August, Baptism, and Child Development

Busy, busy, busy.  August just flew by before we knew it.

Elizabeth’s second top front tooth came in on the eighth of the month.  I can’t even imagine how uncomfortable it must be to feel a tooth growing down your jaw and pop out thru the skin.  She gets so fussy for so long before and after a tooth actually cuts through I feel so bad for her (and us, since we lose a lot of sleep during these times).  Makes me dread the molars, that’s for sure.  I wasn’t ready for the top teeth, though.  I loved my little two-tooth girl and just didn’t want that to change so quickly.  But yoga teaches us that nothing in life is permanent, so we flow with the changes.

Elizabeth had her first official haircut this month.  We wanted her to look beautiful for her upcoming Baptism.

I was a little nervous of the thought of her sitting up on this chair all by herself…

But she did sooo well.  The only problem is that she always needs to know what is going on behind/above her, but Gabrielle handled her spinning head with ease.

August 12th was a busy day for Elizabeth – she started to pull herself up to standing in our house over and over (I think she tested every piece of furniture in the house to see if she could do it); she went from a lying down position on her back to sitting up (previously she had to roll over to her belly first and push up onto hands & knees); and here’s the biggie – she said Mama (ok, she said mamama – but what a beautiful sound!!).

And, this month was her Baptism.  She was Baptized on August 14th.  It was such a special day having both godparents and both grandmothers making the trip to be here with us in addition to a couple other family members.  Thank you all for coming to celebrate this day with us…I can’t say it enough how much it meant to us.

The Saturday before the Baptism, my sister Karen and her husband Craig, my mom, and Eliz and I all went on the Georgetown Loop Railroad.  Andy and Nick went for a hike in Golden Gate Canyon SP.

Elizabeth has since developed a keen interest in trains, but during this ride she struggled a little with the loud horns and whistles.  She was strong most of the way, but near the end I had to walk her further back and away from the engine for a little relief.

Here’s my beautiful girl in her white lacey dress on her Baptism Day…

Here’s a great shot of the actual pouring of the water…

A special thank you to my brother-in-law, Craig, for being our photographer that day.  More pics will get posted on the Webalbums in the near future.

Here’s some of our group on Monday hanging out in Golden…

Elizabeth loved playing with her goofy Uncle Craig – she never knew what he was going to do next (and she likes surprises!).

Andy’s Mom and our niece, Stephanie, stayed the week following the Baptism to help us.  Mom is a great helper at the office and Stephanie spent time with Elizabeth, helped around the house, and did some business stuff for us – it was wonderful for us to feel like we were able to make a little headway on projects at the office due to all of their hard work.  Yea!  We tried to persuade them to stay (forever), but they had to head home.

Here’s Mom Mom and Eliz on their last day in town.

Poor Steph.  She slept in the living room and I’m sure she would’ve preferred sleeping in a little bit, but with Elizabeth in the house, that’s not an option!

The first morning I tried to get Eliz to play quietly reading her books away from Steph, but she didn’t want that!  She wanted to be closer to her cousin, so she climbed right up onto the air mattress to play…in the wee hours of the morning.  This became a morning ritual.  Elizabeth missed climbing into bed with Steph after they left, that’s for sure.

Elizabeth continues to experiment with foods.  It’s fun sharing our meals with her and seeing what she likes.  She’s tried pasta dishes, mac & cheese (the all-time kid pleaser), sweet potatoes, and more.  On her own, she’s been eating cheerios, banana slices, Gerber Puffs & Crunchies, and basic things she can pick up with her own fingers and can dissolve pretty easily in her mouth.

The week after her Baptism, we noticed her begin to “let go” of objects.  She would practice her balance for several seconds and then either grab hold of something again or plunk down to the floor.  Luckily, she bends her knees and falls down on her butt and doesn’t teeter over like a chopped-down tree.  Between her own butt cheeks and the diaper I don’t think she’s in any risk of an injury.

Another fascinating thing happened starting on August 21st.  My little girl stopped sucking her thumb during feeding.  She would always take a spoonful of food, and then stick her thumb in her mouth.  Sometimes this would cause food to come back out of her mouth, but either way it would make a mess since her hands would be covered in food.  Ironically, this started the day after Stephanie and Mom left.  So, hmmmm, what did they do to my little girl during their visit??

We are starting to experience our First Birthdays…can you believe it?  Here’s our little buddy Bryce at his first birthday party…

He was having an awesome time!

Afterward we stopped at a shopping area in Boulder that had one of those outdoor playgrounds.  Who knew Elizabeth would love the tunnels so much?

She even attracted her own little group of (boy)friends…

Then there was the ‘week of threes’.  You know how when bad things happen, they happen in threes?  Yup.  First it was a short trip down the stairs.  In our exhausted state, we left the safety gate open and Eliz was the first to notice.  By the time she hit the third step after catapulting over the edge I think she realized that it was not going to be as much fun as she thought.  She grabbed a hold of the gate and carpet fuzz and held on long enough for Andy to jump over and below her to stop her from going the other 15 steps down.  Then during breakfast the next morning I got her to open her mouth to take her first spoonful and out dropped the rubber tip of a doorstopper.  Say what?  Needless to say, now half of our doorstoppers no longer have their rubber tips (if Andy could pull them off, they stayed off).  Then, being the stupid first time parents that we are, we gave her something to play with at the grocery store…and she immediately bit into the block of cheese and through the plastic.  I thought customers were going to call Social Services on me as I squeezed her cheeks and dug around in her mouth til I found all of the plastic wrap.  Whew.  Something tells me there will be many more stories like these :(  I wish I could say that we are one step ahead of her on safety issues, but instead we are generally half a step behind – finding our weaknesses after she points them out to us.

We continue to practice sign language, with “milk”, “more”, “all done”, and “stop” being some of our common signs.  On 8/28, she signed “milk”.  Yea!

Elizabeth continues to practice Yoga on her own.  By the end of the month she added Downward Facing Dog to her practice.  She has so many poses. I wonder if all babies practice this much yoga?  And if so, at what point do they stop?  And, why?  Why do our kids lose their creativity, imagination, curiosity, and natural ability to practice yoga?  I hope I can help encourage her to keep these wonderful traits as long as possible.  I love watching her play by herself – it really does appear that she is having conversations and doing things with intent as in imaginary play.  And it makes me laugh when she sees me watching her just how embarrassed she seems to get that I “caught” her in action.  I don’t really know too much about child development, but in moments like these she seems so much older to me than an 11 month old.

The first annual USA Pro Cycling tour hit Colorado this month and brought professional riders through Golden, Lakewood, and Denver as part of the last stage of the tour. 

Andy rode his bike to Golden for the first part of the stage…then he raced home to pick up Elizabeth and me to watch again at an intersection in Lakewood.  I had taught yoga that morning, so we had to race to the race.  We parked the car and then had to run to get there on time.  The problem was we had to run about 1/2 mile…straight uphill.  Uggh.  I hadn’t run in a long, long time.  It was killer, but we made it and it was worth it.  Probably like watching the Tour de France, but here at home.  We didn’t have cowbells to ring, so I took Elizabeth’s pink musical bells.  She was too excited to ring her bells, though.  All she wanted to do was clap with the rest of the crowd.  Pretty funny.  We had a chuckle that the bikers zipped by in seconds, but the line of support cars took minutes.  (I’m trying to upload some videos to the Webalbums of the race but I’m having some technical difficulties.)

Check out more pictures and some videos (hopefully) on the August Webalbums.