Six Months Old!

We have loads of holiday/Austin updates (yes, we're still here), but first things first....

Norah is six months old! Cousin Megan lent us her furry purple chair for the occasion. She's hit some major milestones this month (and most within the last week), including manic rolling, sitting on her own, rocking, army crawling, and pulling herself up into the sitting position (video of that one to follow soon).

She is all personality. She spends most of her day laughing and smiling, but can furrow her brow like no other when she's frustrated. Sleep continues to elude us all, but we can't be too cross with her because she's so darn cute when she's awake.

Here is a quick list of things she is loving lately: books, avocado, bath time, rolling over, Sophie the $24 Giraffe, her new Curious George, sweet potatoes, her dad, the mobile over her changing table, the exersaucer, pulling hair, trying to crawl, playing peek-a-boo, playing airplane, the 'tick tock' song, other babies, spoons, remotes, and shoving everything and anything into her mouth.

Here is a quick list of things she is hating lately: napping and sleeping through the night.

She is the sweetest, funniest, and most endearing kid we know. I feel so very lucky to be her mom.





In the past week or so I think the thing I have been dreading most has become a reality--Norah is teething. I expect to not get a good night's sleep until 2012.

Norah says, 'Happy Holidays'

Major updates coming soon, we promise....

The Girl in the Purple Hat

My mom friend Kristiana takes awesome pictures of all the babies at our weekly play group. Last week Norah wore her new purple hat and it made for some of the best shots yet. Revel in her cuteness.

Sleep

Eh, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's um, not so good. She actually slept through the night a couple of times last week. We incorporated some crying it out techniques that we (and by we, I mean, I--BVZ is ready to get all Ferberized on her ass) are comfortable with and had some success. I am hesitant to do anything extreme before vacation, though, because I figure when you travel all bets are off.

I know her mobility has a lot to do with her restless sleep. Poor thing is a big kid trapped in a 5 month old body, so I know she's frustrated. I can tell she just wants to run around and play kickball or something, but has to be satisfied with dumb 'ole rolling over. Every morning I find her in a different place in the crib then where I left her, so she's either moving like crazy or she is some kind of demon baby.

Party Animal

Norah was quite the social butterfly this weekend. On Saturday we went to sweet Annmarie's first birthday party at a fun pizza place in the city. Annmarie's parents sure know how to throw an awesome first birthday party. There were no clowns, no balloon animals, no baby games. There was however, all you could eat pizza and all you could drink beer. Don't worry, we're taking notes.

BVZ was on Norah duty.

The birthday girl with her mom...

And her dad...

Sunday we went to a holiday party at the home of one of my parent group friends. Norah got to hang out and wrestle with her friends, so she was stoked. I asked BVZ to take a good picture of me and Norah while she was wearing her cute holiday outfit. This is as good as it gets.

Moon Walker

Norah is on the move. She can now successfully scoot herself across the floor...backwards. BVZ calls it her moon walking. She hasn't figured out forward motion just yet, but she's got going backwards and in circles down pat. She only stops long enough to stick plastic rings in her pie hole.

New Shoes

I see no reason for babies to wear shoes before they start walking. However, it is cold here these days and Norah refuses to keep her socks on. She will either pull them off or try to eat them. In an effort to protect her from hypothermia, I got her these cute booties that she can't pull off.

When she wears them without pants it totally reminds me of when Hollywood celebrities wear Ugg boots in the middle of summer with denim shorts. I told you she would be a fashion maven.

More Food

I was convinced that the avocado Norah ate a few weeks ago was the cause of her recent, more extreme sleep disturbances. Both the pediatrician and my lactation consultant say I am making that up in order to feel better about the fact that she doesn't sleep (more on that sleep thing in a later post). So, we bit the bullet and had a little rice cereal this morning. I tasted it and it's pretty disgusting.

Norah was moderately into it. But, in true Norah fashion she didn't want me to feed her, she wanted to feed herself. We went with it, but that meant very little cereal made it into her mouth. We'll get there.




Look how much hair she has! It is FINALLY growing back. When she was born it was so dark and what is growing back now is so much lighter. Almost blonde. Nothing against the blondies, but as the dark haired sister in a family of nothing but blondes, I was hoping Norah would follow in my foot steps. We were at Peet's Coffee the other day and some lady said, 'oh look she's such a pretty redhead.' Here's hoping!

#25 Buy at least 5 gifts for an Angel Tree this Christmas

On Monday, Norah and I went to the mall (ugh, the mall) to buy our gifts for the Angel Tree. Last year I was very dismayed to see that the Angel Tree in this particular mall wasn't out in the open where people could actually SEE it, but rather stuffed in the corner of the information office. Sort of defeats the purpose, if you ask me.

So, we cruised into the information office and asked about the tree only to be told that 'due to lack of interest' the mall was not doing an Angel Tree this year. They were completely unfazed by my opinion that interest would go way up if people shopping knew that the tree even existed. Whatever. There was, however, a Toys for Tots kiosk and I chatted a bit with the officer manning the booth. He said he could tell a marked difference in this year versus previous years (the bad economy and all), and donations were way down. Norah picked out a whole bunch of cute stuffed monkeys that had warm blankets attached to them. A toy and something practical at the same time.

Norah gets a new coat

It's cold here and Norah needed a coat. Shockingly, it was hard to find one. I went to three different places and could only find coats with ears. We went to the post office today, and apparently when Norah wears a brown coat with ears she looks like a boy.

We are in so much trouble....

This is how I left Norah and went to get a glass of water.....

And this is how I found her 15 seconds later. How she managed this so quickly that I have no idea.

(I actually took the first picture after I discovered her escape and put her in the original position again).

Diapers, Diapers, Everywhere....

Before Norah was born we seriously contemplated doing cloth diapers. Cloth diapers have come a long way in recent years. They are no longer just triangles of fabric with piercing diapers pins, rather they have rather sophisticated outside covers and a wide variety of choices when it comes to the actual diaper part. There are tons of different brands and options and a whole cloth diaper society out there. I knew there was no way we could handle washing them ourselves, I avoid putting baby shit in the same machine I wash my clothes in if at all possible. A service, while pricey, was actually pretty comparable to what we would pay in disposables. However, even then we had to consider the environmental impact all of that water and detergent has (not to mention all the aforementioned baby shit returning to the water source). In many ways I felt we were damned either way.

Ultimately, however, convenience on our part won out and we decided to go with disposables. But, we do use Seventh Generation disposables which are chlorine free (meaning they will eventually biodegrade) and don't use the same chemical processing as the other disposables. Plus, they are great on her sensitive skin and are plain beige (no silly cartoon characters). I try and off-set Norah's carbon footprint in other ways--for example, we never ever EVER take plastic bags from any store. I have been known to be at the grocery store or Target with a cart and leave if I have forgotten the reusable bags. At a drugstore or clothing store we either go bagless or I use a canvas bag. I know it doesn't counteract the impact of kabillion diapers we will ultimately dump in a landfill, but every little bit helps.

Anyway, back to my point of this long winded post. This morning at 5 am Norah had a blow out and BVZ went to change her. After a few seconds I hear, 'I think we're out of freaking diapers.' He was in fact correct. There were no diapers in her basket, her closet, or her diaper bag. How this could have possibly happened, I have no idea. How we could have not noticed this when there were only one or two left, I have no idea. You can't get Seventh Generations at the 24 hour Safeway down the street, so we were left with the only alternative--put her in the Pampers that the hospital sent home with us when she was born. Since she was a gigantic baby they gave us a bigger size and so while snug on her now, they at least got us through until Whole Foods opened and we could get her regular wear (which, by the way, we order diapers online and at WF they were $4 MORE a package! That's CRAZY).

And if you made it all the way through this relatively uninteresting post, you are rewarded with a cute as pie baby girl smile.

Oh the difference that 4 months makes....

I probably will still be weighing her when she's 18.



By the way, check out the cute pj's in the second picture. I call them her 'clown pj's' and BVZ calls them her 'Rigoletto pj's'. And that, my friends, is the difference between the El Paso and Piedmont public school systems....

Group Therapy

We log a lot of hours every week at Day One. It's a great place for me to commiserate with other moms and Norah to wrestle other babies. We've both made a lot of amazing friends.

One mom has been taking pictures of all the babies lately, so in a year we won't forget how little they once were.

Norah's First Thanksgiving

Norah was very thankful to get to spend her very first Thanksgiving with mom, dad, Grandma Geri and Aunt Vanessa. Here she is in her very special party dress (courtesy of Auntie K):

Since we will be in Austin for Christmas this was also our chance to celebrate the Christmas holiday with the VZ's. Here is Norah getting to open her very first gift. She was into it. Into eating it, that is.

After Norah snacked on some wrapping paper, it was time for dinner. Vanessa knocked herself out making a spectacular turkey dinner with all the fixings.

Three generations of VZ's...

Norah wore her turkey bib (thanks Grammy), but all she got for dinner was breastmilk (it's tough being a baby).

The next day she got to open the rest of her presents. This time she did some gnawing on a box or two...


She got a bunch of great toys from Grandma and a scary stuffed Lemur from Aunt Vanessa.


She also got a book about a creepy, yet awesome, bunny named Gaspard.

We then went golfing (thankfully, no one got conked in the head by any stray golf balls), with Norah tucked safely away in the Ergo carrier. After golf she got to do her very favorite thing--pick lemons.


We had cocktail hour on Grandma's veranda.

Aunt Vanessa proved to be the perfect wrestling partner for Norah, and best thing of all--she wears her hair down! This allowed Norah to grab handful after handful, and Aunt Vanessa gave her the perfect wrestling name: Norah 'Storkbite' VZ.

Hanging out is so exhausting and can only be cured by watching football with dad.

It was a great holiday and we are very thankful Grandma and Aunt Vanessa made it so special for our girl.