Young Baby Young

I present the following picture to you solely so you can see Emily’s top two teeth:

She actually has another two teeth that have poked through on either side of her front teeth, but you can’t see them in the picture yet.  This means that Miss Emmycakes has SIX teeth.  Oh, yes.  She’s been exploring their many uses.  She took a nice chomp while nursing today, then had the nerve to cry hysterically at ME when she was scolded.  “What are you crying about?!  I’m the one who was just bitten!”  Silly child.

Auntie Caroline made Emily some awesome bibs with her new embroidering skills:

She told us that if we didn’t like them, we could just throw them away.  What?! why wouldn’t we love these?

…if you think toilet paper is a suitable toy for a baby:

…if you look at this picture and think, “Yeah, she’s going to be a plumber”:

…if you chuckle when you read the message on this truck:

We’re finally done with our baby gate installation project.  She-who-crawls-very-fast-these-days is fully protected with not one, not two, but FIVE gates in her palace.  We had to have one at the top of the steps and one at the bottom, and we have one room (with two entrances) that’s “off limits” to all beings on fours, plus there’s one gate at the kitchen to keep the dogs in place when we’re not home. 

While Daddy was on vacation last week, we took a stroll to the park, realizing that soon enough it’ll be too cold to go on such adventures.  After an excellent session of swinging, Emily enjoyed playing in the grass.

Higher!  Faster!

This only feels like about 17 pounds per square inch…I think we need to check on this ASAP.  We could be getting better mileage if the tires were correctly inflated.  So they tell me.  I mean, I’m just saying. 

Climbing on Daddy is fun!

Smell my Pamper, Daddy!  I’m outta here.

Oh, helLO!  Whatcha doin’?

What should Emily be for Halloween?  Please make suggestions via the commenting option.  I’m lacking creativity!

Emily has outgrown her infant carseat.  Thanks to Team Walsh, we have TWO of the next-size-up seats, one for each of our vehicles.  Emily is enjoying her new seats very much, as suggested by the picture below:

The seat on the left was her old seat, the infant-only size, and the two on the right will be good through toddlerhood.

This “upgrading of the seats” ritual made us harken back to when she was a newborn and we put her in her carseat for the first time on Christmas Eve 2008, the day we were checking out of Blue Hill Memorial Hospital.  She was completely dwarfed by it.  We were terrified that the hospital wasn’t going to let us leave because we couldn’t figure out how to work the darn thing.  It’s hard to believe that was only nine months ago — it feels like a lifetime.

As of today, Emily has been outside as long as she was inside.  Today marks her 9-month birthday. 

We’ve been busy baby-proofing our house.  I’ve investigated every baby gate known to man (and have found flaws with each), put covers on our outlets, padded our fireplace hearth, and put things out of reach from grabby hands.  Many bureaus have been tethered to the walls and cabinets have safety locks installed.  Phew!  It’s been a busy few weeks.  But it’s worth it: we enjoy seeing Emily explore on her own.  Sure, she still smacks her head on things, but it’s nothing that’ll deliver her to the ER like a fall down our staircase might.

She’s really into crawling now, and she loves, loves, loves to stand up.  When she wakes up in the morning, usually between 6 and 6:30, I’m still secretly hoping that she’ll go back to sleep.  I retreive her from her crib (where she is standing up, waiting impatiently for me to come get her) and bring her to bed to nurse her.  That gives me a few more minutes to keep my eyes closed, until she’s done and then she insists on crawling up the headboard (she steamrolls anyone or anything in her path) and then jumping on the bed.  She’s always very eager to show us her skills and hear us laugh at her antics.

Now that Emily has skills, she gets frustrated at things she can’t do.  If you displease her in any way — which could be taking a toy away, leaving her eyesight, or when she’s hungry — she cries and fusses.  It stops just as fast as it started. 

She’s into “self feeding” now.  She enjoys Cheerios, string cheese, pasta, bread, yogurt melts, almond butter, cottage cheese (yes, she feeds herself cottage cheese; every 9th curd gets into her mouth), and bananas.  She likes to drink out of cups, but also like sippy cups.  She prefers store-bought food to my freezer full of homemade goodness.  I can’t lie: I was — errr, am — slightly offended.  She often grabs the spoon out of my hand.  Oh, and if she doesn’t want to eat, she’ll let you know.  Those little lips seal right up when no more food shall pass.

At this age, everything still goes in her mouth.  It doesn’t really bother me.  I don’t care if she eats leaves at the park, or, apparently, if she sucks on her infant nasal aspirator.  This will probably disqualify me as Mother of the Year.  That’s okay.  Emily, meet germs.  They aren’t necessarily as bad as everyone makes them sound.  You want to eat that Cheerio that fell on the floor?  Have at it.  You want to chew on the dog’s toy?  Ewww, no!…but if I can’t get to you fast enough, I guess it’s going in your mouth, too.

Emily continues to be very fashion-forward (while her poor parents are wearing threadbare clothing from 1998).  Whenever we go to the Y (which is about twice a week), Miss Sheila oohs and ahhs over Emily’s clothes.  Sometimes she’ll look at her and say, in total seriousness, “Ahhh, ____ is your color!”  That’s very sweet, except she’s said it at least four times and the color changes each time.  So far, we’ve heard this proclamation for yellow, lilac, lime green, and navy blue.  Nowadays, I call Chris and say, “You’ll never guess what Emily’s color is now!”  I shouldn’t make fun — it’s really meant well.  It tickles my funny bone, though.

Now, Miss Sheila has not seen Emily in her camo gear, sent by the one and only Auntie Sarah.  She knows how we’re big into hunting, so of course she had to send this to us.  I had a trip to the bank planned last week and I knew that some of my old coworkers would enjoy this outfit.  I was not wrong.  She was the belle of that ball, for sure.  I need to put it on for the next trip to the Y and find out if “camoflauge is her color”!  It’s hard to see in the picture that this camo outfit has ruffles on the butt.  (Or, perhaps the camoflauge is so good that you didn’t even know she was IN the picture!)

On camoflauge day, we went to a yard sale being held by a woman we know through playgroup.  I had gotten a hot tip from Lisa that this yard sale would have a BOB stroller and a hiking backpack.  Sweet!  I was in the market for both.  The sale started at 4pm on a Friday.  I showed up at 3:45pm, reluctant to be “that person” who lurks around yard sales before they even start, but I really wanted to look at the stroller.  Would you believe that it was already sold by the time I got there?!  For FIFTEEN dollars?!  I was ready to pay 5 times that much.  Oh, and you know who bought it?  Angry old lady who probably doesn’t even have grandchildren.  Oooh.  I’m still mad about it.  I thought about exerting a little force and taking what was rightfully mine, but I guess I just wimped out.  We did get the hiking backpack, so that was pretty awesome.  I’m hoping to try it out this week while Chris has a few days off.  We also got some other pretty fabulous toys.  It was not a total loss, although I’m still mad about the stroller.

Lastly, the garage: it continues to progress.  We’re trying to pick exterior lights and we’re finding it most difficult.  We debated vocally in Lowes the other day about the merits of this one versus that one and ended up buying three to take home and try out.  We hated all three.  Sigh.

In looking for a place to walk with strollers, now that school is in session and the track is not an option, I came across Birdsacre in Ellsworth.  According to the Internet, it was ADA-compliant. 

Ha!

A 2-mile walk, if it was even that long, took an hour.  There were so many huge tree roots to climb over, and bogs of muck to plow through, that it was hardly an appropriate trail for los bambinos.  Beautiful, yes; wheelchair-friendly, I think not.  I practically carried the back end of the stroller for much of the path.  Today, my back and shoulders are killing me. 

Excellent idea…poor execution.

Or, as they spell it, Wienerfest.  The 6th annual dachshund festival was held in Belfast and luckily for us, we were in town this year to enjoy it.  (The prior two years we were in Washington and Italy…poor us!)

Nathan wore his “Superdog” cape and Natalie wore her fancy pink harness.  Surprisingly, none of the other dogs were really dressed up as they have been in prior years.  Also surprising: no one was impressed with our hounds.  One year, Natalie was all the rage because she was “chocolate and tan”; another year, everyone praised Nathan’s sleekness.  This year: nothing.  And only one person even noticed Emily!  What’s going on with this crowd?  They clearly don’t recognize quality when they see it.

Some pictures of the other attendees:

One dog owner was looking to breed.  Nathan really, really, REALLY wished he had the parts required.

The costume competition is always a favorite.  In the end, the sailor won and the banana took second.  One year, I’m going to make Nathan a costume and enter him.  I just have to 1) figure out what to make and 2) learn how to sew.  Minor details!

As we drove to the waterfront in Belfast, there wasn’t a soul in sight.  I started to wonder if I had the date wrong.  Normally, the place is littered with dachshunds by the time we arrive, but this time, we hadn’t seen even one.  As we got closer, though, we knew we were in the right place based on the stickers on cars:

Nathan was totally exhausted after his adventure.  He passed out on my lap for most of the drive home.

Here are some miscellaneous pictures from the past week:

Emily standing in her crib.  She LOVES to scope things out from this vantage.  This is usually the first thing she does when she wakes up.  I know she’s awake when I hear springs creaking.

My fantastic FREE finds at the transfer station.  I didn’t realize they would require quite that much elbow grease to clean, but I still think the price was right.  I had to shove a 3-year-old little boy out of the way.  (I’m kidding.)

The view from Eagle Lake, last week’s stroll in Acadia.

Chris and Emily dressed up for a wedding we attended.

Emily enjoying her toys.

My favorite view of our new crawling girl.  She’s not very good at crawling yet, but it’s good enough to get her where she wants to be.