The darnedest things

Gaz gets completely silly over the stragest things. Right now she's really into my "jelly midriff." Any time my belly ends up exposed she smiles and reaches out to grab a fistful of skin and fat and when she can (like when I'm laying on the floor nearby while she's sitting playing with her toys) she'll lean over and rest her forehead on my flab. I keep telling her that on the other side of the stretch marks is the place where she lived for a number of months, but she's mostly just enamored of the squishiness.

We have two other new fun games, too. "Up and down" starts with her laying down next to me, usually on the couch, and then I'll hold her hands and pull her up to either sitting or standing depending on how straight she's holding her legs while saying "up" and then laying her back down while saying "down." There doesn't seem to be a time limit on how entertaining this game can be. The other game is the "move Mama's head" game, wherein she'll push my face away from her to one side and then giggle like a maniac when I turn my head back to look at her. This game eventually gets boring, and then she wants to be pushed up into the air, but I don't do that much since it aggravates my tendinitis. That's more of a Dad game, and when he does it he always prefaces it with "do you want to go whooosh?" It's amazing how quickly she'll go from fussy to ecstatic just by popping her up in the air above your head.

We're going to have some pretty beefy, burly arms from doing all these lifts and presses with the heavy baby.

our panacea

I previously noted that Gaz has started laughing, but yesterday was a day full of her laughter. It used to be that she'd laugh when we'd tickle her and that was about it, but yesterday for a good long time she was just in a very giggly mood. Whatever I did--talk, sing, make faces--I was treated to seemingly endless laughter. She laughed at Mark for a goodly while, too.

More than her laughter being the best medicine, I think it could cure avian flu given a big enough gigglefest.

Celebrate the small things

Success! Gaz took a bottle today, 4+ oz, and took naps with a minimum of fussing. It's a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. It was so nice to spend the day with the happy Gaz.

water = fun

Now that we've discovered splashing, bathtime will rarely be a crisis again! It started with her noticing that water and air are two separate thing for hands to move through, then there was wiggling fingers in the water and taking them out to look at her wet digits, now there's all sorts of amusement in the splashing. We may as well all be in the tub sometimes, as wet as we get. She'll outgrow her little tub soon, but we've got a bath chair on deck for when that happens.

on the tooth front

One of those front teeth is finally definitely on the move. At the rate these bums have been moving there's no telling when either will emerge, but they're definitely closer to the bottom edge of her gum now. My money's on the left one but I've been wrong plenty of times.

Weighed the Gaz yesterday and she was 23 lbs. I'd previously cut myself off from weighing her because I was getting bent out of shape with what looked like a lack of growth from week to week, so now I'll just weigh her once a monthish and not at all on the months where she's got a doctor appointment. Their scales are better than me weighing us together and then just me and doing the math. I think we all know how great I am at the math. Anyway, what this means is that it's time to put the 9 mo. clothes away, which is something that occurred to me when I put her in one of the 9 mo. sleepers earlier in the week. So we're totally in the 12 monthers now, with an eye to trying on some of the 18 mo. outfits to see how they fit.

She's really enamored of toys these days and will play happily by herself for increasing amounts of time. Meals are much less of a problem now that she's happy in the doorway jumper while food is being prepared (most days) and will cheerfully play with a toy while sitting next to one of us on the couch while the grown ups eat. That's pretty awesome. This morning she chewed away on a teething ring (one made of solid plastic beads, which is quite fun to throw as well) and when I looked up at her she let go of the ring, letting it hang in her mouth, while she smiled up at me. She looked like an adorable puppy-child. :)

Another fun game lately is to lean forward to touch something while sitting up, then to lean back into whatever's back there, and repeat. It works best on the couch but she'll try it on the floor when she's sitting in her Boppy too.