another tooth on the way; solids update

I think her second bottom tooth is peeking through today. She hasn't seemed overly fussy or anything, just drooly and chewing on everything like usual. As soon as they're out enough that they can be caught on film, I'll get a picture posted.

So, solid food. I thought it would be so much fun feeding her and that she'd gobble everything down with unabandoned glee. Yeah, not so much. In a nutshell:

rice cereal? hated.
sweet potatoes? hated, though between gags she seems a bit more accepting lately.
oatmeal? hated.
avocado? reeeeeeally hated.

And oof, the mess. Cleaning sticky, stinky, gooey sweet potatoes from every possible crevice in her body is less than appealing. I need to plan to just feed her at night and then hose her down later. As my mom said, does any get in her mouth?

I call this picture "sweet potato mugshot":

Better start the braces fund now ...

She has a tooth coming in! She was chewing on my finger earlier today and I felt something sharp in her bottom gums. This new development makes me a little sad -- I realize how quickly she's growing up and how fleeting her babyhood is. I'll miss her adorable gummy grins when they're gone, but I bet she'll look just as cute with a mouth filled with teeny teeth.

A new mom friend

Today I had coffee with a woman from our childbirth class. I've had her business card in my wallet for months and just recently realized we'd never connected post-baby. When I saw her last, it was at the OB's office the week we were both induced. We made plans to call each other after we had our babies so we could socialize in the hospital. Ha! We both laughed about how silly that seems now, because of course we weren't in any mood for visiting with near strangers that soon after giving birth.

Thankfully, she didn't think I was a crazy stalker lady when I emailed her 5 months later. It was really nice talking to a mom who has a baby Olivia's age. We have a lot of new mom experiences in common, too -- she also struggled with breastfeeding, though she got better advice from her LC in the hospital and was at least able to pump full time. And she wasn't at all competitive about her child, which is so refreshing. The people I've met so far have all been sort of braggy or aggressive about their child's weight, height, genius status, whatever. It really annoys me, and I've decided that "mom-petition" is highly irritating. I hope I don't ever pull something like that.

Anyway, I think we're all going to get together again soon for dinner. Yay for friends!

Rice cereal? Not so much.

It was a couple weeks shy of her official 6-month birthday on 8/7, but because she was technically 6 months old yesterday if you count weeks, we thought we'd take the plunge with some rice cereal. She's been watching us eat intently for a while now, sometimes trying to grab our food, and she can sit up mostly unsupported these days. So we loaded her into her high chair, grabbed the camera, and mixed up the cereal.

She seemed not to notice the cereal at first; she was very interested in trying to chomp down on the rubber-covered spoon. Then it hit her and some shuddering/gagging ensued. Please pardon the assorted clutter on the countertops. And that beer bottle is for the recycling bin -- we weren't drinking and feeding. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzKGAewOjs4

We survived!

We drove straight through from North Carolina to Indianapolis on Sunday -- we just wanted to get home rather than lug all of our stuff from the car to a hotel room and then have to repack the car the next morning. Thankfully, it wasn't a bad trip and Olivia did really well. We stopped every 2 hours to change her diaper and let her stretch her legs a little, and one of us sat in the back with her the entire time to feed her/hand her toys/entertain her. The things that worked to entertain her were as follows: as I mentioned before, the singing of "Old MacDonald" over and over -- but the animal generally has to be "cow" to be best received; burping/pretending to burp/saying the word "burp"; saying "ack-a-lacka-lacka-loo" (don't ask me how I came up with that, because I have no idea!); playing peek-a-boo. We left at 6:30 a.m. and arrived home at 9:30 p.m. The cats were thrilled to see us, and we were obviously really happy to be out of the car. It took me over an hour of lying in bed before it didn't feel like I was racing down the highway when I shut my eyes.

She's up from another one of her illustrious 30-minute naps, so I need to run. More vacation details later.

tropical storm cristobal

Nothing says, "Vacation's over" quite like the formation of a tropical storm. It's been raining/pouring for most of the day, so we were really glad to have gone swimming and for beach walks yesterday. Many of the vacation homes had new families move in today, and it's sad watching the kids under the covered porches staring longingly at the beach while clutching their water wings and boogie boards. I think we're all ready to get home. It's been a great vacation, but being back in a routine will be nice. I'm not sure how Olivia will react next week with only me around to entertain her all day. She's been such a ham with such a large audience.

Tropical Storm Cristobal forms off Southeast coast

By BRUCE SMITH – 52 minutes ago

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Tropical Storm Cristobal churned off the Southeast seaboard after it formed Saturday, the first storm to threaten the U.S. this hurricane season, forecasters said.
The storm strengthened from a tropical depression, generating maximum sustained winds of about 45 mph as it promised to bring much-needed rains to the parched eastern Carolinas.
At 5 p.m. EDT, the center of the storm was about 125 miles east of Charleston and about 205 miles southwest of Cape Hatteras, N.C. The National Hurricane Center said Cristobal was moving northeast at about 7 mph.

Although the center of the storm was forecast to remain off the coast through the weekend, tropical storm warnings were in effect from the South Santee River in South Carolina to the North Carolina-Virginia state line, including Pamlico Sound.

Flood advisories were posted for coastal counties and Wilmington, N.C., received 2 1/2 inches of rain Saturday, said Stephen Keebler, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service there. Cristobal's winds were not expected to be a problem, Keebler said. "It's some rain and a little bit of relief for the coastal areas and a lot of excitement, but that's about it," he said. The rain bands were weakening as they spun farther inland, providing little relief for parched areas near Interstate 95 in North Carolina, he said.

Forecasters predicted up to 5 inches of rain along the North Carolina coast, with heavier amounts in some areas.

Eastern North Carolina is under a moderate drought while areas along South Carolina's northern coast are considered abnormally dry, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Officials have blamed the persistent drought for a massive wildfire that has burned more than 40,000 acres in eastern North Carolina since it began June 1 with a lightning strike.

As Cristobal lurked offshore, the storm was keeping many boaters off the waters — and surfers in the waves. "There's not a lot of boat traffic on the water," said Gray Wilson, working at the Wrightsville Beach Marina in Wrightsville Beach, N.C. Although he added most boaters did not appear overly concerned about Cristobal, "people have been staying in."

On North Carolina's Outer Banks, surfers reveled in the waves as the storm churned offshore well to the south.

Bradley Rose, a surf instructor at SandBarz in Carolina Beach, N.C., said the waves were a bit choppy. "It looks pretty fun out there," Rose said.

At the By The Sea Motel in North Myrtle Beach, S.C., out-of-state vacationers took to the beach trying to photograph the outer rainbands of Cristobal, said hotel manager Charlie Peterson. Intermittent light rain showers during the afternoon were not enough to chase them away and there were even brief moments of sunshine. "They've got their cameras set and they think there is going to be lightning over the water and all," he said. "They have never seen this."

Elsewhere Saturday, Hurricane Fausto strengthened far off Mexico's Pacific coast, while Hurricane Bertha raced rapidly to the northeast over the North Atlantic, hundreds of miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Neither of those storms currently threaten land. Bertha had blustered across Bermuda earlier this week, knocking out electricity to thousands there.

###

Associated Press Writer Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report.

beach baby

Hello from sunny North Carolina! Despite dreading the 13-hour drive here with a 5-month-old, it wasn't too bad. Miss Olivia did fairly well in the car except for the last 30 minutes of the trip, where we had to sing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" on a constant loop to keep her from crying (we were getting desperate for new animals and were including beavers and other creatures whose noises we had to invent on the fly). We stopped in Spartanburg, SC on the way there and spent the night in a hotel for a little break. She went in a pool for the first time ever, which she was unsure about at first but grew to love. (Sidenote: I'm not sure what the deal is with swim diapers, but I'll just say they don't seem to work. So sorry, Holiday Inn Express.)

Olivia LOVES the ocean. We take her for walks at night in the Baby Bjorn and she coos and cackles and is otherwise gleeful. She also enjoys her admiring public. I'm not sure how this child has ended up such a social butterfly, but she is such a ham. She laughs and smiles and makes lots of noise whenever we pass anyone on the beach and keeps it up until they pay attention to her. The 18 or so relatives of ours who are here in different beach houses are more than happy to give her the attention she needs, so she's having a blast.

Her so-regular-you-could-bake-cookies-to-them 30-minute naps have extended a bit while we've been here, which has been nice. And she threw us for a loop two nights in a row by going to bed at 10 p.m. and sleeping until 4:30, having one bottle, and then sleeping again until 7:30. Sadly, the last two nights have been more her normal style: up until 11 p.m. or midnight, then up at 2 a.m., 3:30 a.m., 5:00 a.m., and so on. I was really hoping she'd turned a corner, but I realized this morning at 3:50 a.m. as I paced around the kitchen trying to get a wide-awake baby back to sleep, that I was very wrong.

Vacation is winding down -- most of the family is heading home tomorrow. It's strange to not be dreading going home and back to work ... because there is no work to go back to. We're talking about driving straight through instead of stopping, but that may be sheer madness. I'll keep you posted.


Fascinated by the ocean:
First dip:Hanging out on the porch with daddy, looking super cool: