babbling again and sitting pretty

After a months-long hiatus of babbling, Lydia's finally picking it back up again. She has the "m" sound down now, and "accidently" said mama the other day, and a few times since then. So yay, she said mama before dada. lol. Seriously, though... I'm not convinced yet that she knows it refers to me, so I don't know if I want to "count" it as her first word yet. Plus, sometimes she'll say "mama" and other times she'll say "mum mum mum mum mum," just making noise. And still other times she'll talk with an entirely different consonant than "m."

But in other news, she can now get to a sitting position, and stay there, without having to lean on one of her arms for support:

I'm so proud of my little girl. :) And I can't remember if I mentioned earlier, we got her a high chair finally so she can experiment with food. She thought that was loads of fun:




I'll have to remember to keep the clip in her hair next time to minimize the chances of her getting food in her hair. It was so funny to watch her eat, because every so often she'd "shudder" (like how you would shudder if you ate something slightly bitter), but then grab another bite right away.

Lastly, here is a dress/pinafore set that I sewed for her to wear to church. I think she likes it:

playing hide and seek with snacks

The other day, hubby gave Lydia a Puff to eat, but put a funnel over it before she could grab it. She swiped the funnel out of the way to get to the puff underneath, demonstrating her understanding of object permanence. Here's a little video of that. Pardon her ungracefulness, she usually doesn't fall down like that. :P

i know she's growing, but...

The picture shows one of her well-worn size 3-6 month pajamas, laying on top of her brand-new-with-tags size 6-9 month pajamas. She is currently just slightly too long for the 3-6 size, but looking at those loooooong 6-9 month ones, I just can't imagine how she can possibly fit into them. How will her feet be past the pajama's knees? Will her hands stick out of the sleeves at all? Interestingly, so far it only seems to be pajamas that she's outgrown. The rest of her clothes still fit fine. I think, anyway. I did finally get her some fall/winter clothes, and they are all 6-9 month size. I hope she grows into them by the time the weather cools down.

sweet moments

Already in Lydia's short life, there have been countless and immeasureable "sweet moments." To write about them all would take up way too much time, but here are a few of my favorite ones:

1. The way she sometimes sticks her tongue out in the middle of a smile:


2. How she wakes up in her crib before I go to get her, and "talks" softly to her blanket, crib bumper, fingers, etc.

3. How she's usually content to lay fairly still and play with what's around her, but at the same time how her belly-crawling can be so determined if she spies something across the room that she wants, even if it's as small as a Puff.

4. The way she gives her daddy a HUGE grin when she sees him in the morning, and when he comes home from work.

5. After her night nursings, how she'll lay so calmly on my chest, sucking her thumb and waiting for the burp.

6. How she'll fall asleep in my arms and be sucking her thumb every so often, and make the tiniest little movement with her head when she sucks it.

7. If she's being entertained all day, she doesn't mind missing a nap, but then will eventually get worn out and then peacefully fall right asleep anywhere:


8. How she'll be playing with toys that she's had forever, but will randomly find them so funny that she'll just squeal out a giggle.

9. The way she finds delight in simple things, like just touching my bun when she's riding on my back.

10. How much fun it is for me to "pet" her head to keep the hair out of her eyes (and how it goes right back in there moments later if I don't clip it out of the way).

Ten is a nice round number so I'll end there for now, adding more as she grows.

the birds, not quite hitchcock style

Yesterday Lydia and I went to the Fort Worth Zoo with our local playgroup. It was pretty nice as far as zoos go, but hot and humid, so we didn't stay more than a couple of hours. But, I had to mention my favorite part - the giant walk-in bird cage. Most of the birds in there were parakeets, with a few cockatiels thrown in, and some random ducks down in the moat below. In the "foyer" there was a little booth where you could buy popsicle sticks with some seeds stuck on them, or some cups of nectar. With these treats you could enties the birds to come to you. I found a stray stick on the ground that someone had dropped, and I held it out and birds flew to the stick and nibbled. Then other birds flew to the stick and tried to fight with the original bird for dominance of the stick and the food. And the birds were so pretty, some of the birds had a green that was so green it almost glowed, and then there were yellow, blue, and white ones too. I would say there were well over 100 birds in there.

I'm looking forward to Monday, when my dad and grandmother will be in town visiting. They've just seen Lydia less than 2 months ago, so I wonder if they'll notice a change in her in just that short time.

My sewing projects are moving right along, including all our costumes. Hubby's going to take the 27th off so he can come to the party with us and be the father to go with Lydia's and my mother/daughter pair. I'm also still sewing several of her dress/pinafore sets, although first thing this morning I had to rip out a seam. The directions weren't clear to me when I first sewed that particular seam, and I did it wrong. No biggie, though, now I know for next time. And I also figured out a slightly different way to do the elastic for next time, too, that should hopefully be both easier and a little more secure.

transcribing coming back

Yay, I finally got a hold of my old transcribing job and they reactivated me. :) There probably won't be any work for me until the middle of next month, but that's OK. I really need the time to finish up sewing projects and dye several diapers and get those on the web, and possibly make a few crocheted baby headbands, although I may wait until after my next paycheck in November or so to really do those.

Lydia's teeth finally popped through. She has two teensy white lines on her bottom gums now. I need to get a picture sometime. She's still not doing hands and knees crawling, but she does get up on her hands and knees and will even lift one of her arms, but then she puts it right back down where it was before. We got her a Superyard, to help keep her contained when I do transcribing. So far she seems to like it, although she'd rather me play with her than her be in there by herself. She likes it if I'm outside and I stick my face onto the "wall", then she'll come up and try to grab my nose or lips, or sometimes just try to mash her face up against mine.

The parenting class at church is going well. It's weird being in there w/ such a young baby, b/c a lot of the principles are applied better to children who actually need a little more guidance than a 9 month old, but I really like it just the same. The teacher told us some things on Wednesday that were scary, though, about how a child will try to manipulate his/her parents and possibly turn them against each other (like by going to Dad when Mom said no, and then Dad doesn't back Mom up and Mom and Dad then fight about it later). He also said that Moms are better at guiding girls b/c they were once girls and can think like a girl, and Dads are better at guiding boys for the same reasons. And that made sense to me. Hubby and I recently read a couple of books, "For Men Only" and "For Women Only", by Jeff and Shaunti Feldhahn, and it was really eye-opening for both of us.

wrong number

So every so often for the past couple of months or so, I've been having a strange number show up on my cell phone. It started with a "normal" area code, then the rest of the number was 000-4627 or something. I can't remember the last 4 digits, but the middle was definitely 000. I never did answer it and they never did leave a message. I really didn't know what to make of it because I thought it was someone who would somehow "steal" my phone information with that fake number, then start making calls that would get billed to my phone. I called my cell phone customer service to inquire about blocking this "strange" number, and they put me on hold while they tried to see a record of me receiving a call from that number, only to come back and tell me that they couldn't block calls. So I said to myself that I'd just keep on not answering those calls.

Then in the past week or so, the calls became more frequent, sometimes even happening 2 or 3 times in a row. Then finally today they leave me a message. Turns out it was the capital of Missouri. I had set up a home-based business account with them, then never did use it. I cancelled the business when hubby and I moved, and tried to give them an address of his new work to forward my cash bond refund to (since we wouldn't have our new address for a while). Turns out that it got sent back, and they'd been trying to call me and let me know. I of course called them right back and told them why I never answered the phone when they called... they thought it was funny. Anyway, the check should once again be in the mail. Now one of these days I need to set up an account for Texas.

halloween costume thoughts

I know, Halloween is still weeks away, but I started to think of costume ideas quite a while ago. Originally I was going to have Lydia be a troll doll (you remember the ones with the colored hair that stuck straight up and the jewel in their tummy?), but decided I didn't want to mess with it. I had thought that I had a sewing pattern for a one-piece footed sleeper, but I didn't. Then if she were a troll, I was going to be 1985 again, but this time with some loud earrings to go along with that shoulder-padded, overly-ruffled outfit. I no longer have that outfit and it probably wouldn't fit still anyway, so I would have had to go down to Goodwill and try to find a similar one.

So instead, Lydia and I are going to dress in coordinating costumes. What we'll be is a secret until I get the costumes made, but I think you'll like them. I will give you a hint, though... we are dressing up as a famous mother/daughter pair.

squinchy faces

I thought I'd share a few of her "squinchy" faces that she does fairly regularly now. She bunches up her eyes, nose, and mouth and then sniffs a little bit. It's hard to describe in words, so without further delay, here are a few pics:

Apart from the squinchy face, she's not really doing anything new. I'm still feeding her baby food when I remember... which hasn't been very often lately. She's still crawling on her belly (as opposed to hands and knees), and I guess she can still babble a little bit even though she hasn't even done that recently either. She's still waking up at night and still has no teeth.

In other news, hubby caught a little gecko the other day and decided that he wants to keep it as a pet. So I went out yesterday and got a little aquarium and a few accessories... and some live crickets. Yes, this new pet eats LIVE crickets. But, I'm not squeamish about it at all. My grandfather was a serious fisherman when he was alive, and used live worms and live crickets as bait. I put my own crickets on the fishhook long ago. Plus they're not very big at all, the biggest ones are probably only a half-inch long or so. But anyway. So far the little gecko likes to hide a lot. I actually found a whole message board devoted to geckos and according to them, I probably have a Mediterranean House Gecko, which will grow to a max of 6 inches.

One of the classes at church this quarter is a class on parenting. I've only gone to two classes so far (since the quarter just started), but so far I'm really enjoying it. I know that the material in it will be helpful as Lydia gets older and we add more children to our family.