Food, Glorious Food

Sabine has now enjoyed both avacado and squash, with much success.



She's a fan of the solids in general, so far.





She's pretty much a fan of everything, actually. We're wondering if she's part goat.







Nothing is spared from the gumming and gnawing of Sabine's new tooth and a half. It's been fun watching her explore, especially now that she has started crawling. We've let her chew on anything that seems to be clean "enough," although a helpful hint to new and future parents out there: Green tissue paper is a Bad Idea. It turns a baby's mouth, fingers, and clothes very green in nanoseconds.

Friends

Rolling around on the floor together


The grab


Mmmm, kitty foot.


Resting


What the poor cat doesn't have to put up with to get a little attention.

Let the Heavenly Choirs Sing!

Sabine slept through the night last night!

And lo, there was much rejoicing.

8:00PM to 5:45AM (with one brief pacifier re-insertion around 3:00.) It may have been a fluke, the night before last she was up all night and inconsolable. But I will take sleep whenever it presents itself at this point. I literally have not NOT seen 4:00AM in six months.

There was another first last Friday, which I didn’t mention because I thought it deserved a post of its own. Sabine got the go-ahead from the doctor to start solid foods, so Friday night we broke out the high chair and the cereal and after an initial surprise of FOOD! ... UPRIGHT! ... SPOON? she was totally into it.

I’m sorry these pictures are blurry, my camera kept focusing on Dustin’s hand and I was so excited I didn’t even notice until after we were done.


The anticipation builds...


What the...


Oh, hey, wait...


I'm digging this....


Can you hurry it up, DAD?


Just give it to me, I can take it from here.

What is not documented are the ensuing huge grins and frantic, giddy arm-flapping because she did, indeed, decide it would be best if she took it from there, so we have had to put the camera down in order to wrangle both the bowl and the spoon from her fierce grip. For a tiny amount of cereal, she managed to cover quite a bit of her person with it.

We actually tried avocado for the first time last night, and that was a mess of green mush. But a successful mess, it appears she now prefers avocado to cereal. She may look like daddy, but she’s got mom’s tastes.

6 Months

Happy 6-month-iversary to our sweet little girl!

Firsts

This was a rough week to miss updating the blog, I feel like so much has happened!

Sabine is getting closer to crawling every day. She's been able to get up on all fours and rock for a while, and her legs got in on the action, but she's had some trouble coordinating her arms, which leads to a fair amount of face-plants. Just this evening, I'm happy to report that she finally got her arms to move! We have deemed her officially crawling. (ish.)

Sabine also had her six-month doctor's appointment today, and she got a clean bill of health. (Despite being jabbed with more needles, poor thing.) She now weighs 13 lbs 12 oz., which puts her in the 12th percentile for weight; she's 25.25" long, which puts her in the 35th percentile for length; and her head circumference is 16.75", which is in the 55th percentile. So she's still on the smaller, skinny side, and a bit top-heavy. Which is a recipe for perfection, as far as we can tell.

We're also working on sleep training, so we're trying to get another hour out of her at night, and trying to help her learn how to self-soothe so that we don't have to keep jumping out of bed every time she fusses. So far the results have been mixed, but she is no longer being swaddled and can now roll around in her crib to her heart's content. (And get up on all fours and bang her head against the side...somehow that is not conducive to the aforementioned self-soothing.)

And now for the reason I know you are here:

Pictures!



Enjoy that gummy smile now. Sabine had another first this week....



Her first tooth started to poke through on Thursday, on her bottom gum! We haven't gotten a picture yet, but we will certainly post it if we do manage to get one.

Easter

Sabine is not in want of clothes. She had two gorgeous Easter dresses, and was fortunately cooperative enough to deal with a mid-day costume change so that we could get a couple of pictures in both. Easter morning she walked the catwalk (aka: dining room table) in a lovely pastel yellow and lavender ensemble:





And in the afternoon she sported a pink floral gown, showing off her nearly-edible little baby arms in some very welcome sunshine:




(Flashing the You-Have-.06-Seconds-'Til-Complete-and-Utter-Meltdown expression)

And the day before Easter, Sabine wore her first pair of shoes. You can’t see it, but they happen to have cupcakes on the inside. Pink. With cupcakes. One of mommy’s all-time favorite combinations. sigh



It can sometimes be a sincere act of willpower to refrain from nibbling on her just a little bit.

Family

As I alluded to in the last post, we’ve gotten to see a lot of family recently. Uncle Eric and Aunt Diana were in town last week and got to see how much Sabine’s grown since Thanksgiving.



As Uncle Eric said, (and I paraphrase) you can see more than her tonsils in this family picture, so that’s already an improvement.



And this past weekend we got to see more of the Kitson side of the family; you all look good holding a baby. Just saying.



I didn’t get as many pictures of the extended family as I wanted to, since Sabine had started to melt down around the time I remembered to get my camera out. But here’s a picture of Sabine sporting a gift from Great-Aunt Diane, which will hopefully suffice. She did finally fit into her darling snowsuit just in time for the last (?) major snowstorm of the season. (I say, tempting Mother Nature.)

Almost Easter

Hello! I'm sorry we haven't had a chance to post new pictures in a while. I had my first business trip, which was also my first overnight away from Sabine. Overall, I think she fared much better than I did, in large part to the dynamic duo of our nanny and Grandmom, who kept the little girl very happy and entertained. (Extra thanks to Grandmom for pulling the long night shift with a teething five-month-old!) I also think it helped that I was able to make that trip before Sabine got into a separation anxiety phase.

We had a great, if short, visit with Uncle Eric and Aunt Diana last week, and we're looking forward to Easter with Dustin's extended family this weekend.

Our little bunny seems ready: