More Chompers!

We've got (and when I say "we've got" I mean "Petra's got") more chompers! Her two upper incisors finally popped through today, after threatening for weeks. Of course, there was no indication of the teething in Petra's behavior- She's been a complete darling and not fussed one bit! I love this baby! Mommy and Daddy are looking forward to a 4 day weekend to spend with the muffin. We miss her so much during the week, and she changes so quickly! Along with the teeth, her tongue has reappeared this week. She used to stick it out all the time, then it went away for awhile (about the same time as she got her lower teeth- such a cute little grin she showed instead!), and now it is back, usually stuck out the corner of her mouth- very cute!

Crawling and Bobbing

My god she is cute and talented! Just click the picture to see her in action! She's crawling around like crazy, doing laps between Mommy and Daddy. She is standing up every chance she gets, and doesn't need anything more than a wall or a pillow to stand up with. And once she is up, she "forgets" to hold on, and just stands around. At Trader Joe's this weekend, she was given her first helium balloon, and she was THRILLED with it. She played with it all the way home, and then kept chasing it around the house. She especially liked pounding it into Daddy's face. Good baby!

Applause Please!

Another Milestone! As Daddy was bouncing Petra on his knee this morning "singing" to her (and I use "singing" in the loosest sense of the word), Petra started clapping her hands in time with the "music" (even more loosely used). I've been trying to teach her to clap for the last few days, and it looks like she's got the hang of it. Such a smart little girl!

A Hot One!

Whew, it was one toasty weekend! Records were broken in a few places on Friday, and Saturday wasn't much better. I spent the morning with Petram first videoconferencing with grandma Kate (I LOVE iChat), and then at SBC (the cafe not the telecom megalopoly) having iced coffee and letting Petra be adored by millions while Mommy got her hair done and cleaned out the library book sale. She joined me for lunch, and then we headed up to Valencia to visit baby Katie and her parents for a relaxing hang-out in the air conditioning (damn good thing they have it, it was 100 degrees!).

Petra had her first taste of ice cream on Sunday, we had Drumsticks, and Petra couldn't be denied (being lactose intolerant, I would have erred on the side of caution, but Mommy was happy to share). Luckily it's cooling down a bit, only high 80s today!

Happy Daddy's Day!

And I am one happy Daddy! I can't believe how lucky I am to have a daughter as sweet, smart, and wonderful as Petra! I'm SOOO looking forward to many many more father's days with her.

It was a good father's day- I got Loot! Mommy bought me a GPS, so when I leave Petra somewhere I'll be able to backtrack and find her. Seriously though, I'm going to sew this into the lining of her clothes so I always know where she's been. It did a great job of tracking our walk to the Sierra Bonita Cafe, which sadly will be closing this week. The owner sold the business. We'll MISS HER (and the mayan mochas!)!

Petra was sweet and playful, and even took 2 good naps (not counting sleeping in the stroller on the way to the cafe). We were able to do a little long neglected gardening once it cooled down a bit.

Catching up

Blah blah blah... insert typical apologies for not posting more frequently.

When I say "catching up," I mean that Petra is catching up to us! She is definitely crawling around, though usually in a 1-foot/1-knee crabwalk that is cute but not super efficient. She literally crawled circles around me in the living room this afternoon (ending up with her hand shoved into the VCR tape slot and dumping some DVDs on her head). She is becoming somewhat more independant, and at the same time more needy. While she will sit/crawl/stand/cruise/play on her own quite contentedly for a long while, she will also start pouting and crying the second she sees Mommy leave the room, or if she doesn't pick her up fast enough. We've been trying to get her to sleep on her own more (leaving us with lavish amounts of time in the evening to do the dishes, pick up, and pass out), sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Daddy seems to have a slight edge on knocking her out, probably because she focuses so intently on Mommy when she is there that she won't fall asleep. Daddy just shushes her while she cries and squirms and conks out.

Germs are also catching, and Petra has caught her share. A little fever over the weekend, a phlegmy cough, and rivers of snot would have given it away, even if the fussy crying all night hadn't. She's already somewhat better, but the rivers continue.

You can see in the picture the piles of crumbs that now reside on the carpet. Petra likes to eat solid foods, and has been crunching on teething biscuits for a couple of weeks. Very little seems to go inside- she either breaks them up into crumbs (actively pounding them on the floor sometimes), or chews on them then blows them out in slimy strings as she blows raspberries at us. Between the dirt Petra is generating, and that already in the house, I decided that it was time to get a Roomba! Sure, the robot pool and battlebots and MAKE hacks might have had something to do with it too. We turn it on as we leave in the morning, and when we get home we empty out a scary container full of dust, cat hair, dirt, cat hair, Mommy hair, and cat litter. YIKES! Boy do we have a lot of dirt in the house. The little Roomba really does work! We can already see a difference in the house, with fewer hairballs and dustbunnies hiding in corners. Hopefully, Petra won't have to wear that dustmop onesie I was going to make for her!

Nothing too exciting in the last 10 days, other than our little darling. Don't worry, if something really exciting does happen, I'll post it!

More to Come

More of everything! More teeth (two upper medial incisors are ready to break free), more crawling (from kitchen to dining room), and more standing (and that "cruising" thing of walking around while holding onto sofas, Daddy, etc.). She combined the crawling and teeth aspects to crawl up to and bite Mommy's toe this evening. Very funny (for me and Petra at least).

She likes watermelon popsicles that we get from the wandering ice cream cart that comes by every now and then (especially when it is 90 degrees out like this weekend). To beat the heat we spent one afternoon this weekend in the mall (where we bought her a nice hammer to indulge her banging tendencies. It IS a plastic hammer though, full of rattling beads.), where she was inundated by people ogling her and oohing and ahhing at how cute she is (and not just the people who are paid to ogle the babies at the stores).

We are still working on the sleeping alone thing. Over the memorial day weekend we were going to try the pick up/put down method, but Mommy bailed after about 20 minutes of howling and fell back on the boob. We have been leaving her in bed after she conks out though, and we've actually managed to watch a little TV and read while she is sleeping alone. I'm sure before she goes to college we'll have her sleeping on her own.

Creepy Crawly

Like an impending thunderstorm building on the horizon, we've seen this one coming for awhile. For the last week Petra has been getting up on her hands and knees/feet more and more. First she would push with her arms only, sliding backwards into corners. Then she started getting her feet underneath to stand on all fours, but not really move. Now, she's started creeping, crablike, on hands and feet, and throwing in a little honest-to-goodness hands and knees crawling movement.

Yikes! Time to really get baby-proofed! Gates on the doors! No more heat from the floor furnace! Hide the cats!