Food, fabulous, food!

Morning play.

For nearly 2 months, I've been trying to get Hannah to actually eat a meal of actual food. For about 3 weeks, the longest nap she's taken has been an hour, and that's on a really good day. By the middle of last week, I was desperate for one of the two issues to resolve itself and was having major mommy guilt over feeling like all I do is complain about my daughter.

Empty dishes. Woo hoo!

Sure enough, the next day baby girl ate enough food to be considered a meal for a small person such as her self!! We're still working on finding the magic timing to get this to be a regular occurrence, but it's definitely improving. My dreams of an open-minded eater who will try anything are fading, but who needs to eat anything besides yogurt and sweet potatoes? My feelings are hurt by the fact that she seems to prefer the organic jarred stuff to my home made, but at least she's eating something!

To top things off, Hannah napped for nearly an hour and a half this afternoon. That means Andy and I got to eat lunch and sneak in a cat nap on the couch - golden.

Our fun recent baby/kid purchase is a bike trailer. Andy's knees really don't allow him to run much, so this means we can finally get out as a family for our weekend exercise. Hannah seems to enjoy the ride and even smiles at Momma riding alongside. In personal exercise news, I'm a bit disappointed that I won't have lost all of the baby weight in 9 months, but I have worked back up to running my 9-mile loop around the lake on the weekend. It takes a lot longer with diaper and bottle breaks, but it is fun to have a buddy along. My goal is to be ready for the Half Marathon in November, and it's going to feel great to run it without the stroller!

We're off to Denver this weekend to visit Andy's sister, Claire. Nothing like a hike in the Rockies to get Autumn off to a good start!

Favorite way to be - standing up! She's getting quite adept at manipulating our hands to a position that allows her to pull up. Key word, manipulate!
Daddy's little girl.

A tale of 2 babies

It's been a week of contrasts at the LeCuyer home this week. Hannah's had an allergy/teething runny nose for a while now. I think the photos speak for themselves.

Luckily, she was in a good enough mood to play with her papa and knock over the fun block towers he made. She's also been giving "kisses" lately. Okay, she's learned to put her drooly open mouth on your cheek, nose, chin, whatever, and maybe even chew on you a little if you're lucky. She was holding out, but finally kissed her daddy this weekend! She also seems to be starting to connecting the syllable ma with her loving mama. As often as not, there's a few too many "ma's" to make it a real word, but she's good at rattling them off when she wants something!

Hannah would like to take advantage of Mama's blog to do a little teaching. When you spend your nap time doing this...

You spend your play time doing this!

Speaking of teaching, I'm starting the first session of the Hannah and Friends Baby Music Class next month. I'm excited to try something new, but also nervous about adapting my elementary skills to this format. Wish me luck!

Water baby

Hannah and I are starting swim classes tomorrow, but she got some practice in hanging out at her running buddy Lukas' pool yesterday. (Lukas' mom, Cynthia, and I keep hoping that the babies will do the running, but it hasn't worked out that way yet.) She loved chilling in the baby-lounger, until she figured out how to lap up and drink the pool water! Apparently other babies do this, too. The kid can't drink out of cup, but she has no problem with a pool! Our other recent development is Hannah's ability to sit and stand up in her crib! Yippee... The day she figured it out, she took one 30 minute nap. No crawling yet, but she's definitely making all of the moves that show it won't be long.
I haven't managed to catch it on film yet, but our little angel is showing herself to be quite the drama queen. She giggles more often now, but she's also prone to sudden crying episodes over things like mom blowing her nose or someone laughing when she's tired (or apparently when she doesn't think it's funny anymore.) I think she's hurt some folks' feelings! The problem is, she starts with the most pitiful pout and quickly disintegrates into full sobs, which I usually find to be hilarious. I'm no help at all.

Then and now

10 days old - sleeping all the time, except at night!

We have no photos of her asleep at night - probably because we went straight to sleep ourselves any time it happened. Picture this... a baby swaddled as tightly as possible, wearing a hat, strapped into a vibrating bouncy seat. This is where she spent most of her nights.

1 month - slept in her crib for the first time. (For a nap.

Night time still required repeated swaddling, which she was by then learning to get out of.)

2 months - one of the lucky times her thumb found her mouth.

She's so tiny in the bouncy seat!

Jump to 7 months - this is one of her most common sleeping positions.

I think she'll crawl in her sleep first.

6 months and a much bigger fit in the seat. She likes to sit up and mouth the bar!

This was last week. Baby wants to stand!

And this was her morning nap today.

No more tiny baby lying swaddled in the middle of the huge crib!

Our Hannah Bear has gone from a helpless newborn who would rather sleep than eat, cried when you layed her down, and could spend hours making friends with the living room lamp post to a big baby who loves her formula, wants to stand all the time, has been known to melt down because someone sniffed at the wrong time, and continues to melt hearts with her not-so-toothless smile wherever she goes!

Livin' la vida LeCuyer

We spent last week at a house on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in New York with the LeCuyer clan. Cold and rainy weather kept us inside relaxing for the first few days (after a quick trip to the mall for some warmer clothes), but we were able to enjoy the lake by the end of the week. We also enjoyed walking the grounds of the Chautauqua Institution, which looks like a really cool place for a future trip. Also afforded Andy a chance to see me get down right giddy over seeing 5 Steinway boxes stacked back stage for a concert. We didn't even go to the concert, I just got excited about the boxes! (Google The 5 Browns to find out why so many Steinways.)

The best part of the vacation, by far, was the family time. Hannah was appropriately spoiled by all of the loving arms to hold her, and I took full advantage of some much-needed mommy breaks. She also go to spend time playing with her 1-year-old cousin, Juliet. Juliet finds something irresitably smackable about Hannah's head, but Hannah feels the same way about Juliet's thick, pullable hair, so it's all good. 3 1/2-year-old cousin Elliot was much more interested Grandma's laptop and the tire swing than any boring babies. Andy and I made good use of the kayak, and I also got in some quality time in on the swing. By Friday, it was hot enough to motivate us all to brave the extreme lake weeds and get in the water.

There are many, many extraordinary photos from the trip - on Karen's camera. I'll post some when I get them! In the mean time, I'll post some random shots from the last couple of weeks.

New found joy - the neighborhood park swings!

I can't quite catch the full smile. Camera delay - ugh!

If only we'd let her ride like this...

Hannah's review of dinner.

Another new joy. Plus mom got to enjoy adult

conversation at a McKinsey Moms event.

Not so glorious food

The kid likes her formula! And apparently nothing else. We've been trying various cereals and veggies, but she still does the tongue-thrust "get this yucky stuff out of my mouth" trick. I was determined to hold off on the sweet stuff, but I think sweet potatoes or bananas will be our next attempt. I've been enjoying putting the new mini-prep food processor (thank you, Karen!) to use and taking photos of the results.Hannah's getting more physical and is really working on pulling up to standing. She even tried to use my pants legs to pull up on this morning! They're drawstring pants, so I'm glad she hasn't really figured it out yet, but you can see where this is headed.

A new way to play with the bouncy seat.

The tooth continues to move up - very slowly, but I suppose that's normal. I've been trying new ideas for games that are supposed to be fun for babies at this age. Stack some small boxes and knock them down, fill a water bottle with soapy water and food dye and make pretty suds, play with cups in the tub. All games quickly turn into "put the new found object in your mouth and get mad when Mom tries to get you to 'play' with it". So for now it's fun to give her something new and watch her explore it. It's really amazing how well she can control those little hands that used to randomly whack her in the face when she was trying to sleep!

Naps are a beautiful thing.

It's been a week of new experiences in the LeCuyer house. We started with a new state last weekend. We went to Indiana to see one of Andy's college friends get married. There were several events over the weekend and it was all in the charming town of New Harmony. An interesting mix of small-town folks and a new age, religious, artist-colony vibe. We tried the "buy diapers when you get there" approach and had to decide between the 3 packages in town - one way too small and the others too big. And yes, cheap diapers behave like cheap diapers. Gave us an excuse for a lovley drive through the countryside to a bigger town!

Victorian carriage meets the BOB at an antique shop in New Harmony.

On to Hannah's other firsts - her first truly cranky reaction to shots. We had her 6 month appointment on Thursday. She's growing like a champ. More out (nearly 18 pounds!) than up at the moment, but it's all good. She's been fine after shots in the past, but she was up 3 times that night clearly uncomfortable and feeling sorry for herself.

That brings us to the big first - she's cutting her first tooth! After the cranky night and some Tylenol (when my half-asleep brain finally figured out that she had a bit of a fever), I discovered a little something cutting out of her bottom gums. Curiously enough, it's not coming up through the little slits that have been there for a couple of months. Who knew?

Baby plays air guitar!