A Summer of Fun

Although my goal was to update our blog more frequently this summer, it didn't seem to happen! We did have quite a busy summer and it went very fast. Elizabeth and I joined Grandma and Papa Updegrave and Grandmama for a vacation in VA Beach at the end of July. Elizabeth especially loved swimming in the pool at the hotel. She kicks her legs and paddles her arms when you say "kick, kick, kick". She had fun relaxing and getting into everything. Less than a week later, we met up with Grammy and Papaw Cline in Myrtle Beach. Elizabeth's cousins, Olivia and Lauren, were there too. The three of them had a good time together. Olivia and Lauren enjoyed "helping" with Elizabeth, including feeding her, changing her diapers (well they didn't exactly change them, but they watched), and helping her "walk". When cousin Lauren (4 yrs. old) fed her, she tended to shove the spoon all the way back in Elizabeth's throat! She also liked to hold Elizabeth. Unfortunately, Elizabeth is quite squirmy most of the time and "holding" her meant holding her down (as you'll see in some of their pictures).

Elizabeth says "hi", "daddy", "kitty", and we think she actually said "organic" in the grocery store last week! Sometimes she just "talks" and we're not sure if she's preaching or cussing us out (arms and hands go flying and she tends to get a serious look on her face).

She'll be walking soon, but we're not encouraging it too much! More to come....

What were we thinking???

We wanted her to crawl? We encouraged her to crawl? What were we thinking? Imagine this: There's a cute little baby sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by lots of cool toys--some that sing, some that light up, some that are made of wood, and all with lots of colors. You would think that this cute little baby would be entertained by all these neat, expensive toys, right? What does she actually want to play with? The gum wrapper that fell out of daddy's pocket.

She's keeping us busy! We had her pictures taken this week at Picture People.
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Enjoy!

Lots of New Tricks!

New tricks in the past couple of weeks include:

* waving bye-bye (grandma-ma taught her)
* clapping (favorite song is “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands”
* singing in the car
* kicking while she’s swinging
* eating finger food
* writing her first name (just kidding)
* blowing raspberries with a mouth full of food

We're glad to have daddy back home (he was out of town for work last week). Mommy already knows what she wants for Christmas--a full night's sleep, coupled with sleeping in until about 7:30. Keep an eye out for that in the stores, I hear it can be hard to come by!

A Summer of Firsts

The past few weeks have been full of firsts for Elizabeth. We’ve found that, unlike some babies, she seems to just take in any new experiences and does not let new things scare her. Our neighborhood has a beach and playground close to our house. Elizabeth sat in the sand in her bathing suit for the first time. As she sat in the sand and felt around a little, mommy started “burying” her legs. Several other kids were around and one little girl asked if she could help me. Before we knew it there were 4 or 5 other kids helping to “bury” Elizabeth up to her waist. She ate it up! (Unfortunately, I mean that literally and figuratively—there were several mouthfuls of sand ingested that day.) She also sat in the water and enjoyed it. She enjoys the baby swing at the playground, too.

Friday night, we all went to a minor league baseball game in Waldorf. Elizabeth wasn’t too interested in the baseball game, but had fun listening to Uncle Cody’s iPod and eating a snowcone (we held the syrup—just shaved ice). After the game, there were fireworks. We were curious as to how she’d react to them—she did fine.

Elizabeth has also recently begun to eat Cheerios. Her favorite thing to do with them is to have Mommy throw them at Luther (grandma and grandpa’s dog). She cracks up laughing every time Luther catches a Cheerio in his mouth! She has developed a sudden interest in Luther as she stands at the door of his kennel and talks to him. He’s not sure what to think about her, but he’s just keeping a low profile.

Finally, our little busy-body is crawling—well, kind of. I guess you could call it crawling. She gets up on her hands and knees and ends up moving forward, somehow. I have a feeling that in the next couple of days I’ll be regretting ever trying to get her to crawl.

Wild Woman!

She’s a wild woman! Elizabeth has been so much fun the past couple of months. She’s been on the move—almost crawling. She get’s around, though. She rolls and scootches to get to where she needs to go. She’s also been enjoying getting around in her walker. Mommy introduced Elizabeth to some measuring cups the other day and they seem to be her new favorite toy. Two of her other favorite toys include her Leapster Learning Table that was a hand-me-down from her cousins, Olivia and Lauren. We think she likes it so much because she likes to show off that she can stand by “herself”. She also likes her “Exploration Station” that Olivia and Lauren (and Aunt Danielle and Uncle Curtis) got her for Christmas. She will play for long periods of time by herself. Her babysitter, Maria, says that she plays much better independently than most babies her age.

Mommy is finished with work for the summer. She’s looking forward to spending the summer with Elizabeth. Maria is insisting that Elizabeth come visit her at least once a week during the summer so that Elizabeth doesn’t forget her.

A few weeks ago, Grammy and Papaw came to visit from Ohio. Elizabeth enjoyed being spoiled by them. This past weekend, Becca’s Godmother, Jan, came for a quick visit. It was great to see her and for “Aunt Jan” to meet Elizabeth. Yesterday was Daddy’s first Father’s Day. The neighbors are going to think that mommy is a slave-driver because Daddy was out mowing the lawn in the heat on his first Father’s Day! (He likes his yard to look nice.)

Elizabeth is eating solids three times a day. Yesterday she tried guacamole and refried beans for the first time. Last night, grandma, grandpa, grandma-ma, and Cody came over for dessert. Grandma and Grandma-ma brought some berry cobbler, which Elizabeth tried. It wasn’t until afterward that we realized that the cobbler may not have been a great idea. She was very hyper. . . I didn’t think about all the sugar in the cobbler!

Right now, she’s watching her Daddy wash the deck from the sliding glass doors in the living room. He’s “playing” with her by squirting the hose on the sliding door.

I will try to update the site a little more often, now that I’m off for the summer.

New pictures are here

Another tooth and croup

Elizabeth gave us our first big scare last weekend. Friday, I picked her up from the babysitter at 4:00. Jason and I met for a quick bite to eat, then we went to Target. When we were in Target, Elizabeth coughed a couple of times. It was one of those deep, croupy sounding coughs. We sort of looked at each other and hoped she wasn't getting sick. We got home around 5:45 and her cough seemed to be getting worse and more frequent. We read in our baby books about croup and coughing and considered taking her to the ER. She wasn't too bad. Jason went outside to mow the lawn, but after about 10 minutes, I became even more worried about her breathing which had become loud and noisy. I went outside to get Jason and we decided to go ahead and go to the ER. We were collecting ourselves to leave and she just got worse and worse. We were then starting to rush to the ER.

When we got to the hospital, we checked in and we went to triage within a few minutes (there was a waiting room full of people--Jason was worried we'd have to wait awhile, but I didn't think we would by the way she sounded). When we were called to triage, Elizabeth's breathing was very loud and hoarse sounding. Despite her difficulty breathing, she gave the nurse a huge smile. The nurse said, "You sure are happy for someone who can't breath!" She took us straight back to the ER and a doctor was there soon after. He listed to her and said she had croup. Her trachea (windpipe) and larynx (voice box) were swelling. They gave her a breathing treatment of some type of epinephrine, then a cool-mist humidifier and steroids. After all that and after consulting with a pediatrician, the doctor decided that she needed to stay overnight to be monitored.

It was about 2:45 am by the time I finished answering all the questions and they got her breathing treatment set up in her room. She sounded much better by morning.

It just so happened that she got a tooth that same day. Fortunately, she's fine now. She has a little cough but it's not croupy at all.

Today, Elizabeth has us a little worried with the new sound she is making. It's sort of a bratty, squealing, demanding sound. We're hoping this new sound passes quickly. Jason said, "She sounds like one of those autistic kids." (I'm not exactly sure what an autistic kid sounds like, but maybe you can relate to Jason's description.)

Have a great week...Becca

New pics are here

First Tooth!

Today, Elizabeth's first tooth broke through. We knew it would be coming soon, due to all the fussiness, drooling, and chewing lately. She'll be 5 months old in a few days. . . time flies! I just wanted to share the news...I'll try to post more this weekend. It's bed time!