The closest she's ever gotten to crawling

This is usually where P sits while I'm on the
computer, in our spare room, as there's no other
place to put the office, yet. The view of her is
how I see her, sitting at the desk. Tonight she
was pretty cranky, and I had her sitting there,
and she was just desperate to get to me, crying
and reaching, when voila! she started to get the
idea of, "hey, I can move myself!"



First attempt. Her left leg swings
behind her, but she hasn't figured
out to move her other leg back, so
she ends up in an awkward (and I'm sure
uncomfortable) position. Actually, it
resembles a yoga position I was doing
earlier today, but I don't think she's
looking for zen. Maybe a milk zen.

Then we fall all the way forward, and get really
angry, because we HATE TO BE ON OUR
STOMACH. And yes, she is playing with a credit
card. Target. I'm teaching her early.

Bath Hair

Paisley is getting to the stage where she is getting into EVERYTHING! I feel like I can't turn my back for a moment without her finding something to chew on. We've already seen the plate incident, the other morning I put her on the floor so I could put in my contacts when Charles noticed that she somehow had found a penny on the floor. This morning I put her in her usual play spot while I went to scoop litter, came back and she had found a magazine, torn a few pages off and was proceeding to eat as much as possible. And as i've mentioned before, she's not even mobile.

Mischievous Girl

I was feeding P the other day, already frustrated
because she had grabbed the spoon from my
hand and flung food everywhere. I had been
eating lunch as well, went to rinse out her bowl,
and heard a huge crash. She somehow managed
to reach my plate and fling it on the floor. She's not
even crawling-I can't imagine what kind of destruction
she'll do when she's mobile.

She looks pretty proud of herself. Even
the cat is impressed, since he's usually
the one causing the problems.

How does she know?

How does she know not to wake up
from her nap while I'm doing laundry,
dishes, emptying cat litter, watering
flowers, cleaning animal puke off of
the floor, but rather to wake up
THE MOMENT I sit down to scrapbook?
How does she do it?

Her newest trick is to say "dadada"
over and over. Not really sure if
she knows what it means...but the
other morning when she saw Charles
she very clearly said "DADA!"



Check out the ring of curls at the back of her head.

Chlorine water is SO GOOD

If we can't afford a built in pool, this is (almost)
the next best thing. At least no one will see me
in my swimming suit at the city pool.

The water was soooooooo cold, it
wasn't really much fun. Paisley didn't
seem to mind, even when she turned
an odd shade of purple and started
shivering.

See, THERE'S the Walker in her.

Feeding time

Dinner.

Dessert.

Daddy's Girl

I ADORE this picture. It looks like they're
sharing some intimate secret.

No, these are not my legs. She's going for the goodies.

"Why mama? Why?"

Small town fun

This is her hair. It's not a wig, there's no
product in it, we don't style it. It
just keeps getting bigger and bigger and I
have no intention of cutting it.

We're training her good and early with the
animals.

Our town had a "parade" yesterday, which we
thought P would like. I'm not really sure why
we thought an 8 month old wanted to watch
cars drive by, but she definitely did not like the
fire engines. She screamed right along with the
loud sirens.


It was a pretty sad parade...mostly trucks
promoting their businesses. I did think the Red
Hat Ladies were cute.

Banjo playing go carts.

I never did understand why this man was in
a bathtub.

All tuckered out.

Finch

We have a finch living in our garage. We found
it last night, and it had blood all over it's wings.
We tried to shoo it outside, but it just kept
returning, so we gave it some food and water.
He seems really content to live in the garage,
I've had the door open all day, but he won't leave.

I love being a stay at home mom, but sometimes
life can be so routine, that the most interesting
thing in my life is the bird living in our garage.

This is her "there's a cat near me!" face.





These pictures just make me smile-
she's such a goofball.

Flower Girl

Is it just me, or does it seem like
she's holding her arms like this in
EVERY picture?

Cheese. Charles says she gets this
fake grin from me...but I think it's
the complete adorableness that she
gets from me.

She's pretty much done with her
grumpy phase. I guess she really
wasn't teething. Her new thing is
to scream if something gets taken
away from her. Charles and I aren't
quite sure how to handle this, are
we teaching her bad habits if we give
the object back? Or is she too young
to understand?


I believe she was trying to "pet"
a cat here. They've learned to stay
away from her, although she's been
bit more times than I like to admit.
I take the blame for that.

More zoo pics

Sheer joy? It was so hot and humid, her hair
turned into a big curly mess.

This one's for you, Kate.

A really big cat

We took P to the Topeka Zoo yesterday,
which is much nicer than the Manhattan
zoo. As I've typed the last two sentences,
Paisley has managed to hit her head
TWICE!!! How? When did she go from
being a little helpless baby to an almost
mobile, manipulative baby? Anyway,
we think she enjoyed the zoo, she was
really happy for the few hours we were
there. Even happier after we got her
out of the stroller, since she started
screaming the minute we put her in it.
See what I mean about manipulative?
Of course my picture service isn't working,
so I can only post this one picture. She
liked the goats though, as they didn't hiss
at her when she poked their faces.

It's amazing how much happier she's been since I've been feeding her more

but she started screaming as soon as
I typed the title. So I guess that thoery
doesn't work so well.

I had a dream that all of her teeth
came in during one night. Yep, all
46 of them.

This makes me happy...

Despite the sunburn, headache, and general
smelliness from being outside in the heat, I
love my garden! I doubt anyone else much
cares, but it's my little piece of heaven.

Look! Grass!





She'll hate me for this one day.

Help me. Help me help me help me help me...

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to
comfort a teething child? NOTHING seems
to help, and it just hurts to watch her so upset.
I've shoved tylenol down her throat, rubbed
her gums with orajel, given her everything cold
and/or hard in the house to stick in her mouth,
held her, rocked her, put her down, played with
her, read to her, all to no avail. I finally put her
in her crib, hoping that she may fall asleep...
although I can hear her in there crying, talking
and kicking the mattress. ANY suggestions
would be appreciated...