Play Time

This picture was taken about 3 weeks ago. This picture is history. Avi is crawling and scaling and cruising now- all within the last 3 weeks! She is amazing, and tiring. Mom can't sit on her butt all day now and eat bon bons - she's got to get up every 5 seconds to stop Avi from putting something into her mouth or from climbing over the dog or from crawling outside and eating dirt. Ahhh, life's tough!

Bucket of fun!

Avi really likes dogs. Whenever she she's one, she turns to face it front on, her body goes tight with anticipation, and she grunts until she can touch it. Keeta is her little companion, but I don't know how excited Keeta is about this designation. She tolerates Avi and sometimes even gets excited about little Avi.

I love how her arm is wrapped over Keeta, here.

Avi is soooo excited!

How's this pose?

Keeta is like, Get me out of here!

Waking up with Avi.

So waking up with a baby cooing and talking is just about the sweetest thing in the world. Avi will "talk" it up in the morning. She has so much to say! Boy, am I going to miss her sweet little incoherent ramblings when she begins to actually be able to accentuate and articulate "real" words! Avi's "language" has developed like this over the last few months. She began saying real sounds (as opposed to cooing and grunting) around 6 months or so. Her first words were "di" and "da". She said these pretty much non-stop whenever she was doing something, like playing with a toy or looking at something. She was explaining the whole world with these two mono-syllabic sounds. The next sound was "ta", followed by "ka" about a week later, and finally (drum roll...) "ma" (which Mommy is still very excited about).

Today, Avi shocked us in several new ways: First, she is really moving towards crawling, she had her palms and knees on the ground underneath her today and moved one knee forward while keeping the other stationary. Next, two new teeth were discovered (by Great-Grammy Louise) on the top of her mouth - this will be her third and fourth teeth. Finally, and the most endearingly, she waved good-bye to her daddy! It was the most precious thing in the world: she held her arm straight up and then closed and opened her fingers over her fist to "wave". She did it several times and I died inside each time. She is really communicating now - which means she is really growing up - which means she will move out someday - which means I will die from missing her... Oh, this parenting thing is much more difficult then they ever say.

Is she not the prettiest girl in the whole wide world!?!

She's changed so much already!

I finally got around to editing and posting some pictures that a photographer friend of mine, Rachel Neumann, took in September when Avi was only 3 months old. Hasn't she changed so much already?!

She won't lay still like this on the changing table anymore!

Look: we have not found her neck yet at this time!

Mommy Maren modeling the Ergo Baby!

story time

Avi is really, really into books right now. She will concentrate on them for an amazing length of time for a nine-month-old. She will look at the pages as if they were moving artwork unfolding a new world before her, even though they are just colorful cardboard two-dimension drawings. Her imagination is working, you can just see it in her sparkling eyes. She even turns the pages herself, and she knows they go from right to left - isn't that amazing?!

Daddy is a great story teller. Avi is intent on the story.

Even though the books are interesting to look at, Daddy's moving lips are just as intriguing.

And it's always nice to have a foot to go along with a good story.

rubbery ducky, you're the one...

You know you're a mom when...

...having time to sweep the floor seems like a luxury.

... you take an extra 5 seconds when opening the hot dishwasher to let the steam soak into your pores and call it a facial.

...you wonder (seriously wonder) if you'll fall asleep when walking.

...you dream of taking mini-vacations to the grocery store alone.

...you sigh relief when you've put conditioner in you hair because that means you've almost made it through your shower without being disrupted.

...you don't even bother going clothes shopping because you know the only thing you wear that people look at anymore is a baby.

...your boobs are always lopsided because one is more full with milk than the other.

... 5 straight hours of sleep seems like an impossible dream.

...you actually love all this craziness and want another... someday!

Avi's Blue Bow

Sometimes it's the little things that inspire a photo shoot. This time, it was Avi's cute little bow. She's got just enough hair to hold a little clip bow in, and mommy's capitalized on this small (very small) opportunity.

Here's one of Avi's new tricks: shaking her little wings at her side as if she's going to take off an fly away.

Playing with toys now takes on a new dimension as she often lifts them up and then throws them down. Here she is in action.

Still putting everything, and I mean everything, in her mouth.

Is this the cutest smile ever?!