Nap Time

Miss Fusspants has not been excited about sleeping lately. I suppose Miss Fusspants is never excited about sleeping, since I reserve the name Fusspants for such occasions. I don't know if she is teething or something else is going on, but man! She will get sleepy and rub her eyes, followed by getting upset with whatever she is doing. Done jumping? YES! Done with everything else? YES! Ready to sleep? YES! In your crib? NO!

We've been trying to just put her up there and let her go to sleep, which used to work, but now she wants to fall asleep with us holding her. Heidi and I hope she is just teething again, but maybe not. It's these times that give me boob envy; if she's really fussy, Heidi can just feed her and usually that does it. Not for the James! Hannah has taken to sucking on my shoulder, and then when it doesn't give her milk she bites and tugs. I tell her no, mostly for Heidi's sake. There we go...no more boob envy: biting and tugging doesn't sound like so much fun.

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Deciding on a post title is hard...

...when you haven't posted in a while. It seems as though I have more trouble giving occasional updates than short everyday blurbs.

So here is what Hannah is doing. She is being 7 months old today! Unfortunately we didn't have quite as much milk as usual and her schedule was thrown off, so she was on the fussy side for her 7 monthiversary. She never fusses when I hold her though, so I guess things could be worse.

I'm getting frustrated with reading to her since the only thing she wants to do is chew on the book, which I guess makes sense, but we're trying to teach her not to do that. Maybe the key is to read her bigger books (in terms of page size), so that she has more trouble getting them up to her mouth. I'm afraid that if I keep pulling the book away from her then she will associate books with suckitude. No, baby Hannah! Books have rockitude if anything.

Hannah is also working on standing up better by herself, but no crawling yet. She was scootching her butt up for a while and so far hasn't gotten past that. I really need to give her more tummy time, except she has never enjoyed that. Not one bit. Time to make her suffer through it, because life is hard. Never too early to pressure your kids into catching up with their peers!

I am starting to think that she is getting the concept of rhythm, which is really pretty cool. Not very many animals can do that. If you think about it, rhythm requires recognizing a pattern that has occurred, is occurring, and that you believe will continue to occur unchanged. She can predict the future! Which is totally why we had a kid to start with.

Heidi is starting to talk about cutting Hannah's hair. I am firmly against this. It is so cute! And so are her little ponytails!

Hannah and I have been doing this cute little thing where we put our heads together and touch noses. She likes it so much that she has been doing it with other things too. Things that are not gentle like dad. I suppose she has to figure out that she can't smash her face into everything at some point. Again, life is hard! And so is the exersaucer!

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Swim Lessons

I can't believe that it is already time to post about Hannah's first swim lessons! Unbelievable! Given her enjoyment of bath time, we expected to have a little fish on our hands. What we did not take into account was that when presented with something new, she just stays cool:

She was the youngest in her class by a couple months, but was not at all afraid of the water. Usually in her baths, if she splashes herself in the face she will just blink a couple of times, look at us, and go back to playing. Pretty much the same thing happened. Here is a little more cuteness:
Swim lessons are going to be every Saturday for a little while. It kind of makes me miss swimming, and got us talking about how I should start working out. I don't really feel like I have a place in my schedule for that, but it's a good habit to start. At any rate, I got a new pair of shoes out of the conversation. It was about time, since I was wearing the pair that I bought in 2002, and they were starting to look a little worn out. 

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Happenings of Late

One thing I have enjoyed about writing this blog is that it gives me a time to reflect on what has been going on in my life. I was thinking about what to title this post, and it took a while to remember what all had happened in one week. Too much for a concise title apparently.

Looking back in two years, I would probably be able to come up with: Hannah was 6.5 months, I was her father and a grad student, and Heidi and I didn't see each other much. Good job future James! You are correct, but missing the fun details.

For starters, over the weekend we went to my parents' house. We picked up one of my aunts from the airport the night before and drove her as well. My aunt and uncle from Rhode Island along with their kids were also there. Kind of a bit hectic at first. My Dad was set on canoing and kayaking (not contemporaneously for any one person, although that could be interesting) and shortly after arriving I found myself in a canoe with my cousin. Dad, I know I set this bookmark up on Mom's computer, so I would like to reiterate something: "Yes, it is shallow and moderately rapid" is not an internally consistent response to the question "Is it a good river for canoing?". Perhaps "No, it is shallow and moderately rapid" or "Yes, it is deep and slow" or even "Yes, it is deep and moderately rapid, but there are no trees hanging over the river into which the rapids try to pull you." Or maybe we already talked about this. I guess all that to say, I have never, never accidentally tipped a canoe. Before last weekend.

I think we still had a good time. The rest of the weekend was a bit more relaxing, and I came home well fed. The above photo is Hannah and I relaxing in their backyard. Here is Hannah chewing on Heidi's sweatshirt string:

Then on Labor Day we went over to our friends' house. They have a beautiful 10 month old daughter, Jade, with whom Hannah was delighted to play. There was also a 1 year old boy there, but he was too busy using his new found walking skills to be caught by the camera. Jade was kind enough to try to share some cracker:

I love the next picture, since they both look like they're posing like gangstas.

Jade: Why you gotta be frontin'? You want a piece of this?

Hannah: Wazzup wazzup!?

They make a pretty tough posse.

In other news, Hannah has graduated to the big bathtub. She seemed to really enjoy herself.

A little note for us to look back on:

Hannah is learning to clap. The waving that she learned a couple weeks ago really is waving - she's just selective with the timing. Last week she learned how to hold things in both hands at the same time and to hit them together.

That should do it for now. I would like to leave you with a suggestion to check today's Dinosaur Comics (number 1548). Why would we ever start calling them intestines instead?

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Daddy's Bad Idea

Heidi and I were cleaning up on Sunday and moving some furniture when Hannah filled up her diaper (messy kind). So I asked Heidi for some help, and we headed upstairs. Usually when we change her poopy diapers, it ends up squishing out the back. This time it hadn't gotten up her back yet, but it was primed and ready with a big pocket of it caught at the top of her diaper. My logical conclusion from this was: "Let's change her standing up."

Genius!

So we took all her clothes off and wiped her butt clean. Heidi asked me to hand her a cloth diaper insert to put under her, in case she peed. That's in case Hannah peed, not Heidi. And she did pee. And Heidi was ready for it, except that she wasn't. Instead of holding her over the changing pad and the cloth diaper insert, she held her over the carpet.

I guess it might not have been the worst idea, if it weren't for the pee. Anyway, it was at least humorous for those involved.

In other news, Hannah has been super cute lately. Although that's not really news, it's more of recurrings. So in recurrings, Hannah has been super cute lately. She has started to make shrieking sounds when she inhales, something I taught her with a little imitation I like to call "The Raptor". Previously, the raptor has been involved in all sorts of goings ons, most eventfully the breaking of a towelbar at my parents house. I can't do the impression too much, as it hurts both my vocal chords and my nipples. Go ahead and use your imagination, Mr and Mrs Interwebs. Hannah always thought the raptor noise was pretty funny, then she started to imitate the sounds. So we had raptor conversations, except toned down. She was adorable trying to get it right; at first she would just inhale really slowly and maybe eeck out a sound or two. She got it under control pretty quickly though, and now we can go back and forth shrieking at each other. Neat! She has also been learning that she can make all of her sounds quieter, so we have been treated to some soft coos and beautiful seranades. I have been intending to get a video of some of this, so perhaps soon.

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