Baby Cussing, Cheerios, and Runny Noses

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:33:33 -0700

As new parents, we have learned that there is a period of time between when your baby knows what she wants to tell you, and when she can actually form the words in English to tell you. We are now in that time. You can tell by her mumblings and squeals when she is any of the 3 baby emotions: happy, crabby, and tired. When she is crabby, there is a very specific type of baby talk that Rachel has developed. It usually only happens after we have taken away something that she wants to play with like silverware or the remote. She snarls her lip up a little bit, and out comes these mumblings that are distinct from any other noises she makes. We have decided that it is baby cussing. She is not using any English, but she is definitely letting us know what she thinks of our parenting at that exact moment. From what we hear from other parents, it is not uncommon.
Rachel has spent a good portion of her 11th month either eating cheerios or telling us that she wants to eat cheerios. We have attempted to teach some basic sign language like the signs for “milk”, “more”, and “finished.” With us both being teachers, you might expect that this has gone smoothly. It has not. She first started doing the “milk” sign now and then when we would bring her bottle. This seemed like a success until we realized that she would do the “milk” sign when she wanted anything. Usually this was cheerios. We then tried to get her to sign “more” when she wanted more of something. Well it turns out that she always wants more cheerios, so I am sure you can guess that the “more” sign became for sign for cheerios. We then tried to teach her the sign for “finished”, but as she is never finished with cheerios, we have yet to teach this sign in context. She has learned one extra sign that we did not teach her. For this sign she bangs her hands on the table and cusses at us in baby language. This sign means “More Cheerios.”
Rachel is growing and changing daily. Her teeth are breaking through in several places on both the top and bottom, and her nose runs like crazy. We think it is a little strange, but evidently that is what happens with teething. She is also darn close to walking. She pushes everything around, and recently acquired a walk-behind car. Turning is still a little rough, but we think she won’t need it before too long. We love spending time with her every day, and count our blessings daily. Pictures are below.

Rachel's Eleventh Month

Rachel with Zeek

Halloween and The Zoo

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:06:51 -0700

Rachel’s 10th month included her very first Halloween. As you can tell from the picture above, she went as a pumpkin. She is the pumpkin on the left in the photo. The one on the right is a real pumpkin, for those of you that are either pumpkin or costume challenged. How many Halloween costumes are there for babies? It seems like based on their size and relative plumpness, you only have a few options. You can obviously dress them as some sort of round vegetable, such as a pumpkin, or a very chubby animal. I personally have seen lots of fat monkeys and lions with huge manes. I don’t think you could make a recognizable super hero costume with their size, and it seems like the popular clown or monster costume just wouldn’t look right. Well, at least she was a very cute pumpkin. I am looking forward to the Halloween in the future when she realizes that she can get free candy from people just by dressing up like a witch or a princess, and saying a simple phrase. During this month, Rachel also visited the Denver Zoo for the first time with Nana and Papa Braunstein. It is kind of surprising how uninterested she was in all of these strange creatures. I would think that if I was a foot and a half tall and weighed 17 pounds, I would be a little frightened by a lion or a gorilla. It was the Boo at the Zoo day, so at least we got another day of use out of the pumpkin costume. Overall, Rachel is doing very well and we love her more and more each day. We have been taking some new video, so hopefully we will have that up next month. We really want to reprise the bath video, as we have learned a few things since then and bath time is a lot less dramatic! New pictures are below.

Rachel's Tenth Month

Rachel with Zeek

She Is Mobile!

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:58:26 -0600

Your life changes when you have a child. As we have learned this month, your life REALLY changes when your child becomes mobile. It is not hard to tell where Rachel has been in our house over the past month. It usually goes something like this: 1. Coffee Table - Runner gets pulled off taking the remote, cell phones, and a full coke onto the floor. Hopefully the coke does not explode causing Allena to scream at the top of her lungs, almost causing Rick to call 911 before even entering the room 2. Entertainment Center - All of the DVDs get thrown on the floor. No discretion is given to either Quentin Tarantino or Baby Einstein. 3. Dining Room - Magazines get pulled out of the basket, covers are torn off and thoroughly soaked with baby saliva. 4. Kitchen - all of the baby food gets pulled off the shelf and scattered around. Rolling baby food jars are a source of entertainment for a short time. The dog water bowl gets tipped over and water covers the kitchen floor. 5. Rachel looks up at Mom and Dad as if to say “I’m bored, isn’t there anything to do in this house?”
Rachel has also spent a portion of this month learning about football from her dad. She has already attended her first CU tailgate. She seemed to enjoy it, and already has asked her dad for season tickets. He has refused until she can sing the fight songs from memory. She has also watched more football on TV than any 9 month old should. If you ask Rick, it is a small tradeoff for a daughter that can tell the difference between a false start, an illegal formation, and offsides. You should hear her scream at the referee! Overall it has been another wonderful month for Rachel, and the entire family feels very blessed and lucky. Check out the 9 month pictures below, they include her latest visit to the photographer.

Rachel's Ninth Month

Rachel with Zeek

The Superfluous Elbow

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:43:35 -0600

During our short time as parents we have been amazed that as infants turn into babies, their little bodies change very quickly in both proportion and size. As we have watched Rachel grow over the past few months we have noticed a few things. First, Rachel has retained her large head size from being a 1 hour old baby until today. Judging from her dad’s giant noggin, that is unlikely to change any time soon. Second, we have learned that Rachel has what looks like an extra elbow on each arm. This superfluous elbow seems to be spaced right in between her real elbow and her wrist. This “feature” does not seem to serve any purpose other than bunching up her skin when she bends her elbow. We wonder what might happen if her arm were to bend without this little “bonus joint”? Would a big chunk of baby fat and skin keep her from bending her elbow more than 15°? Would her forearm ballon to the size of Hulk Hogan’s biceps? Either way, we are very happy that she developed the extra elbow so she can efficiently bring Zeek’s toys to her mouth to chew on them.
Speaking of Zeek’s toys, Rachel spent her entire 8th month trying to chew on anything she could get her hands on. She is enjoying eating solid foods, and seems to be excited for the day when she can eat real food. She also likes to chew on anything and everything with her two bottom chompers. We are expecting top teeth any day now. Rachel has taken a liking to trying to drink whatever daddy is drinking. This usually doesn’t cause much of a problem, but has been fairly embarrassing at a party or two. This brings up Rick’s idea for baby bottle designs. Ask him about it sometime! Rachel is pulling herself up on toys, boxes and furniture constantly now. She seems to be very motivated to be on her feet, and we imagine she will be walking before we know it. It was a great month for both baby and parents, and we are looking forward to the 1st year home stretch. We just hope that there aren’t any more new joints. As always, links to pictures are listed below.

Rachel's Eighth Month

Rachel with Zeek

Wow. This Post is late!

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:26:39 -0600

Not that it is an excuse for being two weeks late with this post, but it has been a busy month. Both Rick and Allena started new school years in early August, and Rachel somehow found a way to get even cuter! Rachel became somewhat mobile this month, learning to crawl to get to things she really wants. This usually consists of TV remotes, cell phones, and dog toys. She never seems too interested in crawling to one of the 500 baby toys we have in our house these days. Rachel also seems to be finding new ways to interact with people. She smiles at strangers, claps her hands, and grabs faces. She has also learned this thing where she shakes her head from side to side and squeals. It is almost like she is saying “No Mommy and Daddy, I’m not always going to be this cute. Wait until I am a teenager!” Maybe not, but that is what we keep hearing. Rachel has continued with her experiment with solid foods this month. She seems to like everything except bananas. Allena tried the bananas, and she found them a little strange. Rick thought it was strange that Allena tried the bananas in the first place. Rachel tried swimming for the first time this month with Papa and Nana Braunstein. She seemed mildly entertained by it for a while, but then changed her mind and found being bundled up on Allena’s lap much more comforting. It seems like the months are flying by now. We look back at the previous pictures and cannot imagine her being that small. We are consistently amazed by how perfect our little girl is and are excited to experience another month of new experiences with her.

The Zeek picture is especially cute this month, and the 7th month gallery is up as well.

Rachel's Seventh Month

Rachel with Zeek