passport for arden

we need to get arden a passport. we'll be heading up to vancouver in august. i looked at the government site for details and was totally overwhelmed. can anyone give me a clear description of what i need to do?

thanks!!

how has a month passed??

wow, i'm a slacker. there is so much to catch up on i'm going to use those tried and true bullet points. sorry, if the order of things is a bit jumbled :)

- arden can get into and out of a sitting position without help. we had seen her do it on the changing pad with help from the vanity mirror. but i discovered her sitting in the middle of her mattress during nap time. since then it's becoming more regular and seems to be getting easier.

- she is still trying to figure out crawling. she is awesome at arm crawling. she will get up on her hands and knees but will only do one or two steps. she's becoming a pro at push-ups and planks :)

- she has started climbing on things, primarily me.

- she likes to stand and walk with help. i'm a little afraid of encouraging walking too much since i was running at 7 months. scary! but it's so cute to see her face walking toward you.

- she loves to play with toys. she will deliberately go towards what she wants to play with. obviously that's a problem when it's the animals toys.

- did i tell you she fell out of our bed? scariest moment yet. wow. we never leave her alone on there any more. she was perfectly fine. just a little bruise on her back.

- we've purchased baby-proofing stuff. my intention is to install things this weekend. any tips are appreciated :)

- her increased mobility and awareness makes nursing more interesting. sometimes i wonder if i'm going to still have nipples when she's done :)

- she loves to nurse though. even if she gets distracted, she'll go right back to eating. we are doing pretty well on this front. i do worry sometimes if she's getting enough, but we just take it one day at a time. i would love to nurse her for a year.

- eating solids is going really well. she had seemed ambivalent about it until we switched to level 2 earth's best. she loves it! before she was eating like 1/2 an ounce at a time. now it's 2 oz. or more. she's tried so many things: rice cereal, oatmeal, carrot (puree and sticks), sweet potato, butternut squash, peas, spinach, brown rice, potato, watermelon, apple, pear, strawberry, peach, banana, and plum. some of these she eats whole with our supervision.

- yesterday she had a strawberry fresh from our garden :)

- she has three teeth now. two front bottom, and her left incisor.

- she knows how to bite. fortunately, this hasn't been while breastfeeding yet. but she will bite me when climbing on me. tips on how to deter this action would be lovely.

- anyone still reading this :) cheers if you are, i've got a lot more to say.

- the increased solid food has obviously changed her poop. it's funny to see chunks of carrot :) today she had her first solid turd. lovely, huh. she was grunting and groaning. she got so red in the face and was shaking her fists. i think she was/is a little dehydrated (we just got home from a trip to a very hot boise).

- she likes to drink water from any sort of container, except a bottle of course. she is getting pretty good at manipulating cups by herself. we still spot her though.

- our recent vacation had a lot of new experiences for her. we went to the aquarium, the zoo, drove to boise, went to my 10 year reunion (!!), went to bruneau sand dunes, ate sand, went to craters of the moon, played in lava sand, went to yellowstone, saw ol' faithful, saw a waterfall, went swimming, and drove home. there is so much more that i'll need to do another post

- being around my family and a lot of new people seems to have encouraged her to talk more. i love the new sounds she is making. she has become so much more interactive.

- she loves to play in the water, whether it's the bath or the pool. i can't wait till it's warm enough her to get out the kiddie pool.

- sleep got really messed up while on vacation. we are going to restart sleep training tonight. yesterday, she was so tired she fell asleep at 4:45, slept till 9:15, ate, went back to sleep till 12 something, then 3:30, then 6ish. i brought her to bed then and we slept till 8. THEN she took a nap from 10 to 12. i think she was a little tired :)

- since sleep is messed up i'll record what we hope to accomplish with our first stage of sleep training. we want her to go to bed at 7, without nursing to sleep. then we want her to sleep 6 hours before she gets to eat again. if she wakes before then, anna helps her back to sleep. after that, we want her to sleep 4 hours. each time i feed her, i put her back to bed before she falls asleep.

- our intention for naps is for her to sleep in her crib primarily and without being nursed to sleep. it's fine if she sleeps while on naps or on errands, but when we're home she goes in the crib.

i think i've covered everything. i'm really enjoying this stage. it's really exciting. she is exploding developmentally. i love watching and playing with her. she is such a joy :)

did anyone read my last post?

have i lost my readers? or did my last post get screwed up? i accidentally published before i was finished last time. maybe you didn't realize that i went back and wrote more than one paragraph :)

maybe everyone is off having early summer fun. hope you all have a good memorial day weekend! oh, and for those not in the u.s., i hope you have a good regular weekend :)

we've got the beet, we've got the beet, we've got the beet...

yeah! :) we decided to give beets a shot a while ago when we accidentally got some in our produce delivery. i did a simple sauté and really enjoyed them. i purposely ordered more for our recent box. i searched out a new recipe. i found a great sounding one in a new-to-me cookbook called feeding the whole family: cooking with whole foods. it has yummy recipes and includes suggestions at the bottom of each to help include younger family members. for example. i made "nina's famous spring beet soup." it suggested saving some of the cooked beets and carrots for the baby to eat.

nina's famous spring beet soup

prep time: 30 minutes

makes 4 servings

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil or butter

1 medium onion, cut into thing crescents

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon sea salt

3-4 cups water

1 bunch spring beets, cut into large matchsticks (save the beet greens)

1 large carrot, cut into large matchsticks

1/4 head green cabbage, shredded (i forgot to get this at the store, so we didn't include it)

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon tamari or shoyu

1 tablespoon snipped fresh dill or 1 teaspoon dried, for garnish

1/4 cup sour cream, for garnish

heat oil in a 4-quart pot. add onion, garlic, and salt; sauté until soft. add water, beets, carrot, and cabbage and bring to a boil. lower heat and simmer, covered for 10 to 15 minutes, until vegetables are tender.

meanwhile, wash beet greens, remove tough stems, and cut greens into short, thin strips. add beet greens, lemon juice, and tamari to soup; simmer another 3 to 5 minutes. serve at once, garnished with dill and sour cream.

for babies 10 months and older: remove some cooked beet and carrot pieces from the soup and puree or serve whole as finger foods. go easy on beets for babies (only a teaspoon or less at a time) as they have a strong cleansing effect on the bowels. (we just gave arden a raw carrot stick)

my input- i loved the soup. i forgot the cabbage and i don't think it was lacking because of it. also, the sour cream and dill were a really nice touch. i liked the tangy taste they added. i didn't use fresh squeezed lemon juice. i used one of those plastic lemon squeeze things you can get in the produce department. also, i had intended to add barley to the soup to make it more substantial. forgot to do it. i'm going to try it next time. it was a good meal, but not totally filling enough. the book suggested serving a tempeh dish alongside for a full meal. i figured making one dish while taking care of arden was enough :)

arden has been enjoying carrots for the past few days. we've been giving her earth's best carrots and yesterday we let her gnaw on a carrot stick. i think the carrot stick felt good on her gums. she isn't quite back to her usual happy self. i'm wondering if another tooth will come in. her sleep isn't horrible, but not awesome. she wakes up twice to eat and go back in the crib. then the third time i bring her to bed with us. i would love to take out one of those feedings. all in due time.

we've gotten into a routine for her morning nap. i've been wanting to get her away from napping in my lap. so now about an hour and a half to two hours after she wakes in the morning, we go to my bed. i nurse and once she is asleep i move away. i can then take a little nap too if the night was particularly rough or i can get up. she's been sleeping wonderfully this way. more often than not, she's slept for about an hour. this is a big improvement.

she can sit by herself now too. on sunday, she sat unassisted for 15 minutes. she doesn't always do so well, but it's neat to see her improve. she even caught herself a couple times when she was about to tip over.

she's really working on trying to move. she did a little bit of an army-crawl this morning. yesterday, when i went to wash her diapers, i left her playing in her room on the carpet. when i came back she had pushed herself backwards all the way to the wall between her car seat and a duffel bag of extra clothes for her. she didn't know how to get out of that space :) it was cute.

we're loving all the new things she can do. there are struggles because she has a very strong personality. but we love our big, little girl. she is amazing.

and just for fun. here is a photo of malo chillin' in the co-op bag.

aahhhh!

so we thought perhaps arden was allergic to peas, apples, or bananas (all foods she has recently tried). she's had a cold start over 2 weeks ago. she still has a very runny nose. then for the past 5 days she's had way more poopy diapers than usual. like almost all of them. annndd she's been waking up a lot more at night and fussier than usual during the afternoon.

turns out..... she has her first tooth! i was just playing with her, and, when she laughs, it's the perfect time to check her gums. i look on top. good, good, nothing there. look on bottom. wait, what's that? something white? something barely out of her gums? holy crap, it's a tooth! it's on the bottom, right side.

i'm excited. can you tell :) we'll see if i'm still excited after she bites me... :)

strongest baby ever

i'm cheating and doing another video post instead of writing. enjoy! and sorry it's sideways. i don't know how to rotate a video with my program...

puppy love

our little girl is becoming very interested in olive. she loves to reach out to her and thinks it's funny to get her hands licked.

this video shows massive cuteness so beware :) arden has been shunning the blanket i spread on the floor, while olive loves it. they've decided to reverse positions here. i love how olive seems like she is trying to understand what arden is saying.