Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Our little eco-warrior learned to walk pushing the recycling bin around.  She also likes to sort for us.

Say Hi!

Since I've been TERRIBLE about updating here since sort of returning to a work-like schedule, I just started uploading videos dating back to...May...I think and I don't even know if I embedded all those I uploaded before, so I can kill a few posts with enticing video.  Here's one for the evening.

Optimism to a Fault

The eternal optimist.  When Cece woke up at 4:42 and couldn't be coaxed to sleep just a smidge longer, I decided it best to take advantage of our early start and go for a run and watch the sun rise.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.  Halfway through (so as far away as we were going to get) Cece started...not screaming, but I would say yelling.  Then I checked my phone for the sunrise time only to find that it already happened, ten minutes prior.  It wasn't all that spectacular.  So to all of you who were still sleeping, you didn't miss much.

Baby Dentures

A question we are asked quite frequently by family, friends, random passersby..."So how many teeth does she have now?"  To which we reply, "None."  Incredulous look, "None, not one, no teeth at all?"  That's correct...what do you think this is a game?  That I joke about my daughter's complete absence of teeth.  Well, I do... but not when answering a direct question for goodness sake.  

We've been expecting a tooth since, oh, four months.  That's when we were first told that a tooth was surely coming.  So, at this point, we've been waiting for a tooth as long (9 months) as we waited for a whole baby.  In reflection, when I heard that she would be getting her first tooth at 4 months, I was afraid of that situation, so looking back, it's all fine and dandy that she's going to need dentures (just kidding).  She's been able to eat everything put in front of her (that she WANTS to eat).  It hasn't hindered her ability to blow raspberries or drink from a cup, so really - what's the point of teeth anyway?  She drooled like a maniac around that four month mark, why - who knows?  The drooling stopped after she started wearing her baltic amber necklace (not saying it's a causal relationship, just saying).  

And every time I thought a tooth MUST be coming because she was acting like a lunatic, i.e. fussy, not sleeping, feverish, NOTHING happened.  NOTHING...which means, our daughter is just a lunatic sometimes.  GREAT!  For more reading on toothless babies, check out my friend, Rory's blog post on the same topic.  I really was planning to post this as well...great minds think alike!  And I figured I'd get this up before she (Cece) went ahead and got any teeth, thereby making this a far less amusing post.  I also hear that when she does get them now they'll be fast and furious.  That sounds like a really fun amusement park ride that I DON'T want to go on.  Come on, people - aren't we friends?  Why do you try to scare my pants off?  On the positive side, I hear she'll have better dental health the longer her teeth are delayed.  Well, yeah - there's a lot less chance of cavities if there are NO teeth to get the cavities.  A little obvious, no?  Sure does make for a great smile though!

Ruuuuunnnn

After thinking about Cece's fears, I recalled a race that I signed our family up for back in the spring.  It was called the "Black Sheep" 5K and it was called so for people running with strollers, running with dogs, or running with ear buds.  I thought this was a great opportunity to take Cecelia for a run in our jogging stroller donated by a class parent.  It was not until that day, upon arrival, that I thought, hmmm...perhaps this was not my best plan as I looked around at what seemed like millions (not really) of dogs.  Did I mention that Cecelia doesn't like dogs.  At this time she was still bursting into sobs when she saw a dog move toward her.  Now, always looking at the positive - this may have made me run faster, in an effort to stay ahead of the dogs so that she wouldn't see them and she'd never know they were there.  She did do well, especially since we swiveled the stroller around any time a dog was near.  The trouble with this particular fear is that dog owners don't always realize the fear that dogs can strike in the hearts of 9 month old babies.  But it was manageable, and Jeff won this cool hat.

Oh, and that was fun, having the organizers announce our names (uh, starts with a z...) not once, but three times.  Jeff won a prize in the category for running with ear buds and I won a prize in the category for running with a stroller.  I got third.  There were three women running with strollers.  You do the math.

Top Ten Irrational Fears

Here are a list of a few of Cece's irrational fears, which in reality aren't all that irrational when you're 2 feet tall and 17 pounds...

1) Loud Noises: vaccuum cleaner, hairdryer, food processor, blender, um, and other loud noises
   a) Except for fireworks and sonic booms created by air show jet pilots which she has consistently slept   through.

Cece sleeping through the 7th inning of the baseball game during which fireworks celebrated a home run.
Bonus: Jeff stuffing his face with popcorn!

1.    b) Are we seeing the irrational yet?

2) Animals: mostly pets i.e. cats and dogs...Cece shrieks and throws herself at the closest person.  As her pop-pop says, "Any ship in the harbor."  When she was even younger, she would visibly shake when an animal appeared.  She seems to be getting bolder.  She's very interested in what the animals are doing, but if they approach her all bets are off.

3) Stuffed animals: Cece does not reserve her worry to animals that live and breathe, but a stuffed animal can send her into a tizzy as well.  Nana likes to play a game with her monkeys where she tosses them to Cecelia and she runs (in her best toddler-esque running) from the room.

4) Action figures (animals here too): Nana brought over some small plastic (not too small, all you choking hazard folks) for Cece to play with and, again, she shook with fear.  I found this to be a good deterrant when we went to visit her cousins and she was trying to attack their plates while they ate lunch.  I put a dinosaur on either side of them and she did not approach again.

5) Some toys that make noise independently, sometimes: We have a fridge farm toy.  Sometimes Cecelia LOVES it when the song plays.  Sometimes she looks skeptically at it as if to say, "But how does it know?"

6) Your favorite and mine...the carseat:  I gave myself the blogging Murphy's Law kiss of death when I indicated in an earlier post that Cece was beginning to tolerate the carseat.  Wrong-o-wrong, wrong.  Now, we do our best to time any long car trips to correspond to nap time.  Two birds, one stone.  But if she wakes up on the way, or if she's in the car during an alert time, all bets are off - could be good, could be very, very (very) bad.  I've gotten better at tolerating such shenanigans.  In the early days, I ALWAYS pulled over to check on my baby girl, to get her out of that evil seat, and rock her, nurse her, love her, because she clearly NEEDED me.  Now, I call back, "eh - you're ok." And on we go.

7) Water: Again, not all the time, but she's not a lover of the pool.  She will be though, if it's the last thing I do that girl WILL love the water.

8) Sand: Such a girly girl, when her feet extend to sand, she recoils in disgust.  When I plopped her in the sand to see if "immersion" might do the trick, she proceeded to pluck sand from her tootsies one grain at a time.

9) Grass: As with sand, she just won't touch the stuff with her feet.  at. all.  So, silver lining here - if I put her on a blanket in the midst of either sand or grass, she's not going ANYWHERE.  Even though she's a fully mobile unit now, I can trap her on her very own island and know that she's not going to make a jail break.

10) Certain relatives: Sometimes she loves 'em, sometimes...not so much.  All in good time :)

Oh wait...did I mention the balloons?