10 month update

Naomi hit the 10 month mark on Sunday! No one reads paragraphs anymore (or so most of my family implied over Thanksgiving when they told me they only look at the pictures on the blog), so here are the main highlights:

• Naomi flaps her arms and occasionally waves hi or good-bye, but never on demand.

• She can stand up by herself until she realizes our hands aren't supporting her, then she sits right down.

• Naomi's favorite treat is a banana (not in the pureed form): I whipped out a banana for her during church today (not our usual church snack fare, but today was a rough day for her so I thought she deserved a treat), and she vocalized her excitement so much that we finally hid the banana and pulled out the veggie puffs.

• She loves dogs and absolutely goes berserk with excitement when she sees our neighbor's dog. Since the dog is familiar with kids, I let Naomi touch the dog and she just giggles and loves every second of it, even when she accidentally gets whacked by the frenzied tail-wagging!

• At her 9 month well baby appointment, Naomi weighed in at 16 pounds, putting her at in the 10th percentile for her age group. For height, she's in the 25th percentile. Other moms are blown away by how much Naomi eats, but obviously she's putting it to good use!
  

• Naomi's current favorite game: unloading all the items off the changing table. That includes diapers one by one, then clothes from baskets, changing pad covers, etc. It's still entertaining to me, so you can tell I'm a first-time mom. When she picks something up, she generally flaps it around to see if it does anything interesting or looks like food, and then drops it on the floor while moving onto something bigger and better.

Naomi is as huggable, sweet, beautiful, astounding, and intelligent as ever a baby could be...she put a fake rosebud in her mouth and tried to hide it from me, she is entertained for great lengths of time by the grocery ads (mostly tearing and waving them around), and she LOVES her toothbrush. She is enchanted by our Christmas tree and the sparkly lights on the houses in our neighborhood. All in all, with her heritage, she can't escape being highly intelligent!

Good cheeks

...almost there...

Little sicko

Fun with fruit puffs

Fun with cousins

Fun with friends

Jail Bird

Here's our jail bird.  When it's time for a nap or bedtime, we lay Naomi down in her crib.  Since she's learned to pull herself up, though, she stands up, works her way around to this end of the crib (which is the end closest to the door) and babbles or cries in an effort to get us back in the room.  
 

Lady Bug

Kick'n back

Naomi consistently works her way to the side of her stroller and sticks her feet up on the "dashboard".  She's so laid-back in general that this picture seems to capture her attitude about life!

Bipolar Baby

Running with Naomi

I have taken Naomi out a couple times in the jogging stroller, both times for a 1 or 1 ½ mile run. She did great, so I thought I would up the mileage and take her out during a longer run. It was about a 4 mile run. Here’s how it went:

12:20
I strap Naomi securely in her stroller, make sure her hat is on, she’s comfortable, she has toys, I have the car keys, etc. I am feeling great. It’s an incredibly beautiful day, and I’m out for a run with Naomi! We head out from the park and follow a paved trail.

12:25
Naomi is already bored with her toys, but that’s okay because she generally likes to just hang out in the stroller when we walk and look at the scenery. I figure it’s more interesting when you are going at a faster pace, so that will keep her entertained.

12:26
I learn I am wrong. Naomi is apparently not entertained by the fast-moving scenery (or perhaps I'm slower than I realize). I’m not giving up this easily, though. I start singing nursery rhymes.

12:30
I pride myself on being able to push the jogging stroller uphill while singing nursery rhymes. Naomi has a cool mom. I feel I am keeping my pace up. This is good!

12:35
We are on flat ground now. Naomi gets a little fussy, but she likes to watch the cars. I tire of singing.  I talk nonsense to her now and then but mostly just enjoy being outdoors with a slight breeze.

12:36
The turnaround point is in sight. Naomi decides she is ready to get out of the stroller and makes sure Mommy knows about her decision. I keep up a stream of chatter, hoping that will entertain her.

12:38
We are at the turnaround point. Naomi is crying off and on now. Should I take her out? No, she’ll just get more frustrated when I put her back in. Besides, by continuing to run, we’ll get back to the car as fast as possible. Talking and singing doesn’t seem to make a difference. It's a moot point; I’m running a bit short on air. I realize it was silly of me to give her all three toys at once. Next time I will hold a couple in reserve for later in the run.

12:40
We pass a bench. I hold to my resolve to not take Naomi out of the stroller. Her crying is building up, and I worry that passers-by will think I am torturing my child. I no longer think I am a cool mommy.  I try to put Naomi's toys in her hands while jogging; she won’t take them, although she does seem to think I look funny enough bending over while still jogging that she stops crying for a minute.

12:42
I notice Naomi quiets down when cars pass. It is not a busy road, though, or perhaps it’s a slow time of day. I contemplate which is the correct answer; it keeps my mind off Naomi crying. I hope for more cars.

12:46
Naomi’s a-howlin’ now. I stop wondering if it is sacrilegious and begin praying for more cars.

12:48
There’s another bench coming up. Naomi starts to quiet down as we get closer to it, but I know as soon as we pass it she’ll start howling again. We stop. So much for my continuous run, but mothers have to make sacrifices, right? Naomi LOVES the bench; it is a mosaic-type bench with many different colors of stones embedded in the seat. She enjoys watching cars. We play for a few minutes. I put her back in the stroller while she is watching cars, hoping she will be so intent on the cars that she doesn’t notice what is happening. It does not work.

12:53
With Naomi howling louder than ever, I set back out. We go over an occasional bump, and that really ticks her off. The cars still grab her attention, but they don't come by often enough for me. I contemplate calling my friends and asking them to drive past us multiple times to entertain her.

12:58
We are heading down a circular ramp and back underneath the bridge (the path goes underneath the road). Naomi stops crying. I am encouraged. We are near the end, my run was better than nothing, and I’ll finish with a not-screaming baby.

1:02
We head up the other side of the ramp with only about ½ mile left to get back to the car. Naomi is gurgling, not her happy cooing gurgles, but the ones that mean she’s building up to scream bloody murder. I run faster. Will silly songs help? I try some and ignore the fact that they aren’t working. I start planning this blog in my head; it distracts me.

1:06
We arrive back at the park. I feel bad Naomi has been crying. She deserves a treat. I look for some grass by a tree so we can play in the shade. Naomi does not realize we are done with the run and continues crying. It takes awhile, but we eventually find some shady grass. She tries to eat the grass while I stretch. I wonder if we should try this again. It’s a beautiful day to be outside. I think we will try this again with a few modifications…I haven’t figured out what, yet, but I’ll keep my thinking cap on. 

As with most things, this whole experience was much funnier after the fact!

Budding climber

As I watch Naomi become more mobile, it makes me laugh to see the similarities between how she is learning and how I learned to rock climb.  When she's pulling herself up from a sitting position, and also when she's in a standing position looking to move higher or sideways, she checks out the hand hold options by feeling around and testing them out, then trying a different one if her first choice doesn't work out.  She grunts with the extreme effort in dynamic moves.  She doesn't mind falling (although I haven't really conquered that one yet) - the kid is fearless!  She tried chimneying up something a few weeks ago.  She gets excited when she's been trying hard to get up and finally gets there!  She shifts her body weight around, experimenting with what will allow her to move more easily.

I put Naomi on some stairs yesterday, expecting her to move around a little and then get bored.  She surprised me by scaling them twice!  Halfway through the second time, she got wobbly legs (known as Elvis leg to climbers).  I gave her a short break.  When she got back on the stairs, she was ready to make the final ascent!  Of course, the cheerios at the top of the stairs might have helped...

And she's off...

...in more ways than one!  Naomi hit the 8 month mark yesterday, and she's developing so quickly.  Her first tooth popped into sight last week, and both sets of grandparents got an excited phone call.  (Actually, that's a blatant lie.  The tooth didn't "pop" at all; it took an excruciating amount of time, pain, and fussiness!)  Every once in awhile I'll let Naomi chomp on my finger to keep her entertained, and now my finger comes out with a sharp little indention and a cry of pain on my part.

Naomi has also learned to crawl!  I was not prepared for how quickly this would happen.  For weeks she would get on her hands and knees and rock back and forth, but nothing more.  Then for 2-3 days she would scoot her knees up but couldn't figure out how to keep her balance while moving her hands.  (This was a funny stage, because she would plop down on her chest, gaining about 3 inches, and then repeat the process time after time.  When she kept at it, she actually covered some ground this way.)  The next 2-3 days she could move forward but it was a very interrupted crawl, with her sitting up every
few seconds, sometimes
toppling over on her head, sometimes getting up on her hands and feet like she was going to play leapfrog, etc.  And now, less than a week after she started moving, she's zipping around.  When she has an object in her sights, watch out or be plowed over!  We took some short video clips of her crawling and put them on youtube.com .  
If you are interested in the link, let me know.

Naomi is a good little helper.  After eating, when she sees the washcloth, she holds out her hands to get washed off. 
When it's time to get in the carseat, she sits back and waits for the seatbelt to be put on, and when you take it off, she lunges forward and looks up, waiting for us to get her out of the seat.  She helps me carry things from room to room, also, although whatever we're carrying tends to get a little slobbery in transit.  And the manipulative little babe knows when to flash huge smiles to get us to let her do things she's not supposed to be doing (like being up late at night).  
 
All in all, we love her and we're having a great time!  More pictures coming soon...

Playing with Balls

Naomi's ready to take on the world!  Here she moves from a little baby-size ball to one that can plow her right over.  She's really turning into such a character.  

Tub Time

Naomi has fun in the tub. Actually, Val had fun with Naomi in the tub.

We noticed Naomi loved the bubbles the water made when splashing, so we got some bubble bath for her, and she is completely amazed by it.  Here Naomi is in her bath seat, letting Mommy plop bubbles on her head.

BYU's win over 15th ranked TCU

We had front row seats (in front of our neighbor's tv, anyway) to the BYU football game yesterday. Incidentally, that neighbor doesn't usually carry the channel on which the game was broadcast, but he upgraded just to get the game. Despite small children running around who were dressed in BYU apparel and toting pom-poms and a stuffed Cosmo that plays BYU's song, we were able to watch most of the game as BYU pulled out a solid victory (31-10) over 15th-ranked TCU. Go Cougs!

This pic is of a catch that made SportsCenters top plays.

And a few more pictures just for fun...

BYU Football!

The BYU football team kicked off their season with a game against the UofA, and it was here in Tucson. The game was on September 2nd, and Matt and I got our tickets in June. Yep, we were excited!! Naomi got in the spirit, too. Here she is wearing her first BYU t-shirt.

7 1/2 month update

Naomi passed the 7 month mark almost two weeks ago and has all kinds of fun new things she is doing. Almost everytime I go into pick her up from a nap, she is on her hands and knees. That means she's about to start crawling everywhere, and it also means we dropped her crib mattress down a level so she can't get some momentum and take a plunge over the side.

Today Naomi tried some baby banana food. In celebration of adding bananas to the menu, I sang the Tarzan of the Apes song (I like bananas, coconut, and grapes, etc.). She giggled all the way through the meal and especially liked the verses where it gets really quiet and then ends loudly.


Here are a couple fun pictures. In the first, Naomi is munching on Cookie Monster's eyeballs (his arms and legs all have magents in them, and Naomi enjoys pulling him off the fridge).





And here's one of Naomi having fun on a rocking horse our neighbors loaned to us.














Giggles before bedtime: following the tradition of Chilton/Jones women, Naomi turns into a nutcase in the evening and giggles at things that really aren't that funny. (Oops, just kidding, Matt - you are funny!)

Cheerios!

Naomi has been eating all kinds of things. Let's see, we've covered squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, rice cereal, oatmeal, and applesauce (the applesauce was a mental lapse; that wasn't supposed to come until after green veggies). The kid is going to balloon. She eats and eats and eats.

Yesterday Naomi ate 2 cheerios! We were working on her pincer grasp, but she's not quite there yet. She did gather a cheerio up in her hand and tried to eat her whole fist, but she couldn't quite figure out how to get the actual cheerio to her mouth. Besides, once she stopped seeing it, she forgot it was there and let it fall to the floor while she concentrated on other things. So I popped a cheerio in her mouth just to see how she would react. I got a couple of odd looks, and it was on her tongue for awhile, but she never spit it out. When I checked a couple of minutes later, there was no cheerio. We repeated the process once and then Naomi decided Mommy's entertainment with cheerios was done and we should move on to something more fun.

I want to post so many great pictures we have of Naomi, but I don't think it will happen from home. I'll send some pictures to campus with Matt and hopefully get them posted sometime this week.

A few moments of panic

Naomi and I survived our week at the office but were excited to be done. The main issue was that Naomi wouldn't take a nap while we were there. Somewhat confined space + mommy distracted by other things doesn't always equal a happy baby, but add a tired baby into the equation, and you'll never come up with anything good. Naomi did phenomenally well for a baby, but the office just isn't the place for a baby!

We did have a few moments of excitement on Thursday. Peter D's office was connected to mine. Since he wasn't in during the afternoon, I laid a blanket on the floor and put Naomi down for a nap. She sometimes cries for just a few minutes before dropping off to sleep, so I closed the door and sat at my desk right by the door. After a couple minutes, I could tell the cries weren't her "falling to sleep" cries, so I decided to pick her back up. To my absolute horror, the door was locked! I very calmly went to the front desk and asked after several different people who have master keys. I was told they were all at lunch. So I checked on a few personal contacts who have keys, and none of them were in either. I went back to the front desk and asked when anyone with a key was expected back in, and they managed to track down a key for me. The whole thing took less than five minutes, but I felt terrible! I was so relieved to get to Naomi. I will be checking the locks on any rooms I put Naomi in from now on!!

Latest update

Naomi got poked with her third set of immunizations this morning. She didn't blink an eye at the first jab, but the second made her howl. She recovered quickly, though; she was blowing raspberries for the nurse as the needles went in the disposal bin, and she made a concentrated effort to capture and eat the flowers at the checkout desk.

Naomi is now 25 1/2 inches long (50th percentile), 14 lb 8 oz (around 30th percentile), and I don't recall her head measurement, but it was around the 50th percentile as well. Next time some sucker makes a scene about how Naomi is so incredibly huge for her age, I'll just smile and know they are an idiot. (Just kidding, but I do get that comment a lot, and I've gotten a bit sick of it.)

Since rice cereal is going so well and her weight could stand to go up a bit, Naomi will get solids two times a day starting today and we'll add in a third solids meal in the next couple weeks. And we'll be branching out to.....yellow and orange vegetables!! Naomi's gonna be stoked.

Temp job

My old boss lined me up with a possible part-time job at New York Life, but I opted not to do it. I didn't want to end up earning just enough to pay for Naomi's day care. However, I did agree to fill in for a week. They are allowing me to bring Naomi in to work with me, and I am choosing my own hours, as many or as few as I would like. It sounded like a decent way to make a few bucks.

The position is straight secretarial/receptionist, which is an absolute bore. Naomi contrives to spice it up, though. She actually behaved fairly well on Monday. We were there for five hours (I had planned to be there less than four, but things picked up a bit at the end.) She finally exhausted herself and collapsed on my shoulder into a sleep, but those eyes popped right open when I tried to lay her down on a blanket. So much for naps...the same thing was repeated today, except the second time she let the entire floor (and it's a big floor) know she was not pleased with the arrangements.

Even getting the messages off the phone turned out to be trickier than you might imagine. (Any idea how entertaining a phone cord can be to a baby that LOVES to reach out and chew on whatever she can grab?) It sounded like a great idea to bring Naomi since I was only going to do a little light filing and answering the phones for such a short period of time, but never again will I do something like this. Everything that I accomplished in five hours while having Naomi with me would have normally taken me 30 minutes, if that.

Since the duties aren't time-consuming, I did spend some time updating the software on the computer and streamlined a few other things in the office (his current secretary is not very technologically-minded). I should have charged Peter more for my time - I think with those results alone he would have gladly paid it!

Anyway, that's what's going on with Naomi and me this week. Matt's back in classes for his 2nd year - 1 down and a few to go!!

The cracker issue

In every book and website on baby information, you will find a list of developmental activities which babies should be doing at specific ages. Every time I look at those lists (which is only about once a month, to see which activities we should we working on) I wonder this: what idiot came up with the one that a baby should be able to feed himself/herself a cracker by 6 months?

First of all, Naomi has no teeth, and the average age for getting teeth is supposed to be 7-9 months. Are they supposed to slobber all over the cracker until it's absolute mush and then they can swallow it? Or is the issue that they are supposed to bring something to their mouth and bite? I'm assuming that's not it, since that is usually listed separately...

Secondly, Naomi hasn't been eating rice cereal for very long. Looking down the schedule of when to introduce new foods, I don't see crackers listed anytime soon.

6 months old!!

Today marks 6 months since Naomi has joined our family, and we are thrilled she's here to stay! There are, however, still moments when Matt or I secretly want the other one to either take care of her or throw her out the window (that's a joke dating back to Naomi's wee days).

Naomi's 6 month update:

1. She gives the thermostat huge smiles. Matt and I have to tease and tickle and dance and sing and cart her around everywhere, and that stupid thermostat gets smiles? It probably doesn't even appreciate them...sheesh. (I think it's the circular dial she likes so much.)

2. Naomi's almost ready to graduate to the big-people bathtub! She's definitely ready for the bath toys Aunt Bethany and Grandma Jones sent.

3. She likes to grab her toes and play with them, occasionally sticking them in her mouth...our own little contortionist! Unfortunately, the only picture I have of this is when Naomi was in a state of undress, so I won't be posting that online. It seems every parent has a picture of their naked child, so I guess it was inevitable.

4. Naomi is getting really good at sitting and can stay sitting while propping herself up with her arms. She can stand, too, while holding onto a toy at standing level or other support device (i.e. Mom or Dad).

An exersaucer and an octopus...

Naomi has some new forms of entertainment, one of them being her exersaucer. There are so many knobs to turn and handles to pull, etc., that her busy little hands just can't get enough of it!

And then there's the octopus...as I mentioned in a previous post, Naomi loves to capture the octopus as the mobile spins around, and then she proceeds to slobber all over it and munches on each individual tentacle. Watching her catch the octopus in her outstretched arms is one of the day's delights. Her whole body seems to quiver with anticipation, or perhaps with the effort of ensnaring the moving target. She loves that octopus so much that we ordered a Beanie Baby octopus and are awaiting its delivery with much anticipation. (Then I can stop trying to prevent her from tearing this octopus right off of the mobile!)

AHA - feeding fun!

I have figured out how to help Naomi have fun while eating - cater to her schedule (as we do in all other matters)! Since I had been told repeatedly that I would probably need to bathe her after feeding her with a spoon, I thought feeding her right before her regular bathtime in the evening would work well.

Today I veered off that schedule and fed her in the late morning. Whoa - what a difference!! Naomi was much more lively. She managed to capture the spoon from me a couple times; she also used her hands to transfer the contents of the spoon to her mouth, entire face, and all over the high chair. All in all, it was much more fun for both of us!

The rational part of my brain says "Ach - don't touch that, Naomi, or I'll have to clean the whole thing!" The silly part of me (which is winning out over the responsible part, and which I hope will always win out) says "Come on, Naomi, let's paint this high chair with all the baby food we can find!"

Rice cereal

Naomi has been eating rice cereal for about a week now. She does fine with it, but our mellow little babe doesn't get too excited about eating. She does, however, absolutely love to drink water from a cup. She sticks her tongue on top and laps it up like a little doggy! When a cup is in sight, Naomi is reaching towards it with all of her energy!

I have to admit I was rather disappointed in the first feeding session. I had piles of bibs and burp rags on hand, and I couldn't wait to get her in that high chair. I was prepared for a knock-down drag-out fight over trying to get her to eat the rice cereal. Alas, my expectations were far from accurate. There were no flying spoons or bowls, no spitting cereal onto the floor, walls, or Mommy, no desperate attempts to escape from the high chair. Naomi twisted around to check out a noise now and then, but for the most part she let me spoon the stuff right in her mouth. I'm sure the excitement factor will kick in as she gets more used to it and figures out she can protest, so I should be grateful for the calm feeding times I get now, right? Ah the naiveties of a new parent...

SOS Call for Help!

Do you like this picture of Naomi? She's such a cutie, huh? Well, let me tell you some things about this cutie...

We're having some issues with sleep patterns in our house. To be more precise, I do not approve of Naomi's late hours. She was staying up until 10:30 or 11:00 PM and sleeping in until 9:00 AM. I tried getting her up earlier in the morning, hoping her whole schedule would get moved a couple hours earlier. I believe the phrase "the plan backfired" completely fits here. Apparently it was much too logical to actually work.

The first day I got her up earlier in the morning, Naomi went to bed even later than usual that night and got up at 4 AM or something like that. I tried it a couple mornings and didn't really get much response. So I let that die out and figured I would just have to survive this late bedtime until she's old enough that I can do something about it.

Unfortunately, Naomi's sleeping pattern did shift, but not the way I wanted!! She has started going to bed after midnight and sleeping in until 10:30 or so. I'm not a night owl, so this is a huge struggle for me, especially when I read that the optimal bedtime for babies is between 7 and 8 PM. Basically I go to bed around 11:30 and Matt has duty the rest of the time until she gets to sleep. ARGH.

IF YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE, MAKE SURE TO PASS IT ALONG. You may be responsible for keeping my sanity intact (what remains of it, that is).

It's a darn good thing she gives such huge smiles when she wakes up. She makes me laugh, melts my heart, and is probably consciously manipulating me so I will continue to allow her late-night schedule. Silly girl.

1st doctor visit (other than well-baby check-ups)

On Monday Naomi had her first doctor visit for illness. She's developed a hacking cough, sneezing, some raspy breathing, an extremely red sore throat, and (GASP) nose juice drippings. (I just can't bring myself to say my child has snot coming out her nose.) The doctor verified that her lungs and ears are all clear.

So now we get to put nasal saline drops in Naomi's nose and pound on her back to help loosen up the nasty stuff inside. She's not a fan of the drops going up her nose. I tried them this morning to see what I was inflicting on her and they drove me nuts, too.

I also have the same symptoms as Naomi, so Matthew gets to sit in the living room and listen to Val coughing from one bedroom followed by Naomi coughing from the other bedroom. He has informed me that Naomi's coughs are much cuter. I didn't take offense - everything gets cuter when it's in a smaller version.

Naomi in the jogger

Here's a fun picture of Naomi in the stroller, ready to head out for (what else would you do when you're in a stroller?) a stroll.

Evolution of sleeping position

Testing the waters and pushing the limits already!

When we put Naomi in her crib to sleep, we always put her on her back...up until last Friday, that is. In accordance with the "Back to Sleep" campaign, you're not supposed to put babies on their tummies to sleep. Once Naomi learned to roll over, we put wedges on both sides of her to keep her from rolling. That worked great for awhile!

Naomi eventually learned how to work around the wedges and still get onto her tummy. Sometimes she would scootch far enough up and kick the wedges down so that the wedges would end up on the opposite side of the crib from her. Last week she decided to really let me know exactly what she thought of me putting her in those wedges: she didn't get out of them like she normally would, she just slept right on top of them. (See picture 1). I can't decide if it was a defiant act or if she's already conquering everything that's in her way!

So we took the wedges away and started putting her on her back in the middle of the crib. It only takes about 20 seconds before she rolls over to her tummy, so she's now a tummy sleeper. She does tend to move herself around with those legs, though, and occasionally she'll stick an arm or a leg through the bars. (We are considering the bumper pad options to see what would work best to prevent her from injuring herself by sticking something through the slats and then twisting really hard.)

Sometimes she'll get her knees under her and they don't slide out. (See picture 2). That's a pretty dang cute sleeping position! I'm not exactly sure why it's comfortable, but I've noticed lots of tots seem to enjoy it.

Tummy time with Daddy

When Matthew does tummy time with Naomi, she gets to use the boppy and it's way easier than when Mommy is in charge of tummy time and makes Naomi lay on the floor. Here's a picture of tummy time with Daddy yesterday.

5 month update

Naomi is 5 months old today and she is doing great! She is propping up well as you can see from the picture. (Normally I don't leave her in just a diaper, but after two clothes changes due to spitting up and one clothes change due to oozing green poop, I felt a preemptive strike against cleaning more clothes was in order.)

Naomi's latest interests include:

1. Doorknobs and locks: they are shiny, on both sides of the door, and they move!! She can stare at them for longer than Mommy wants to stand by the door, and she's just started grabbing them.

2. The roll of paper towels on the counter which are still in the package: a great toy for Naomi! It crinkles (which she loves), it's soft (so when she pushes it over on her foot it's not a big deal), it rolls around, and it's almost bigger than she is! When she tries to pick it up, it's more like she's hugging it than anything else.

3. Grabbing things with her hands: for the last couple weeks, Naomi would stretch out her arms and then move them together in front of her in a circular motion, gathering up whatever happened to be in her reach in the process. In the last couple days, though, she has started shooting her arm directly at what she wants instead of trying to sweep it up. I love it!

4. Octopus tentacles: Naomi loves the octopus on her sea-life mobile. (I have to admit I'm a bit partial to it, too.) At first when we would stand her up in the crib and let her watch the mobile turn, she was pretty tentative and needed encouragement to see that her hands could interact with the toys. Now she uses her whole body to lunge towards the toys! She definitely favors the octopus, though. Her arms will reach out for it, and if she misses it, her whole body turns to watch it move away from her, and then she sees it coming around again and twists her body to watch it approach.

5. Tummy time: we have been doing lots more tummy time per the doctor's orders, and it really shows. Naomi is now much more comfortable on her tummy, and she can hang out there for quite awhile. (Of course, if my mom did crazy things to keep me entertained when I was on my tummy, I'd stay there just to see how long she would keep going and what she would come up with next!) When she gets tired of propping up and seeing things, she puts her upper body on the blanket and starts pushing up with her feet. Every once in awhile, her feet or knees will catch. Then she either lunges forward (scraping along on her face!) or her bum goes way up in the air.

6. Sitting! Naomi can't sit up all by herself, but she's needing less support by the minute.

All for a washing machine...

We've been looking for a washer and dryer, and on Saturday around 3:00 we drove over to central Tucson to check out a washer. The owner was moving and Matt did a bit of haggling and got her to drop the price.

Once we secured the washer, it was time to find a way to move it. We borrowed our home teacher's truck to pick it up. However, he's in high school, and like most high schoolers, not too into checking the gas tank level. SO...on the way to the gas station, the truck ran out of gas and Matt had to push it out of the intersection. Luckily, a very generous elderly man at the nearest gas station's cash register let me borrow his gas can.

In the meantime, we received a call from the washing machine owner telling us that we had taken too long and she had to leave for a dinner appointment. Matt finally convinced her that Sunday morning was not the ideal time for us to pick up the washer, so he arranged to get it at 9:00 Saturday night. Matt picked up our borrowed laborer (my visiting teachee's son who is home from college for the summer) that evening and headed back to central Tucson. On the way, he saw somebody getting beat up on the side of the road, so he stopped and called 911.

WHAT A DAY. All for a washing machine...next time we might just pay more to get a new one and get the stupid thing delivered.

Monday morning

Monday morning, 10:30 AM, and Naomi's already had two clothing changes due to absurd amounts of spitting up (not including the customary one from pajamas to daytime outfit which Daddy did this morning). Bring on the week!

2006 Utah Trip - Part 3: Monroe

We spent the last 4 days of our trip in Monroe with part of the Jones family. We had a great time with Ed, Connie, Grandma & Grandpa Schlueter (and Taz!), the Fieldings (Julie, Paul, Jordan, Jared, and Julisa), and the Sehers (Bethany, Dahlia, and Bobbie). We had a hot dog roast up the canyon, a work project involving cow stalls for the guys, a lunch outing for pizza (a huge event when you factor in so many people and small children!), and lots of card games. Here are some great snapshots of:

1. Julie hangin' with Naomi (the latter wearing her awesome orange overalls)
2. Jared entertaining Bobbie during picture-taking; smiles for his girlfriends might be common, but I don't see them much, so I gotta keep this picture around!
3. Bobbie chowing on some watermelon. Dahlia is carefully monitoring Bobbie's intake and impatiently waiting for her turn to attack the watermelon rind.
4. Connie, Val, and Naomi in Monrovian Canyon
5. Grandma Schlueter entertaining Naomi

2006 Utah Trip - Part 2: Festivities

On Saturday (July 1), Bethany, Dahlia, and Bobbie joined us at Kenny and Echo's for some food, fun, and fireworks. Kenny cooked shredded BBQ beef with just the right amount of garlic, and the girls ate hot dogs (or in Bobbie's case, large handfuls of ketchup). We spent some time playing outside in the grass, which was a nice change from Tucson. (WHAT?? GRASS? And playing outside during the afternoon? It may only be 12 hours south, but it's a whole different world!)

Later that evening we pulled out the fireworks. Sadly enough, there were a bunch of duds in the package, but we got in a few fun ones and later on watched the professional fireworks from the Stadium of Fire.

On Tuesday morning, we watched a good portion of the Provo parade. Some were coerced into going, but we all ended up enjoying it. It was a bit more fun having a local (Echo) to give us details on the bands from the various high schools and other such info.