Been a long time

Wow, I'm a slacker... okay just busy...

Thanksgiving brought in ALT's family from her mother's side. Her two aunts and uncle showed up and we all had Thanksgiving at the great Aunt's house. Everyone slept as long as they could and we went hiking and such. It was a pretty fun time for all.

ALT's body changed that weekend.... suddenly a different kind of smell emerged from her butt, one that could clear a room. We also discovered from her Brazilian Aunt the word "bunda". I believe it was pronounced boon-da. Which is what we use now whenever that event occurs now.

There are quite a few pictures from those days up in the galleries. My favorite are the two with the white dress which shows both sides of ALT. The angel and devil.

Christmas came and went. ALT doesn't know what a present is, but she sure was excited about it. Tasting of the paper was necessary every time. We spent the day at my brother's house and we got to see my nephew teach ALT who Thomas the Engine was. Very cute!

People ask about what words she might say. ALT says Mama, Dada, hey, and we think dude. That last one was once and I'm not sure we heard it right. Dada appears to be her favorite word... or perhaps sound, but since I'm the one writing this, it's Dada. All I know is that she could be crying up a storm as soon as dada put her on his shoulders, a huge grin and a scream of glee come roaring from her face.

I have a feeling that ALT is going to be stubborn. She gets that from her mother. Whenever we hold her up, she will pull your hands away from her body so that she can just hold you and try and stand on her own. Yes, ALT is only 6mo old and she's standing up. She's been doing it since she was a few weeks old and is determined to skip that whole crawling thing. The other day she pulled her self up on her play mat and stood there without anyone's help. Mom helped her get part way there, but once there she was wobbling there all on her own. The other day she tried to walk and fell and got very pissed that she fell. She wants to walk very badly and is upset that she can't. "Experts" say that babies will attempt to walk if you hold them up at an early age as their feet touch the ground. It's an ability that babies have in the womb due to the kicking there... it's supposed to just be an conscience reaction... and they tend to forget it as they lay on the floor. However we have been encouraging the mock walk since she was able to almost stand and therefore has never "forgotten" how to mock walk and will attempt to do so at every opportunity.

A point of contention around the house is if your child can skip crawling and go straight for walking. My mother says that ALT will be retarded if she doesn't crawl first. I'm not so sure about her being retarded, but I can see where crawling would be important. We have been working on both... crawling is not something ALT is interested in doing however and will protest every time you put her on her tummy.

Speaking of things early. We have already started potty training. We have successfully prevented at least 12 diapers or more from being sent to the landfill by putting ALT on the baby toilet. Yes, six months and she's "pee pees and sometimes poo poos on the potty". The woman at Target asked ALT's mom if she was for hire when she saw how young ALT was and the potty we were buying. Now to be fair, she doesn't have the bladder control yet to even tell us when she needs to go, however we are making sure she knows what it's for and not to be afraid of it. It's the cutest thing ever to watch her sit there on her own on her potty and get the biggest grin when she does go.

The rock star effect is alive and well. IHOP was all aglow with her as everyone in the restaurant was staring and coming over to talk to her. Her mother said the same thing happened when the Great Aunt took her and ALT to the Olive Garden and all of the wait staff kept coming round to see her. Costco the other day was the same way with everyone we passed looking and commenting at how cute and adorable she is.

There is a face she makes that we have dubbed the "seat belt face". Most of the time when you try and put her in her car seat she gets this face like she's crumpling up her face worse than Don Rickles without his teeth. It's funny, but not as funny when combined with the back arch and the crying... For some reason she hates to be confined and is not afraid to let us know that. Getting her strapped in to go somewhere can sometimes be a chore.

We are not entirely sure why, but "take me out to the ball game" is the most soothing song we know. It started with an Irish drinking song on NPR. ALT's mom would sing it and she would quiet down. The only problem is she only knew the chorus, which was tedious and down right getting old. When Grandpa heard the song he thought the tune was close to "Take me out to the ball game". So we tried it and sure enough, worked just as well. Whenever she's fussy in the car or elsewhere, we start to sing it and she quiets right down. When trying to put her to sleep we have found other traditional songs such as "Row Row Row you boat" and "ABC" or "Twinkle Twinkle little star" (Same tune) also seem to work. However "Take me out to the ball game" always works. Perhaps she'll like baseball, or perhaps fall asleep whenever baseball is on and never fully understand why.

"Solids" have been introduced in the last couple of days. ALT has tasted a few things starting around Thanksgiving. She has had a taste of vanilla ice cream (not my choice, I would like to not give her a sweet tooth), sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, oatmeal, fruit smoothies and apples. It's interesting to note that she has been watching us for some time now and will not take food from your finger right away. Nope, see above about stubborn, she has to take it from either a fork or spoon. She likes sweet potatoes the most. That is until last night. We got organic apples and cooked them down into apple sauce. She liked that. Last night we combined that with some grinded up steel cut oatmeal and she was trying to make a nose dive into the bowl. She simply could not get enough of that. I fear that mom's plan to breast feed for many years will be thwarted by ALT's desire to grow up fast.

Clothes for babies are like women's clothing. If they understood what was going on, they would be crushed. I don't pretend to know everything about fashion and women's clothing, but I have observed a few things. First of all, some designers are just down right cruel. A size 8 at one store is a size 14 at another and a size 6 at yet another... it's like they enjoy just making women sick of their own bodies. I don't understand why they don't do it like men's clothing where a size 32 is a size 32 because it's measured in inches. I'm guessing that the clothing industry assumes the shock from going from size 8 to size 28 or whatever would be too much to handle. However subtly telling women that you can't shop at this store because we think your fat is okay. (Sorry rant over). Anyway, back to the topic at hand. ALT is wearing size 12 months already and quickly growing out of it. Newborn stuff was too small to begin with, especially shoes and socks. Heaven forbid you have a child who is not the right proportion either. If she has long legs and needs a 12 month, but is too small up top and needs a 6-9 months because half the time they bundle the clothes together so you can't purchase them separate.... it's all a racket... but thank God for sale racks... Grandma got a deal at $.97 for an outfit. At those prices I'm okay with buying two and donating one away after matching the bits.

That's it for now... hopefully that brought you up to speed a little bit. Please come over and visit, we welcome visitors to come and spread some outside germs :) One cold so far, so I know at least something is getting in :)