Standing Tall

Happy Memorial Day to all of you! It seems weird that it's Memorial Day and we weren't camping or at the cabin, but we celebrated the unofficial start to summer here at home. We went out to dinner on Friday night, had friends over for a cookout and campfire Saturday night, picniced at Grandma and Grandpa Menke's on Sunday afternoon, and visited the zoo today. It was a beautiful weekend here, in the mid to upper 70s and blue skies. We really couldn't have asked for more perfect weather.

Aaron and I are continually amazed how quickly Alyssa changes. On Friday she was still only pulling herself on our fingers, and now she's pulling herself up by holding on to almost anything. She almost pulled herself to standing in the bathtub. So in a matter of 2 days, she's gone from fingers to anything! And she's also started taking a few steps when she's standing, kind of scary to think that she could be walking later this summer. While we love to see her develop, we miss our little baby. She's becoming more and more independent. I think a few more days and she's not going to need us to sit her up, pull her up, or get her from point A to point B. She's so close to crawling. She's got reverse down really well, can move all over the living room in reverse, but that forward motion is still eluding her. Aaron calls it the "Backup Boogaloo."

We think the doctor may have been right; we need to start babyproofing the house. We had to lower her crib mattress this morning, and I fear we may be lowering it another notch pretty soon; the moment she can get into a sitting position on her own, we'll have to lower it again as you'll see in one of the video clips that follows. We're so proud of our little Alyssa and we love to see how much she enjoys other people. While Aaron and I watched animals at the zoo, she people watched, it was really cute.

Hope your summer is off to as good of a start as ours!

Making friends

There's no better time for getting together with friends than spring and summer. Given our cold and long winter here in Minnesota, everyone wants to get together outside. We've been fortunate enough to see several friends over the past weeks, and Alyssa has really enjoyed the fresh air and "playing" with other kids. We look forward to spending a lot more time with friends this summer.Alyssa is pretty much a social butterfly, smiling and talking to just about anyone who pays attention to her. She's also very curious about other kids. We have to keep a close eye on her so she doesn't poke anyone in the eye when she's checking them out though; she's very hands on.

Alyssa has a new favorite game, peek-a-boo. She loves to giggle when you peek at her, she thinks it pretty cool. She's also learning how to play with Roni even if she doesn't quite understand what she's doing.
Alyssa also loves to be standing these days; she constantly seeks out fingers to grab onto to pull herself up, and she gets very frustrated if you don't give them to her. She's learning to stand holding on with only one hand and reaching for things with the other, but she's a little wobbly to say the least. She also loves attention; she wasn't too happy yesterday when she had to play by herself a good bit of the day while Aaron and I tried to trim shrubs, weed, and plant. Hope we haven't spoiled her already :)

Little Miss Chatterbox

"La da da ta"...and so much more. Alyssa has begun to move from squeals to babbles, and she sure does like to talk. I think we may have a chatterbox on our hands (she may be taking after a few of her aunts). She talks when she wakes up in the morning, when she's playing, when she's eating, just about any chance she gets, except when there's somebody on the other end of the phone. Then she just wants to figure out where the voice is coming from and how to get the phone into her mouth :)

Alyssa turned 6 months old yesterday. We started the day by having her 6-month pictures taken, then headed to a baby consignment sale, attended my departmental end of the year party, and ended the day at the doctor's office. The doctor thought she looked great, very healthy. She continues to top the charts for her size, weighing in at 18 pounds, 9 ounces (92nd percentile) and measuring 27 3/4 inches long (98th percentile). He talked to us a good bit about babyproofing the house as she'll probably be on the move here before too long and we questioned him about how much we should be feeding Alyssa. She's now eating rice cereal in the morning and veggies at night. She gobbles it all up - sweet potatos, carrots, and green beans! I think squash and peas are next on the list to try. Aaron and I have also made some of Alyssa's food; we've pureed sweet potatos and carrots; I think we're going to have to try making some beans or peas soon also so she gets lots of variety.

Alyssa got shots at this appointment as well. She screamed when the nurse gave her the shots, but as soon as I picked her up, she stopped and two seconds later (literally, it couldn't have been more than 2 seconds), she was smiling again at us and the nurse. She was quite intrigued by the band-aids on her legs a bit later, managing to take two of the three off, and getting one in her mouth!

Alyssa has also taken to sleeping on her stomach. Although we always put her to bed on her back, she always wakes up on her stomach, usually with her thumb in her mouth. Her thumb is now her favorite thing; we asked the doctor about it, and he said at this point, not to worry. If at 15 or 18 months, she's still sucking her thumb, then we'd take some measures to get her to stop sucking it. It's amazing how quickly that calms her down though.

Alyssa is headed to Grandma Menke's tonight for her first sleepover without mom & dad. I don't know who is looking forward to it more - Grandma, us, or Alyssa. Hopefully she's on her best behavior :) Tomorrow is fishing opener, so Aaron will be headed out to the lake to test out his luck with the walleye or sunnies, or anything he can hook. He got me a license as well...we'll see if I use it at all this year.

Aaron and I continue to keep busy with little jobs around the house and our regular work. This is the last week of class; I have a lot of grading ahead of me yet, but I'm looking forward to buckling down and finishing my dissertation analysis this summer. The plan is to have the analysis done by the end of summer, so that during the school year I'll only need to write. We'll see how it goes.

I thought I'd include two short videos of Alyssa, one is her waking up from an afternoon nap and one is of her eating carrots. Be sure to turn up your volume!