Photos of Dahlia!

Grandpa Larry came for a visit from San Diego last Friday. Dahlia saw Grandpa Jeff in the evening too so it was a 2 Grandpa day!

Guess who's teething?! The cold wash rag helps. Ouch. Poor baby!

"Thanks for the Oiseau sweatshirt Auntie Stina! It's sooo cozy!"

Sit Ubu Sit!

Great grandma Arlene gave Dahlia a 4 piece layette. She wore it all around town today! Thanks Arlene! It's beautiful!

Okay, well maybe D was propped in the above photo. She fell over onto the soft chair and just look how tired she is. Nap time!

Today I met the nanny of a neighbor. I took a "high school yearbook" photo of the babies so they can show just how long they have been friends. Let's see... graduation date 2024? This is Abby. She is 6 months old. D is 4 1/2 months old.

Muppet has rarely met a pillow she didn't like.

Leaps and Bounds!

Dahlia has reached three milestones in the last few days.

She is cutting her first tooth. It's on the bottom left. It hasn't reached the gum yet, but it's visible by just a smidgen. We noticed it on Friday when she was fussing while eating. We gave her a little Children's Tylenol so she could sleep that night, but other than that, it hasn't been a bother.

Yesterday Dahlia sat up unassisted for a few seconds. She flopped forward, but she's definitely on her way to independence from propping mechanisms. It will be easier for me to bathe her when she can sit up. She kicks so much in the bathtub that I had to buy an inflatable, toddler tub she she didn't hurt herself.

This morning Dahlia rolled over to her left side. She's been rolling right for over a month, but today she decided to go left.

I can't believe how fast she's growing! We have been supplementing breast milk with formula for the last couple days and since then she has been happier, sleeps better and longer and is more active when she's awake. I think a gradual shift to solids, including formula will be better for both of us, especially with me heading back to work. I'm scared of the pain of having too much milk and having to stop cold turkey.

We plan to start her on solids in mid September. The doctor says to give her rice cereal mixed with breast milk because the consistence will be different, but it will taste normal to the baby. I say peaches or pears! Besides, the rice cereal I found at Babies R Us (I've always hated that name) has 10 unpronounceable words in the ingredients. R-I-C-E. That's the only ingredient I want to see on the packaging.

Despite the fact that I want to make all D's baby food with a hand grinder, I was also scoping out baby food at the grocery food. In the "Natural" food section, in the freezer, there is an organic, per-made baby food product. They had 1 or 2 ingredients, so we may try that out too.

French Country Cliché

Just a short rant about "French Country".

I'm sick of picking up books and periodicals about French Country decorating only to find that they are written by stupid Americans. American women of a certain genre love all things French and you know what? It gets old! Bohemian French, Country French, Parisian, Provencal... whatever!

Some chick from Utah wrote a book about "junk shop French" and she had never even been to France! I'm not saying the author needs to speak French fluently, just that one should maintain a certain level of credibility if they are going to act as an expert on a particular subject. The lady refurbished her own house, took photos and published it. I could rebuild a Ford Mustang, but that wouldn't make me a car expert.

French tablecloths, french bread, french wines... cheeses, chickens, style... bah humbug!

And what's annoying is that I'm drawn to things "French" because of the color schemes and rustic/ used style. I don't necessarily like it because it's French. And so what if I do like the decorating style because it's French? Certain things remind me of my time in Cannes. I spent 5 months in the south and loved every minute of it. I have a connection with the place; it's not some over-romanticised, rose-colored-glasses thing.

My goal from now on: choose things because I like them for what they are, not because some marketing jerk labeled it "country French".

So there.

xox

The Dahlia Digest

On July 4th Dahlia turned 4 months old!

These days she is rolling over and over, but only to her right. She is also pushing her upper body up off the floor when she's on her stomach and kicking. Maybe she'll crawl within a month. She loves to stand up while we hold her waist or arms. She kicks and steps forward and squeals with excitement.

In the last month she has discovered that she can do more with her voice than just cry. One morning in June she screamed and has been squealing and babbling more and more every day. She has plenty to say- just like her dad... and the bird.

These days EVERYTHING is going into her mouth so we try to keep everything clean within arm's reach. The other night she sat on B's lap and pulled his dinner plate toward herself.

"Is that for me?"

Just 3 days ago Dahlia discovered her tongue! And what fun it is to stick out the tongue!

"Look what I can do, Uncle Brody!"

On Monday we took her to her 4 month check-up.

Only 11 pounds and already a heart breaker

We were surprised to learn that she is on the low average for weight at 5-10%, 50% for length at 24 1/4 inches and in the 75-90th percentile for head circumference. Average baby with a big brain!

"Hey doc, let me wash that off for you."

Dahlia is very alert and pays attention to everything. She always looks around for B when he enters a room. She follows his voice and loves to just sit and watch her fascinating daddy. She also likes TV, so I try to keep the pretty moving pictures off as much as possible. Since Brody is here for the summer, she spends lots of time just sitting in his arms and staring at everyone. This works out well for all involved because we get to look at her too.

Dahlia loves the bathtub! She kicks so much that I just bought an inflatable tub for her so she wont hurt herself on the plastic tub we have. On July 4th she went into the swimming pool for the first time! I sat in the water with her and eased her in. She took it slow, but wasn't scared and finally started kicking around!

We read to Dahlia almost every day. She likes the books that taste the best. One of her books is called "Eat, Rattle, Chew" and has a chew toy attached to the spine. It goes over well.

I take her in the baby jogger almost every day. She loves walks and loves to cuddle up in her stroller.

I am still known as the "baby hog" since I only share when I have to. Wouldn't you?

Slow to Write

I know, I know, I'm a huge blog slacker. Every time I don't write, it means I'm actually sleeping since I blog when I have two hands, ie. the baby is sleeping.

If it makes it any better, I did make this website the other day. It's a fictional home interior and garden design business and I definitely took a poet's license when I wrote the text, so don't call me asking me to clean your garage.

I've been productive, just not on the blog. But it almost doesn't count since I haven't recorded what I've been doing.

Okay, let me think... I've been uh, entertaining. We had some friends over for dinner.

The Gilbert Family- Cute as can be

I've been walking around the lake, doing laundry (sooo exciting, I know), we went out to dinner a few times which is always an adventure. The baby will watch us from her car seat at the dinner table for 20 minutes tops, then wants to be held, "walk" on the booth seat, or have someone carry her around so she can check everything out. On the occasion where timing is poor, she'll erupt into a frenzy and want to eat which causes complications for all involved. I feed her in the air-conditioned car and it works nicely.

I'll write about the stuff I've been putting off.

Happy Birthday to me
Usually I have an annual 23rd birthday party (thank you maygenJ for sharing that concept with me). However this year, I felt perfectly comfortable turning... as old as I turned, since I have a kid now. I feel like I've accomplished something and at least have gotten an entire 10 month pregnancy out of the way.

We had a nice b-day dinner out and I got to eat oysters, which I love and the weather was gorgeous and my baby was cute and then we ate ice cream!

A b-day pic with my princess

Don't Touch my Baby!
So, we're walking through Nordstrom and the men's shoe saleswoman walks up to us and totally starts touching Dahlia all over her face, arms, legs and hands. I was disturbed but polite, or so I thought, until we walked away. Then I started getting angry. How could she touch my kid without permission? God only knows where her hands have been; touching men's feet all day!!! Please woman! Step back! After mulling the situation over I was then mad at myself for having such a delayed reaction. Next time I will say, "I'd rather you don't touch her"... with your grubby hands!!! Ugh. Please strangers, don't touch my baby.

Why I Hate Wallpaper
Wall paper is sooo 80's and hard to get off walls. Are you really going to want that fly fishing wallpaper up in 10 years? Since wallpaper is such a pain to get up (I watched my parents do it when I was a kid) no one in their right mind would ever want to take it down. We just took two wall paper borders down in our house. "We're not alcoholics, we just like grapes," the previous owners said. Grapes in the bedroom?

B and the wallpaper steamer

Jott

I have been trying to blog for several days, but once the baby falls asleep I have mountains of laundry and tidying up to manage. I keep put blogging off until tomorrow.

My brother recommended that I use a Seattle based company called Jott to solve my problem. Since I can't sit down and write for hours at a time anymore (the new old-fashioned way, by typing), I can use Jott.

To use Jott, all I have to do is sign up on their website Jott.com and then call their recording service and leave myself a voice mail. Then someone in India types up my message and sends it to me via email. This means that I can just speak my blogs, then copy and paste the text into Blogger.

I just signed up.

I can leave myself a 30 second message and it will be emailed to me in minutes. Jott is free. No charge. And I can Jott other people. Jott uploaded my email address book so I didn't have to enter the names and email addresses of my contacts individually.

My first Jott went like this. I left relatively the same for myself twice and this is what they sent.
1. Ensure to borrow out the books in Dallas library.
2. Make sure to blog about Dahlia's library.

I need to speak clearly and slowly and spell out certain words, but I'll figure it out.

Brody uses Jott to send reminders to himself. For example, "Call Emelyn at 8pm. Remember to lock the front door. My sunglasses are on the kitchen counter."

I hope to save a lot of time using Jott.

Independence Day 2007

We had my soccer friends over for some burgers, basketball and badminton on the 4th.

The dodge ball arsenal

Next time maybe we'll use playground balls. The beach balls were a little light for our hardcore and competitive guests.

Soccer and Independence day is for all Americans! (And at least one lucky Canadian). This was a multi-generational gathering.

Am I the only person who invites my parents to my parties?

This was D's first time interacting with another baby. She did really well. She smiled and reached out to touch Leia... perhaps to try and eat her. Leia is 10 months old.

Baby's first time in the swimming pool. Thanks for the swimmy pants grandma Candy!

Leia was a pro when it came to the pool.

Perhaps the next generation of soccer players, or a future president; Leia, Anaia and Dahlia.

My, What White Teeth You Have

Always a sucker for self-improvement products, I decided to try a 14-day teeth whitener.

I was sceptical, but hopeful as I "painted" the first application on my "smile teeth." The whitener smells like white out, but feels like thin wax when it goes on. I wore it overnight and wiped it off in the morning.

Sleeping with icky, toxic smelling wax on my teeth was hard to get used to. I lost some sleep just trying to make sure I wasn't swallowing any of it.

I used a wet washcloth to scrape the thickened goo off each morning. Then I used floss to remove the remnants and lastly, I brushed.

I'll spare you the before and after pictures, but it worked. I have a whiter grill.

Just call me the myth buster of choppers.

Coming Soon

• Teeth Whitening... is it just a marketing myth?
• Independence Day photos
• Happy Birthday to me
• Don't Touch my Baby!
• Why I Hate Wallpaper

And a photo for the sake of it...

Mom made me wear this.