Sunday we went to Sable's blessing and Holly did just fine during the ceremony, but it was during the morning and that's her happiest time of day. We went to Landon's birthday party later, he was turning 3, and had a nice time. So Sunday was a day of little shin-digs. Holly is starting to 'pluck' at her gums, kind of like she's trying to scratch them. She's also doing this funny little thing where she kind of sucks in her lips around her gums. We figure it's just more teething symptoms.

Holly's figuring things out

I think Holly has gotten bigger...at least seems like it when she's in her carseat now. She looks like she just fills the whole thing up. When she's on her playmat she scootches around on her back like crazy and is about 95% ready to turn over. I sense this feeling of frustration from her. She wants to be able to move around more but has not physically figured it out yet...but she's dang close. Holly's starting to figure out the buttons on her playmat too. If you push them stuff lights up and there's little noises. She can kick them on and grab them too. We've been taking Holiday outside more and she really likes looking up at the big tree in the back yard and looking around outside in general. If she hears something, like a plane, she tries to figure out where the sound is coming from. Our babysitter Jill calls her Holly-wolly-polly-wog (say that five times fast). She does kind of has those frog legs, huh.

It's the Muppet Show

We went to the Jim Henson exhibit at the EMP/SFM this last Saturday. It was probably cooler to David and I than to Holly, very nostalgic for me. She seemed to like the Sci-Fi part the most with all the lights, glowy things, spacey music and robots. David and I of course really like that part too.

We're thinking now that part of Holly's crankiness is because she wasn't quite getting enough to eat, since you never really know how much she's getting with breastfeeding. So we're supplimenting a lot more formula in. Her mood has improved quite a bit. We still think Holiday's teething as well because she's slobbering like crazy and gnaws on her hands and shoves things in her mouth. She soaks through her clothes down to her belly button so we change her periodically throughout the day. Holly's also taken up making spitting noises with all the extra saliva that she has now. It's pretty funny. Sometimes Holly gets excited and she tenses up and flails her arms and legs around quickly. She also opens her mouth big and wide if something is fun. She's a total hoot.

Musings...

I looked it up and Holly was born in the year of the Ox. The Chinese zodiac predicts that she could be a workaholic, prefers to keep busy, in particular in the outdoors, and will prefer to work alone when possible. So she might happen to like a lot of outdoor sports like biking, running, hiking, etc. She might also grow up to be a mechanic, carpenter, engineer, draftsmen, etc. She is an Earth Ox so she will be humble so she will still be likeable in spite of her workaholic nature. But we will see if the stars are right or not. David had a dream the other night that we had another daughter and her name was Phoenix Star (as in the mythical creature not the city). Maybe the stars are trying to tell us something. :)

Teething...the saga continues

Whew...I'll be glad when these little teeth finally make their appearance. Her cranky times seem to have expanded into most of the afternoon as well as the evening, but then every once in a while she has a good day without teething pains. We try to distract her as much as possible, mostly taking her outside works pretty good and putting her in her baby rocker (but that could take 20 minutes for it to work). She doesn't seem that interested in teething rings or wash cloths, nothing is better than her own fingers and when that doesn't satisfy her, nothing does. My brain is pretty much mush after a day of fussiness. It might not be so bad if she wasn't so loud, it's really hard to think about anything else with screaming going on. I know it can't last forever though.

Teething Pains

We think Holiday is starting to teethe. She's been drooling like crazy, gnawing on her hands and fingers and our fingers too, diarrea, nighttime fussiness, and even pulls at her ear a little bit. All symptoms of teething. All the mommies that I've talked to think it's teething too. We have a new babysitter, Jill, for my days in the office and without hesitation she thinks it's definitely teething. Jill has a 5 year old son, Hayden, that will be a little playmate for Holly. Holly does pretty good with babysitters, by the time we pick her up is about when fussiness begins so most of the day she's all smiles...and we'll probably have some little pearly whites soon. :) I'm also moving from 0-3 mo. sizes to 3-6 mo. for her. We bought her a few new outfits to complement the ones we already had. So I'll be going through her clothes again to put the stuff that she's outgrown into storage.

Holly's first concert and other pics

She's got the gear.

Holiday and mommy

Holiday and daddy

Holly likes smacking at the toys hanging from her playmat.

She also likes pulling her toys and blankets around her face. I try to pull them off her face without waking her up.

Holiday's holding herself up like a pro during tummy time.

I think the picture says it all.