Crawling baby

By popular demand, video of the baby crawling! She doesn't crawl far, but it's plenty enough to get her into trouble.


I took a day of vacation today. I dropped the baby off at daycare, slept a little longer then took Isaac to the vet. He decided to refuse food today (!!) and the vet thought he should be examined. He had a fever, so they were worried about him and kept him most of the afternoon, poor kitty. When I came to get him they said he was the sweetest cat and threatened to keep him. When they told me how much all the x-rays and testing would cost I almost let them. We still don't know what's wrong but I've got antibiotics and orders to watch the litterbox. Fun. Poor kitty. He really does seem off.

There's supposed to be a crazy heatwave this weekend. I guess it's time to figure out how to get out of town.

Launch position

My baby has started crawling! It's not quite a full crawl but is
better than comando crawling. She gets one elbow, and the knee and toe
of the other leg. She digs these in and then repeats on the same side.
It's a funny little gait but it dies move her right along!

Safe car for baby

Yeah..... That's what it is......

Henry Coe

We had an experimental weekend around here. We want to get into backpacking with the baby, so as an introduction we did some car camping at Henry Coe SP. We loaded up the car, went to the park, and first went for a good long hike. Chris carried Geneva in the backpack and she seemed to love it.

She even managed to nap in the backpack, which was quite impressive.

Here's a view from the hike:

In spite of the fact that this park is usually an inferno this time of year, the weather was really quite cool. It was super windy and we had to build a wind shelter to stay warm. I put all the clothes on Geneva that I had brought for her and still she was shivering until we took her in the tent. Then I guess I should have removed some of the clothes because around 11 in the evening she woke up and screamed her head off until we took off her sweater and rocked her for awhile. This was the only bad part of the camping really - the campground was completely silent except for our daughter screaming like crazy. And it took us a long time to try taking off some clothes too, because it had been so cold it just didn't occur to us. Our friends who were camping with us claimed they hardly heard a thing but I only believe the one who was wearing ear plugs. Anyway, for some reason we couldn't get her to sleep on the blanket we had brought for her, so here's how she slept:

In case you're not sure what's going on here, that's her in her carseat in the tent. You can see Chris laying down beside her on the left there. So, we're a ways from being ready for backpacking. In all it was a nice little getaway though. You can see all the photos in the album if you want more.

Backpacking baby

Headlines

• Everyone at daycare calls Geneva "Smiley Girl." How cute is that?
  
• When I was touring daycares to pick one for Geneva, it occurred to me that there were many unfortunate similarities between a nursing home and the infant daycare and I felt similarly depressed by the feel. One of the reasons I like G's daycare is that the infant room is really near all the other rooms with the screaming kids. Initially I thought this would disturb the peace of the infant room, but now I think that's a good thing. The teachers from other rooms are in and out all the time, and some of the kids are too. It gives the whole place a peppier feel.
  
• Last Sunday we took G on her first long bike ride. We towed her in a bike trailer behind us. Where by we, I mean I. She was attached to my bike. We got a lot of great looks with this crazy recumbent towing a trailer. We had only meant to bike to a trailhead and then walk around from there, but she was sound asleep when we got there so we just kept going. We ended up biking all the way up to Shoreline - probably at least 7 miles each way. It was fun to have an experience where we were doing the things we normally do, but the baby was included. It just makes me so much more excited about motherhood to be able to share things I like with the baby.
  
• Last weekend I planted cucumbers, cilantro, and cantaloupe. I have this scheme (that I actually literally dreamed up) for the cantaloupe. I don't have enough room in my planter box so I'm going to train it over the edge of the box and onto the concrete. I'll keep you posted on how that works out.
  

Me and my girl

Pink helicopter

Still happy on the swings

Arrrr

I had a bunch of prints made of Geneva, including this one:

It's out of focus but it makes me think of this Story People story:

There was a single blue line of crayon drawn across every wall in the house. What does it mean? I said. A pirate needs the sight of the sea, he said & then he pulled his eye patch down & turned and sailed away.

This past week was a little more exciting than usual. Geneva had her first illness last week - a fever followed by a rash. The doctors were unconcerned - apparently it was Roseola. On Tuesday I got a fever and was feeling like total crap - you'd think it would be the same thing but the internet swears that Roseola is so common that it's a statistical impossibility that I wouldn't have had it already and therefore be immune. Nevertheless, I was feverish and super tired and taking as much pain medicine as I possibly could. Fortunately the baby and I are both better now.

And now a question for my newly babied friends - We've been working on solid foods with Geneva and she just is not taking to them at all. We tried peas and she makes a terrible face and spits them out. I thought maybe it was just that they're kind of bitter, so we tried sweet potatoes today. She gagged and spit them out and kept on kind of gagging and retching any time she even saw them. So what's the deal? We've been trying to feed her food for 3 weeks now. Rice kind of barely goes down. Oatmeal sometimes gets a bite or two. She's just not liking any of it. Does some revolution happen at some point? Should I give up and try again in a couple of months? It's frustrating to sit her down to feed her every day and watch her gag and retch and spit. Any help out there in the world?

Lots more baby photos

I posted a whole huge album of photos, but here's some highlights.

Geneva with her buddy Sinjin:



Loving the swings:


Loving her Auntie:


My jungly garden, just before I ripped out the peas this weekend:


Lots of tomatoes on the way. Actually, I ate my first couple cherry tomatoes this past weekend: