Mia's on the Move!

Holy moley, our baby is scooting across the floor! Last week when she officially turned seven months old she was getting up on her knees and rocking. Now she can do the army crawl from one end of the room to the other. What is happening??? I've been a little shocked at how quickly this is happening. I think I actually believed this baby was going to stay an infant forever. Wrong!

Last week I started a post about her acheivements at seven months but I never finished. So here we go...

Mia's two bottom teeth popped through about two weeks ago. This was a long time coming. She's been a fussy teether for a few months and I've been waiting and watching. She likes to stick her fingers in her mouth and chew on them. I think she likes the feel of her little chompers.

Mia went from rice cereal to pretty much everything else overnight. She loves to eat solid foods and we discovered that she can sit in the high chair (which we finally let Gavin out of just a few months ago). She will sit and play with a toy or try to pick up bits of a cracker or some peas. That's another major development: she can grab at objects (including my beautiful new sterling silver starfish earrings, now broken) and she can pick things up. It's funny to watch her. Occasionally she will raise one of her hands in front of her face and slowly open and close her fingers. It's like she's fascinated by what a fine tool she has right there at the end of her arm.

She is also very, very interested in the goings on in her world. Changing her diaper and nursing her are not nearly as easy as they once were. She's constantly trying to turn over or craning her neck to see something fascinating. Sometimes I find her doing the snowplow (butt in the air, pushing off with her feet) when it's time to go to sleep. It's as if she's learned this amazing new skill and she must practice it nonstop!

Sometimes I find myself thinking back over the last seven months and asking myself if I'd turn back time and make her a newborn again. Strangely, I don't think I would. She was precious then but I love seeing her learn all of these amazing new things. Most of all, I love the way that she lights up and kicks her chubby legs when our eyes meet. After all, that's what's really happened over the past seven months. We've become a part of each other. And I wouldn't trade that for anything...

Proof that I'm Going Crazy

I can't believe summer is half over. We've been staying busy and it seems that I'm running from one thing to the next all day long. The biggest splurge of the summer has been my hiring a babysitter to come over at 8:00 every morning so I can go walking. Dan has been working a lot of hours at his new job and so my morning walk (a la solitude) has turned out to be very beneficial to my health.

And I'm not just talking about my physical health.

I did something the other day that provides tangible proof of my fragile mental state. After a few days of grungy hair I decided I simply MUST give it some attention. I got in the shower and talked Jolie into getting in there with me as her hair needed some attention, too. (Too much Cherry Hill isn't always a good thing). I also ended up bringing Mia into the shower with me as I was running late for something and figured that would save me a few minutes of bathing her downstairs in the kitchen. Long story short, after bathing three people, I got out of the shower and started to blow dry my hair. Something just wasn't right. My hair wasn't cooperating. Despite my efforts it wasn't drying at the roots. After wasting a precious 15 minutes with the hair dryer and my round brush I decided I must not have rinsed the conditioner out of my hair.

I ended up dunking my head under the bathtub faucet and starting over. Except by then I was out of time so I ended up going out of the house looking like a hag anyway.

Oh, and something else. What's with the women at the water park who come perfectly coiffed and made up? Makeup, earrings, hairspray, the works. What's with that? It makes the rest of us feel like hags regardless of what our morning routine has been like.

In Honor of Pioneer Day

Yesterday we spent the day at This is the Place State Park. We learned a lot about the lives of the pioneers who settled the Salt Lake valley. The kids made corn husk dolls, rode in a covered wagon, and one of our favorite areas of the park was the schoolhouse. The school mistress told us all about how misbehaving pioneer children were disciplined.

But then again, if you were schooled in Texas like my sisters and I (fortunately it was only for one miserable year) you'd be familiar with public humiliation and the paddle.

The 4th

We went to a breakfast and carnival on the morning of the 4th and watched fireworks from Grandpa and Grandma's deck in the evening. My kids seemed to be the only ones who were up for the dunking booth at 9 a.m. Tristan was the first taker and it didn't take much to talk Jolie into it. He tried to force Gavin into the chair but Grandma and I rescued him.