8 months

Yesterday, Anya turned 8 months old. Here's a little summary of her recent accomplishments:

• Mobility Anya has got crawling down and is getting faster. Baby gates are often up now (we're still waiting for the stair gates to come via UPS, though). She very easily can go from laying down/crawling/sitting in any combination. She also is pulling herself to stand using various objects (some of which aren't the most stable :-/). I think she will start cruising in the coming weeks.
  
  For some reason, I don't think it occurs to her to sit back down when she pulls herself to stand while in the crib. She can do it just fine anywhere else in the house. For naptimes over the past few days, I've had to come in and lay her back down once or twice in order for her to fall asleep. I just did it a minute ago. Silly babies.


• Communication I still catch her occasionally saying "kitty," but that's the only word. She did sign "food" the other week, but I haven't seen her sign since. Well, actually she might be signing "milk," but the context isn't usually right....so I'm inclined to believe she's not trying to communicate anything there.


• Tricks Anya claps often. She's waved a few times (which may have just been "lazy" claps...hard to say). She hasn't been doing too much of the "baby war cry" (see most recent video). Something I have noticed about our lovely daughter is that when she learns a new skill, she usually does it for a few days, and then stops. She usually will pick it back up (or re-learn it?) a few weeks later and it becomes part of her normal skillset.

In other news, we hired a babysitter for the first time Saturday night. Cousins Amy & Matt so awesomely took us to a Seattle Sounders game (thanks!!!), which was fun. Being a neurotic first-time mom, I was of course worried and thinking about her the whole time. She was in good hands with Nicole, though. Oh, but poor Nicole. She was extremely allergic to something in the house (most likely Chris' cat Morgana, the most hyper-allergenic cat in existence) and her eye swelled up. So much that she had to take out her contacts. She said she laid on the floor cuddling with Laika and listening to the TV (since she couldn't see it) the entire evening. It looked pretty bad when we got home, and she said that the swelling had gone down at that point. Poor thing. I felt so bad for her.

I hope the weather cools down today. It hit 90-something yesterday and high 80s (possily 90) Saturday. No AC being in Seattle. Anya was cranky and had trouble sleeping. The fan didn't help that much.

We're almost done with the balustrade. I hate how home improvements now move at a snail's pace, around Anya's sleep. Pre-baby, the whole project would have been done over a weekend. Now it has taken a few weeks, with almost no work being done weeknights. Should be up and usable by tomorrow. After that, Chris will just need to do some finish work and I'll paint it. After all this work, it's almost a shame that it will be coming down when we gut the upstairs...but that's realistically 5+ years away.

Babewatch

This week marked the opening of the wading pool at Dahl Field. The weather finally decided to cooperate, so off we went to the pool.

Anya got all dolled up in her lovely off-the-shoulder ensemble (gotta start 'em early to impress the boys. None seemed to notice her, so next time she'll wear some lipstick and these shoes* ). She had a good time both days we went. Yesterday, we were lucky enough to have Grandma & Grandpa L. accompany us. Mostly, she played with toys, tried to eat pinecones, and was generally loud.

Also in yesterday's news, Anya participated in a study at the UW. It was about understanding others' preferences. Our smart little girl caught on pretty quickly (duh!) If only she understood my preference that she not wake up before 7am or that she could change her own diapers. Maybe she's not so smart afterall.

* maybe I need a sense of humor, but I don't think these are funny.

¡el plano! ¡el plano!

We just bought tickets to go a-visitin' family later on this fall. The way gas prices and ticket prices have been going, we were starting to think we wouldn't be able to afford it. Rather surprisingly, it ended up costing a little less than historically -- and that's flying in and out of different cities even.

So we're going to fly into DC to visit with Brian, Tara, & Mia and also Chad and Megan (who are coming out this way to visit in a few weeks. It'll be nice to see them). And then we'll drive down to NC to hang with my mom, Bruce, and siblings AND MEET MY NEW NIECE!!! And then go to Brevard to stay with dad & Angie. I'm sososo looking forward to it. Oh, and also see Erin and hopefully Michelle.

And Anya will be just over a year old then, so maybe we can have a little, casual party for her.

Anya Speaks!

I'm no longer yielding to naysayers (Amy) who claim that it’s just a coincidence. I’m now totally confident in proclaiming to the world that my child has spoken her first words. I wanted to make this announcement after our trip to Cleveland during which *I* believe she said both “clap” and “kitty”. But since it was not reproducible or published in a peer-reviewed journal Amy told me not to.
I can be silent no longer! My little girl very distinctly said “kitty” this morning TWICE while clamoring over me to get at Zahra.
Anya has therefore officially moved on from the grub stage of life into the fully and uniquely human stage of the linguistially-abled.
She rocks.

date night

Chris's parents were kind enough to offer to babysit Anya, so Chris and I can have date night this evening. Well, "date afternoon" is more appropriate, since I want to have Anya home and in bed by 7:15 or so. She doesn't do so well having her night sleep interrupted...which in turn makes me not do so well. Nobody likes a cranky Amy.

It's rather sad that we don't know what we're going to go do. We thought about movies, but I'm picky and there's nothing I even remotely want to see this summer. And since we'll be in the Mill Creek area, there isn't too much to do. Chris hates shopping, plus there isn't anything we have to get. Maybe we'll just come back to Seattle. And because I'm lame, what I actually want to do is tear down the railing in the stair opening upstairs and start building the new one. But since child-free time doesn't come that often, we should take advantage and get out of the house. We'll probably at least get an early dinner somewhere. I suppose we could call up some friend and see what they are up to. Such exciting lives we lead.

I know you'll be waiting with baited breath to find out what we decide to do. I'll be sure to let you know.

6/23 edit: We ended up stopping at a shopping center & getting some pizza, then went to play putt putt (I haven't done that since high school, maybe), air hockey (I of course kicked Chris' butt. I've only lost an airhockey game a few times in my life. If you think you can beat me, you're probably wrong, but I'd love to play you...smacktalk beforehand is mandatory), and other random games. Then went out for drinks. It was a dorky, yet quite fun, evening.

I want a place to play air hockey nearby. I'm really out of practice.

Anya's new trick

Anya shows her new trick to her grandma & grandpa Miller and great-grandparents Miller. Such talent in one so young.

Soccer

Chris has been on my case for *years* now, trying to get me to play soccer. There were several obstacles (read: excuses) preventing me from playing. It would have to be a perfect situation in order to get me out there: games close by, early, with people of my skill level (I've never played soccer before -- well, high school gym class, but that doesn't count), and on a night that doesn't conflict with anything else.

Careful what you wish for I guess. I just found a Mom's beginning indoor soccer league on Monday nights at Magnusen park. Games are at either 5:50 or 6:40pm. I just played my first game this past Monday. It was incredibly exhausting, since the ball is almost always in play. But it was also incredibly fun. I almost scored 2 goals against a team that was mostly non-beginners, so that felt pretty good. I've got LOTS of room to improve of course, but I'm looking forward to it. This should help out with the baby weight too if I keep it up.

So Chris was right, I was wrong. Once I finally played a game, I did like it.

Tiny soccer ball or giant Amy? Either way, I crush your skull!

Father's Day

I want to wish Chris a belated Happy first Father's Day! He didn't quite get what he wanted from Anya, which was an extra night of soccer playing this week (it didn't work out with soccer schedules, plus she's just a selfish baby), but he did get brownies and extra soccer/poker next week. Maybe Anya will be a little more generous next year.

We spent the afternoon at grandma and grandpa L's house to barbecue and enjoy the weather, and of course celebrate father/grandfather's day.

Chris, you are a FANTASTIC father and husband and we are so lucky to have you. *smooch!*

Ohio

The other week, Anya got to take her first plane ride. We went to Ohio for my cousin, Christyn's, wedding. Rather surprisingly, Anya was amazing on the plane. She slept the entire way to Cleveland (thanks to a red-eye flight) and the cabin pressure didn't seem to bother her ears, even though mine hurt a little.

It was a great, but too short, visit. We saw most of my mom's siblings and my cousins, plus Anya finally got to meet her uncle Matt. [It was too bad my brother Don couldn't make it (it was the last week of school), but Anya should get to meet him & Koby this fall.] The wedding and reception was one of the most fun I've been to. We left "early" at 10:30 to get Anya to bed and I hear most everyone left after midnight, plus there was a bit of an afterparty with the cousins. Christyn looked beautiful & her sister/my cousin Shannan looked fantastic for just having her son 4 months ago. Anya was pretty mellow, mostly just taking everything in. She seemed especially drawn to my mom and aunt Mary Ann.

We also went down to Medina to see my Grandma & Grandpa Miller. My dad & Angie flew in for that, and most of my uncles and aunts on that side came over to visit and meet Anya. It was so good to see everyone...it had been several years since I'd seen some of them - possibly 15 or so since I've seen my uncle Tyler and he looks exactly the same. Unexpectedly, many brought lovely gifts for Anya & she loves the toys. Lucky girl. Dad and Angie took us to a little park near by so Anya could swing on the swingset. And we walked around a little town (Wellington) and had ice cream in the 95 degree weather. Then we had to sadly say goodbye to everyone and go back to the hotel for an early flight back to Seattle.

I miss everyone already :(

videos

Videos copied over from babysites...


This one is from March, 2008



this one is from late January,2008

new Anya site

I started a new site/blog for Anya and family-related stuff. The babysites page wasn't the most user friendly and blgospot has some features I prefer. So posts older than this one were originally on babysites and were copied over. I lost the formatting on them when I copied, so I'll get around to fixing that one of these weeks.

Milestone

Anya crawled today! It was only 1 "crawl step," but it was definite and in classic pose. She did it again shortly after. Go Anya!