Monday, August 21, 2006

New Pictures

So, by switching my browser (right now I'm using Firefox), I seem to once again be able to add pictures to my blog. Here is one from last week. I liked all the colors. Marlena's new favourite spot is sitting right in front of all her toys. That way she can pull out whatever catches her eye. Already, she is trying to pull herself up and you'll often find her on her knees with her hands in one of the bins, playing with whatever toy.

Today I tried a different approach. I pulled the bins out of the shelf and placed them on the floor. She didn't seem as interested. I think she liked the challenge of reaching up and in.

Her latest skill, is banging two toys together. She seems to like to do that. Other "skills" include holding an object in each hand. Did you know that was a skill? I didn't. I found that out last night as I was surfing the web to look for suggestions on how to play with her to develop her skills. One suggestion was, once she had an object in each hand, to offer her a third object to see what she does. This morning I did just that - she dropped one the took what I was offering her. What we still need to learn: dropping things into buckets.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Some More Videos

Here are a couple more videos. These were taken by Don. Not having much success in getting him to actually create a post to share with you.

I also seem to be having problems uploading new photos to this blog, though. Not sure what the problem is. All of a sudden it seemed to stop working. Wrote to the people who manage this site, but haven't heard back from them.

This video shows Marlena eating beets for the first time:



Listen to the sounds of this video. Marlena has discovered a new sound she can make. But you have to listen closely...

Thursday, August 17, 2006

The Ironing Can Wait...

So I have a HUGE pile of laundry that needs to be ironed, floors to be washed, a kitchen to be cleaned... But I know how everyone is just dying to see new pictures of Marlena, to watch videos of her (interesting, I'm sure, only to those who are family... ) and to hear about how wonderful she is. So, enjoy the feast after the famine. I'm sure it'll be followed by another famine as soon as I get tired of this new "toy" I'm playing with - I'm talking about the video feature on our first digital camera. I now take it with me wherever I go so that I can capture the latest skill Marlena choses to show off.

The video below shows her eating cheerios. I think she only ended up getting one in her mouth...



Her newest skill involves language. She's starting to make more recognizable sounds. Stay tuned for a video that captures her talking.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Something new and exciting...



So, I've taken our old digital camera out of retirement and recharged the battery. It's a little more portable than the big one we have, so it's good to take along to play dates. Also, it has a video feature, and it's primarily for this feature that I've gotten the camera out. I'm hoping to upload some short videos of Marlena that you'll be able to enjoy. The first one I'm posting I took today at home after our playdate. It'll give you an idea of what she can do.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Forget the housework...

I'm keeping the blog updated! We went to a 1st birthday party today for the daughter of one of Don's former co-workers. Great weather for the party, which was Hawaiian-themed and featured hula dancers. Couple of firsts for Marlena again. Her first experience with a balloon. She was a little surprised when it bounced back at her after she hit it. She also tasted watermelon for the first time. The women sitting across from us had a great time watching Marlena's expression. It was also her first time on a swing today. She seemed to enjoy it, but you can check that out for yourself by viewing the pictures from today.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Major Milestone Reached: She's a Crawler!

So it's been ages and rather than go into detail about all the stuff that Marlena has accomplished I'll list them in briefly:

  • she can roll over and back again
  • she can reach forward and pull toys towards her without falling over
  • she can sit herself up
  • she can crawl

The last two happened pretty close together. Within the last week. She actually really started to crawl Thursday morning, and is pretty happy about it. I think what it means to her is that she can get to the toys that are out of reach. No more frustration. It also means she can head directly for my Japanese chest of drawers to play with the metal handles, because they bang so nicely!

She's also eating "solids", so to speak. We started off really well arounds 5 1/2 months with applesauce and cereal. Then we went to chicken. She was not impressed and refused to open her mouth for the next several weeks. She's gotten over that and we continue to eat applesauce and cereal in the morning, but have been working our way through green veggies. So far she's eaten:

  • sugar snap peas
  • green beans
  • zucchini
  • avocado

She's also eaten banana (constipates her a bit) and sucked on bread - she enjoyed that, but the piece of bread was gross when I took it away from her...

The picture here shows her enjoying green bean and avocado facial... And I feel like such a great mom because I've cooked and pureed all the food myself. No processed food, except for the cereal and the first month of applesauce which was left-over from my earlier days of pregnancy. I still want to introduce her to broccoli , asparagus and some green leafy stuff, much to Don's dismay. Many of these foods he does not like at all. Too bad. Also ready and waiting for her are beets and carrots that I bought the other day from a local farmer's market. The carrots are an amazing orange color! And the beets are this deep purple. Don is all excited about her eating the beets. He can't wait to see what color she'll poop and pee! I think it has something to do with his fraternity initiation ritual... Maybe she'll be an honorary FIJI (Phi Gamma Delta)...

Her 6 month appointment went pretty well. She got a couple of shots again. She's no longer in the 95% range for her height, instead she's now in the 75% range. So, she may not be a basketball player. Still she's healthy and continuing to progress normally. She didn't grow so much between 4 and 6 months, nor gain a whole lot of weight. I think all her focus now is on developmental stuff. In the week before she started to sit up by herself and crawl, she regressed in her night-time sleeping habits. She had been waking up only once, but she started waking up every 3 hours or so. I heard that when babies are about to make a big developmental leap, it affects their sleeping because they're trying to figure it out. Well, now that we have the sitting up and crawling behind, I'm hoping the sleeping will improve, and it definitely did last night. Of course, now we can tire her out by getting her to crawl all over the place, and I'm sure that'll improve the sleeping situation.

Other things that have happened to us, my mom who came to look after Marlena, has returned to Vancouver, and I decided to stop working. Just wasn't worth it. So I'm able to see all the firsts, I get to help her eat and I get to meet lots of other mommies in the mommy groups I've joined. We've also taken Marlena up to Santa Barbara for Isabella's first birthday and introduced her to the swimming pool. Daddy's really good at that. And we have a bunch of pictures that we've put up on the web, but haven't linked to from this blog, so I'll do that now.

Click on this picture to see other pictures of Marlena in hats and other head gear... This picture, by the way, was taken on Mother's day. My mom and I dressed Marlena up to get nice pictures of the three of us down at the beach, and Marlena fell asleep on the walk down and slept all afternoon. We didn't get very many pictures...







This picture was taken at Isabella's birthday party at the Santa Barbara zoo. Here Marlena and Don are having fun lying on the grass. It was a great afternoon! Did you know a giraffe's tongue can reach out and grab stuff?!? We saw it when we were watching kids feed the giraffe's. Looking forward to taking Marlena to the zoo when she's older and really gets it. We took her to the San Diego Zoo with Desiree and Craig a few weeks ago. She had a lot to look at, but I'm not sure she really got it. And most of the pictures that were taken were taken by Don of the chimps and apes...


This group of pictures was taken the day before father's day. We went to some botanical gardens close by and got some great pictures of Don and Marlena, and of my mom with Marlena.






And here are some pictures of Don and Marlena enjoying the pool in our complex. Don is a little more daring with Marlena in the pool... and when he bathes her. It's turned out to be a good thing because now she doesn't mind water streaming down her face. If I had been the only one bathing her, well, she wouldn't be as tough. We went to a play date yesterday to a pool in another complex. Marlena seems to really enjoy the water now. She certainly loves the floaty thing we put her in.

The pictures at the beginning of the blog were taken on Wednesday, August 9th, the day before she started to crawl. Click on them to see the most recent pictures.

Enjoy!