Well, my friends, we have a crawler on our hands. As expected, Edie loves her new found talent and we are officially preparing for months (years, probably) of watching her every move. Though we're a little scared, it's also really great watching her learn how to move around. It brings her so much joy.
We also have new veggies to add to her food list: Peas (as you know), Green Beans, Sweet Potato and Broccoli. Woo!
*This photo may be familiar to some of you who read my photo blog as I posted it yesterday with some random details. I usually photograph Edie every Wednesday, but I had a busy day and was unable to get a good photograph of our little chippy. So, this will have to do.
Now, that's all cute and good. I'm ecstatic for Edie's new abilities and proud of her for catching on with the crawling thing so quickly. I particularly love seeing the look on her face as she explores her environment under her own power.
But this weekend, as she went from proto-crawling to full-fledged crawling, I moved into a new parenting phase. I'll call it the "no" phase. As she found new places to crawl and began interacting with our stuff, I found myself going into the Magic Bag of Parenting Tricks and pulling out "no." "No" to grabbing at lamp cords or the laptop cord, "no" to tearing apart my "Baseball Encyclopedia," "no" to lots of other things.
I'd never said "no" to Edie before this past weekend, at least not consciously. Sure, she'd done things that she shouldn't have been (like pulling on my hair), but I never said "no." Now, I feel like I have to start using "no" as a way to establish boundaries. She needs to start learning that there are consequences to her actions. Look at me: the authoritarian. I've become everything I hate.
To my credit, I'm trying to be positive with my nos (cognitive dissonance, anyone?), remaining firm while conveying understanding. The goal moving forward is to keep reminding myself to back up the "no" with a rationale, even if those points are lost on her (they soon won't be). It can turn into a nasty habit to just say "no" and leave it at that, so I'm going to keep trying to slip bits of reasoning into the mix, if only so Edie knows that every "no" has a "why."
The flip side to seeing a new person flex their wings for the first time is knowing that they'll have to make the same mistakes and resign themselves the same limitations that the rest of us have. Hopefully, with a calm and rational approach, we'll be able to raise a child that knows exactly what all those nos mean.
Crawling is still on the agenda for Edith, every day scooting closer and closer to her goal. She is also falling in love with random adult objects such as wood spoons, current editions of Newsweek and (to our dismay) laptop cords. Once she gets the crawling down, we are in big trouble.
Yesterday, we started Edie on her first vegetable. Apparently, she has her mom's taste in vegetables and didn't like the peas we attempted to feed her. We'll try again tonight.
In other news, little Miss EDCC had her 6 month checkup on Monday. Aside from being perfectly healthy, she's also super tough. This time around she had 5 (yes, 5) shots... and cried for less than a minute. Her current stats:
Edie and I went out to my parent's house for a weekend of relaxing and visiting. Yesterday, we went for a little walk down the road. Edie was able to sit (kind of) in the sled, and my mom was able to get a stellar work out.
I'm using this blog as another way to motivate myself, can you tell? So, please forgive me in advance. I'm sure my fasciation with posting everything I make will die soon.
I made two pillow covers this morning. The first one, proved to be too small (I didn't measure my pillow well enough), so I made that one into a smaller pillow cover for a smaller pillow. The second attempt seems a little too big, but I blame the tutorial. Aside from that, and my slightly crooked line on one side, it looks pretty good. I even remembered to back stitch.
Our very own Little Sparrow has been chirping away this week. Her cute little voice has now reached an octave I wasn't sure was attainable. It's fun though. The squeaking only occurs when she is delighted, usually by our cat Onslow.
As I've written before, she's well on her way to crawling. This week, she learned how to get on her hands and knees and rock back and forth. She is also sitting up really, really well. Yesterday, somehow, she pulled herself up to sitting. It only happened once, but it was pretty cool.
As some of you know, I was lucky enough to receive a sewing machine for my birthday. Actually, it was more like a green light (or, hey! it's your birthday you should splurge) to buy a sewing machine I've eyed for quite awhile.
Sewing is one of those things I've always wanted to do, but never did it. In high school, I was too busy gossiping with friends to pay attention in Home Ec. And a few years ago when my dear friend Kari tried to teach me to sew, I felt way too overwhelmed a promptly gave up. This time, I have an investment and a little person to sew cute things for. Also, I'm going to begin small and learn the basics before I jump into a huge project.
So, after taking over an hour to figure out how to thread my machine (and, might I say, I can do it very well now) and another couple hours sewing straight lines, I began my first project: a bow. Yep, a bow. Kris had found this project on the cool website Instructables even before I had the machine in my possession. It was super easy to do (even though it took me forever), and proved to be a nice easy going first project.
Do your best to ignore the bad top stitching and so-so gathering. Can I remind you all that it was my first attempt? I'm just happy it sorta resembles a bow.
There you go. My first project. According to my cool friends on facebook, the following items are what I need to make in the coming days (weeks, years, decades):
camera warmer using a special Arizona grass green yarn
a nice, comfy robe
a large magic carpet so Kelly Kerzman, Amber and Amanda can visit us
Edie some cute little outfits
multi-colored toque
ovely set of new curtains
UsFest apparel
a three-year-old sized strait jacket
Snuggie
a memory card wallet
a house cozy
flannel pjs (x2)
some confidence
spaghetti and meatballs
something RAD
a set of leg warmers (x2)
an extra long blanket
some booties and a sweater for a kitty
baby booties for a set of twins
baby blanket
a really warm pair of feeted pants
a cape (with a large E logo)
a pair a pants that don't drag on the ground
curtains
a diamond-encrusted codpiece
old lady sweaters with sequins (x5)
an apron
(Thanks for all the great birthday wishes everyone!)
She's almost there, she's almost half way to her first birthday. Yep, tomorrow is Edie's half birthday! Friday, she'll be 6 months old. I can't believe it.
Though, from her development I should believe it. There has been lots of talking (or squawking, depending on how you think of it), picking up objects (even really, really tiny objects) and sitting very well by herself. Moreover, crawling is almost a reality... not that it matters, she gets around very well be rolling and scotching around the room. This weekend is another (double) overnight trip to her Grandma and Grandpa Trygstad's house. Everyone is crossing their fingers that it goes well.
These two little porkchops have not seen each other for quite a few months! Magnolia is the daughter of my wonderful coworker Penny. As you may remember, these two are just hours apart in age and it has been so fun to watch them grow. More and more they are starting to get VERY distinct personalities, which is easily recognizable from these photos.
And, here is a couple of Edie (and one of me).
For more pictures of Magnolia Mae check out the photo blog.
