Like Father, Like Daughter

I'm pretty sure we were Skyping with one of our sets of parents when I took this, but I'm not quite sure which. Anyways, Grace just wants so bad to use the laptop like Mama and Daddy, and she loves beating on the keys if we ever let her get too close.

It's been a fun few weeks; last Saturday we took Grace to a local farm and picked our own salad makings. I'd never seen lettuce growing in the ground before, and it looked suprisingly silly to see a full head of lettuce just sticking up out of the dirt. I'd never much thought of it before, but I'm significantly more accustomed to seeing produce at Safeway than I am in the ground.

Sunday was Caleb's first full Father's Day. We celebrated last year, but somehow it wasn't quite the same with the babe in utero. Grace fingerpainted for her Daddy, and loved playing with tissue paper.

Learning to be parents has been a wonderful adventure, and I couldn't have picked a better man to take it with. One of my greatest joys is hearing Grace's squeals of laughter as she plays with her Daddy. I've heard that dads generally make better playmates to their babies than moms do, and I totally agree. Nobody can make Grace laugh like her Daddy can. :-)

June in Seattle

Oh, and did I mention I'm wearing a sweatshirt today? And it's the middle of June!

Our 10 Month Old

Ok, so this photo was actually taken when Mom B. and Sarah-Jean were here a few weeks ago, but I haven't uploaded the newest batch from my camera yet. And I really like it anyways. :-)

Our little darling passed the 10 month mark this past Tuesday, and she's loving being a near-toddler. She's not quite walking yet, though she almost took a half step last Saturday, just as we were getting ready to leave her with Jenny R. and head out for our date night. I think if she hadn't been tripping over her pants, she might have taken her first real step. She does love toddling around the house holding on to my hands though, and cruising around the couch and love seat. Occassionally she'll even walk just holding on with one hand, and she can stand without pulling up on anything now. Just not quite ready to turn loose and run yet.

It was rather amusing this afternoon though, it didn't occur to me she's never seen our printer in progress before, and when I set it printing something she gave this terrified sounding little "aaahk!" and clung to me like it was going to leap off the desk and start chasing her at any moment. We spent a few minutes patting the printer, and the next time I explained to her what I was doing, but she still just clings to me and trembles when it starts. Once it's still again, she's now curious to check it out a bit more closely.

Ooh, and she's recently discovered how to open cabinets and drawers! Fortunately, Caleb just finished baby-proofing the dangerous ones a week or so ago. But she's got a cabinet in the kitchen she's allowed to play in, and she loves to pull out my metal nesting bowls and bang on them. Or stick them on her head. She's also discovered an affinity for yelling into paper towel tubes. It makes a nice echo-like sound that was quite bewildering to Mama the first time she heard it!

Mom & Sarah-Jean come to visit!

Ok, slightly belated, but the week before last, Mom Bell and Sarah-Jean came to see the newest addition to their family. We had a fun time driving up to Snoqualmie Pass, taking Grace on her first ferry, and of course, drinking lots of coffee. And it was really good just getting to hang out and talk. Unfortunately, we totally forgot to take an all-group photo, so these were the best I could find. (Grace really wanted to play with that baby's hair!)

Follow-up to "She's Sleeping!"

Just FYI - she slept from 9:30 or so last night until 7am this morning! :-)

The Littlest Bookworm

Of the Bell family at least. This is Grace's newest favorite activity, and much easier on Mama than emptying the changing table! We keep a basket of books next to the glider in her nursery, and she'll pull herself up on the basket and then stand there taking the books out one by one. She'll spend 15 minutes at a time just sitting in the floor flipping pages back and forth. Sometimes she'll open one book, stare at a page intently, then grab another and quickly flip through a page or two, then move on to a third. I could swear she's searching for something sometimes! And other times she'll sit with the same book flipping through the pages; we'd think she was a genius early reader, if it weren't for the book being upside down.

She's Sleeping!

Grace is finally starting to sleep through the night! Again. That is, she slept through the night several times right around four months. I actually cried the first time she did; I rather enjoyed her needing me! Little did I know... :-)

But for the past three months, she's been getting up two to three times a night to nurse, and sometimes it was taking an hour or two to get her back to sleep. All of which meant very little sleep for Mommy. Caleb was awesome; he started getting up with her at 6:30, and I'd get the bulk of my sleep from then until 10 or so. We finally reached the breaking point though, and decided it was time to try something different. For the last two weeks now, I've stopped nursing her at night, and most evenings Caleb has been putting her down to sleep. It's not perfect, but several times now she's slept for 10 or 11 hours straight. :-) :-) :-)

Tonight I nursed her down though as Caleb was working late, so we'll see how this goes...