My Name Is Now Mom

Time flies when you're crazy busy!  TerraDactyl is now 10 months old!  Her monthly photo shoots get more and more challenging the more mobile she gets.  I tried using the Wiwoo this time to keep her from immediately rolling over and crawling away.  And this is the face she gives me when I ask her to smile: You want me to what? When we got the furniture in the living room I rearranged everything, which means I created new places for TerraDactyl to explore.  And is she excited to explore them!  She's a climber.  Always trying to get higher. What do these light switches do?  (We don't actually know...) Somehow we still end up with totes of random stuff in the middle of the room.  But TerraDactyl enjoys them so much, I find myself leaving them around for longer than I should.  With all the random work we've been doing around both houses I managed to give myself a great blood blister right on the tip of my pinky.  TerraDactyl is very interested in it.  She keep

We had a great weekend.  We got so much stuff done...  it felt wonderful.  DH and I got rid of some furniture that didn't fit well in our new house, so it had just been hanging around in our carport.  Stuff like that really stresses DH out.  And TerraDactyl...  She learned she could put things INTO boxes!  Where did I leave my measuring cup? It was an accident at first.  She kind of tossed it and it just happened to land in a box.  But she was very excited about it.  What's this?!?! I love that photo.  It's blurry, but she was SO excited when she pulled that measuring cup out of the box.  It was just like a magic trick.  Ta Da! DH hung a towel bar for me in the kitchen.  I'm SUPER excited about this.  Previously, I had to walk across my kitchen to dry my hands.  It might not  sound  like a big deal, but when you've got a 9 month old hanging onto your legs, taking a few steps is a big production.  And when your hands are dripping and the baby'

Well, DH and I have finally passed the last milestone to official adulthood.  It's not having a baby - lots of people choose not to or can't have kids.  It's not buying a house - people in big cities often can't buy houses because big cities are insane (a completely unbiased fact).  And it has nothing to do with age.  Nope.  The last milestone to adult hood is:  buying non-IKEA furniture.  DH and I are big proponents of hand-me-downs.  And we've got by pretty well so far, thanks to our generous family and friends.  But we did need a new bed, and I fell in love with one, so we ended up paying retail for it.  It was on sale, at least.  And it's really cool. My log cabin quilt on my log bed Oh, did I forget to mention I bought a whole bedroom set?  Yeesh.  I don't usually care about things matching.  And I'm usually not a big spender, so I don't want to buy all the matching things.  But this was just too cool.  And the set was on sale!  I l

With the move and all that chaos, we were off schedule for about a month.  I've been trying to get back on it, but we were really struggling.  TerraDactyl wouldn't nap unless I held her and when I tried to get her to nap in her crib she was SO mad.  And then one day, she was quiet and I thought that meant she was sleeping...  Until I turned her monitor on and saw this: I think the reason we've still been struggling so hard is that TerraDactyl's schedule has changed!  As babies grow and develop, when they nap and how long they nap keeps changing.  The other day I think I accidentally stumbled upon better nap times for TerraDactyl.  Hopefully, I'm not jinxing us here. Obviously, the best part of a box of toys is the BOX! I finally found one of TerraDactyl's Christmas presents when I unpacked a box of books!  I built the blocks up into a big tower, but TerraDactyl only had eyes for the box they were stored in.  She ignored the giant tower.  At one point

I think TerraDactyl might be gearing up for another bout of teething.  I was taking a look at what pictures I was going to use for the blog and in just about every photo, she had a toy in her mouth. The travel toothpaste tube is a favorite toy TerraDactyl has designated bathroom toys that she chose for herself (a travel toothpaste tube, a toothbrush still in its package, and often a TP roll, depending on when the roll was last changed).  She found them in one of the drawers and I let her keep them.  But we always leave them in the bathroom when we're done.  Why?  By restricting access to these special toys means TerraDactyl is more excited when she gets to play with them.  That means I'm just about guaranteed 20 seconds where she's totally occupied and I can pee and get the toilet lid closed before she starts trying to stick her hand/face into the toilet.  Then it's just a race between me washing my hands and using a leg to try and block her as she tries to crawl

 TerraDactyl is still not walking yet, but that doesn't stop her from finding trouble.  She's constantly trying to play with Riley.  He's pretty patient with her, but he does occasionally try to escape her.  However, as her mobility increases, his escape locations are dwindling. Up on the fireplace hearth?  Easily within reach now. TerraDactyl's great at climbing.  She's been able to climb up on my mattress for a while now (it's still on the floor - so 10 inches).  But now...  She can get up on the hearth (12 inches) in a couple of seconds.  One more thing to keep an eye on. One day she'll be opening up this tiny door... TerraDactyl is still babbling, but she hasn't really added many new sounds/words.  She HAS, however, started doing the weirdest thing.  She purses her lips, scrunches up her nose, and then huffs in and out of her nose really quickly.  It's SO funny.  But it's really hard to catch.  I got the tail end of one of these

Little TerraDactyl is so active these days!  She's into everything.  She easily opens her dresser drawers and empties them onto the floor.  This is a new favorite game.  She's even learning to avoid smashing her fingers. The formerly organized book and toy shelf The pediatrician gave us a list of games to help with cognitive development.  One of activities was "removing and replacing objects from drawers and boxes, etc".  So far, TerraDactyl has only shown interest in removing objects.  All the objects.  She can empty out all her dresser drawers.  However, I try and direct her to her new toy box.  I'd rather replace the toys than re-fold the dresser items. The one item that she placed in the toy box??  Herself. I had to carefully choose the toy box.  It's soft and squishable.  If it were hard sided, she would use it to try and stand up and then it would tip and wack her on the forehead.  Not that this happened with the last toy box...  But really

We took a bit of a break from eating baby food while we were moving.  TerraDactyl's never been all that into real food and everything was just so hectic that it was just easier to breastfeed.  I didn't have to worry about refrigeration/heating, spoons, bibs, high chairs, or clean up.  It's actually quite handy. Bananas! When we got back to eating again, TerraDactyl was just as resistant to baby food as ever.  And at her most recent doctor's appointment the doc said that at some point, babies prefer regular human food, not just pureed mush.  Especially things they can feed themselves.  So we've started experimenting.  Bananas went pretty well for a while.  But only the super ripe ones with quite a bit of brown on the peel.  The beautiful yellow ones got rejected. Every cup is a sippy cup - it all depends on whether or not you're sipping! The doc also suggested getting TerraDactyl to try and use a cup.  We didn't have any sippy cups on hand, so w

Holy Moly!  It's been a crazy month!  We bought a new house.  So we had to pack up and move.  And then we had to fix up the old house and get it listed to sell.  And one of us (DH or I) is always useless.  Because someone has to take care of TerraDactyl.  Not because we're useless people.  ;)  With all the chaos, we're not totally moved into the new house, but here are some pictures: The front of our house This house has a lot more land than our last house.  Which means there's some pretty awesome stuff in the yard. Cool herb garden thing Raised beds with mature asparagus, some fruit trees, chicken coop and run The tan buildings above (house and shed) are the neighbor's, not ours.  But pretty much everything else in that picture is ours.  We also have trees!  So many trees.  We're basically bordered by a tiny forest on two sides.  And there's even a creek that runs through the corner of the property. Don't worry, we've containe