Nora's Five Months Old, and It's Our Third Anniversary

I had Nora try on her dress for Jeremy and Marlene's wedding today. I didn't put the shoes on her, but I'm pretty confident that they'll fit. I just wanted to see what she's going to look like in this thing, and I thought that this would be a good day for it since she's exactly five months old today.

Can you see the teeth?

She's totally about to fall asleep here.




I turned to look at her at one point yesterday (while I was working), and this is what I saw.


It's hard to believe that my little baby is five months old already.

It's also hard to believe that exactly three years ago, I had probably the worst morning of my life. It's a good thing that things started looking up at about 2:30 that day, or I might have called it quits! (For those on the home team, that's what time I walked down the aisle.)

We look like youngsters there, don't we?


I think this one is my favorite, though.

*sigh* Life is good.

No More Rolling

By the way, I forgot to post about this, but I know awhile back I had mentioned that Nora is consistently rolling over. She totally isn't anymore. She was doing it every day for a good stretch (especially when I let her be naked in her play gym), but one day, she just stopped doing it. It was actually right around when that tooth started popping out, so I wonder if that's causing it. She just lays there on her belly, sucking her thumb, chewing on her hand, crying for me to roll her back over, or she falls asleep on her belly. It's kind-of making me sad. She seems to be physically capable of rolling over, but she just choses not to right now, I guess. Everywhere else, she's doing wonderfully!

She loves her rice cereal. When the power went out Sunday, I gave her some cold rice cereal, and she loved it! I was really surprised since that's all she's ever had besides warm breast milk (and there's breast milk in the rice cereal).

She sits there and opens her mouth when she sees the bowl and spoon. It's so stinkin' cute, man. I can't stand it.

Spoiled

This past Sunday, our power went out during a thunderstorm. It stayed out for over three hours. Normally, this wouldn't be such a big deal, but since we, you know, grew up with all things electronic, it about drove us nuts! It got all hot and humid in the house, too. I was all freaked out that the food in our fridge was going to go bad. I kept calm and collected by taking a baby girl onto the front porch with me after the storm ended (yeah. It only lasted about a half hour or -like- 45 minutes). It was kind-of cool to sit out there: all the neighbors were out on their porches enjoying the day regardless of their lack of electricity. It was literally cool for a little while, and then the sun came out and made it practically unbearable inside and out.

Yesterday, I noticed Nora's second tooth is about to poke through. The first one is well on its way to being a normal tooth in her typically gummy smile. Last night, she was fairly difficult to get down for sleep. She kept waking and crying, and I kept running to her and holding her to calm her. (I typically nurse her to sleep in the evenings, but that doesn't always get her to sleep. Sometimes, I bounce on the ball with her until she falls asleep, too. Even then, sometimes she's still awake when I lay her down, but then, she's usually ready to go to sleep.) Finally, I got her relaxed enough, and she waved at me and went to sleep. I don't know if she knows how to wave for real or not, but the past few nights, she's been doing it when I put her down. It's hilarious. I think it was Saturday night that she did it the first time. She was all cranky from teething again, so I went to her and stroked her hair, legs, arms, and belly very softly. She loved it. She got all relaxed, and when I stopped, she waved at me, turned her head, sucked her thumb, and went to sleep.

I think it was also Saturday night that we turned on the video baby monitor to discover a baby that wasn't ours. That was pretty creepy. After thinking about it long and hard, we determined it had to be the neighbors catty cornered to us: their daughter was home with her baby, and we assume she must have a video monitor just like ours. It was pretty wild. I'd always heard of people hearing other people and their babies on their monitors, but I've never heard of peopleseeing another baby in their monitor. What are the odds?

We're going to have a serious mosquito problem after all this rain. I hope the city plans to spray or something. If not, I seriously need to look into treating our yard. I'm already covered in bites. I've rarely been outside.

Nora turns five months tomorrow. I can't believe how fast time is moving now that she's here. These are the last round of photos of her before she turns five months.








Nora has been loving her daddy lately, so Willis has been pretty jealous. HA HA HA! Man. I thought of that one yesterday, and it's still funny today.

But, seriously. This kid adores her dad.

Her dad, on the other hand, does not adore being photographed, and you can tell in these photos. I think in one of the photos he's actually saying the word "hate" in reference to my photographing. Muahahahaha. Too bad, my lovah. Maybe you should work on being not cute when you're holding our baby. Good luck, though.

I might try to get outside today for real. I'm thinking that it'd be a great day for the dog park. I just hope there isn't mud everywhere. I have to get some work done first.

Speaking of that, gotta go!

She's Cute!

This little girl is just five days shy of five months of age. Isn't that a wild thought?

I thought that I was going to have to drag her, the dog, and the cat down to the basement today while we were eating lunch. There were tornado sirens, and there was some serious storming happening. Luckily, it's all cleared up for now. Hopefully, Willi's drive home will be nice and easy.

I had some aspirations of getting outdoors for some fun today. The only time I made it out there was to let out the dog (twice) and to pick up a patio chair of ours that was practically in our neighbor's yard. So, it wasn't quite "outdoorsy" weather out there.

Little Nora was a tad cranky during the first part of the day, but once she took a hefty nap from about 11 a.m. until nearly 2 p.m., she's been a lot happier. She even took a quick snooze on her play gym a little bit ago while I was doing a quick vacuum pass upstairs. It amazes me that she can fall asleep during something as loud as that vacuum cleaner.

My best friend growing up, Lena, emailed photos of her pinky x-rays today. Over a month ago (I think she said it was May 6th), she lost the end of her pinky finger to some tar paper (I know!) while she and her husband were roofing their house. In fact, she lost the whole top joint and up. Bah. When she told me about it I was grabbing my pinky and climbing up on my chair. It sounded horrendous: and the actual incident wasn't the end of it. She had all kinds of emergency room, surgery, and follow up surgery stories that were just as gruesome (if not more gruesome than the actual event of losing it).

I know she's really bummed out about it. I would be. The girl has literally lost a part of herself. I tried to cheer her up by telling her that soon we'll be laughing and joking about it. I said, "For example, instead of me calling you "Beaner," I could call you "Niner."

I've also asked her if she's tried getting a 10% discount on manicures yet.

Poor girl. I'm so sorry, Bean. You're still a pretty girl even though a tiny percentage of you is now gone.

In other news, I don't think we're gonna finish the patio this weekend. We're going to take the weekend off from all patio adventures. Next weekend, we should be finishing up that job. We're ready for the "relaxing on the patio" part.

Nora is talking, cooing, and giggling at me right now. I should go squeeze her. Dilly out!

Photos of the Beeb

Here are some recent photos of my beeb. She's huge now.

I made Willis take a picture of me carrying her in that sling like that because I'm pretty sure she's going to be too big for that sort of thing soon. I just love that position. She's a ball with a head. I love it!

That's Beth up there holding Nora in a couple of the pics.

Yes: there are some nudie shots up there, but I assure you that they are rated G.

Lena got her the cute pink-flowered tank top and diaper cover outfit. So cute.

The photos of her sucking her thumb with a "nigh-night" are from her morning nap today.

She's gotten better at the spoon feeding, by the way. She actually opens her mouth in anticipation of the rice cereal. It's pretty cute. After each bite, she likes to take a little thumb-sucking break.

I must get some work done! Catch you kids later.

We Have a Tooth

Today, Beth came to visit and meet Nora for the first time. (Willi is gone this evening on an overnight business trip, so it was a girls' night!) We decided to try out Nora's "movie legs" to see how she'd do at a movie theater during a matinée. I had a hankering to see Sex and the City, and I knew Beth would want to see it (Willis would not have anything to do with it, of course). After a creepy guy asked me for gas money in the parking lot in Michigan City (and I gave him two bucks because I was afraid of what he might do if I gave him nothing. The guy totally targeted me and followed me to my parking spot. It was weird), we went for it.

Nora did amazingly well. I had to get up with her a few times and run off to the hallway (that's a little more sound-proofed in the theater we were in) because she was shrieking with joy occasionally throughout the movie. It was pretty funny. A few times she shrieked at the perfect time: when there was a loud moment. I thought she might sleep during the movie, but she never did. I think it was way too loud in there for that.

At one point, I stuck my finger in her mouth to give her something to munch on (and to silence her somewhat), and the little rat bit me! It hurt! I think she actually broke my skin! After I felt around her gums a little more, I discovered that she was totally cutting teeth! I felt at least one on the bottom, and I'm still not sure about the top. I couldn't believe it!

So, on the way back home, I stopped by Walgreens to pick up some teething tablets. I don't know that she'll really need them (since she's been such an angel even though she's got sharp little objects poking through her gums), but I wanted to have them just in case.

I've got some photos I need to upload, but I'm already up past my bedtime as it is. You'll just have to see those later. Besides, it's good to have a break from the photos now and then, no?

In other news, I've begun a cleaning routine in my house so that I don't go crazy OCD in one day and kill myself cleaning the house in one sitting. I've actually made a calendar where I put in a cleaning job per day, and I just make it a point to get that one job done that day. So far, it's done a lot for my sanity and my house.

The patio still isn't done. We're hoping to finish it this weekend. I think it's going to be really sweet when we're done. In the meantime, we've gotten some awesome things accomplished with the yard. I've filled in dog holes with sod from the patio, we've reseeded lots of the yard areas, we've planted flowers in the flower gardens, and we've planted tomatoes. We've even busted out the solar lights and put them in decent places (where people can't run over them) this time. This place is really lookin' sweet. I'm already looking forward to redoing the upstairs bathroom in the fall.

I need to get to bed. I still have to put sheets on the bed (bah!) because Hobbes got them all nasty this morning. He knows he's not allowed on the bed, but he somehow still manages to hop up there and make a mess of it (by using our bed as toilet paper or some weird crap like that) when I'm not looking. He's such a punk. I generally keep a gross sheet available to toss over the bed so that if he does hop up there (being the defiant little brat that he is sometimes), he'll just get the gross sheet all nasty instead of our clean blankets and sheets. I apparently should have it on at all times: not just when I plan to leave the house for awhile (we keep him in our room now when we leave for short periods of time).

For realsies. Bed time