To crawl or not to crawl...

Mar got her first official three step crawl FORWARD on the books last night. While she has shuffled and can move backwards here and there, it was a deliberate and careful move forward. Hopefully by XMas this will be old hat and she will join her buddies at day care and be mopping up the floors.

Marlay also slept in late today and daddy got to see her at day care much later than usual (~8.30). The babies were all happy and playing together and Mar was having a ball. She definitely can stick up for herself as the reigning heavyweight in the room.

Marlay gets loud

Mar has found her voice, in a big way. Every morning is BA-BA-BA or Da-Da-Da in the crib until we come and get her. She had a great Thanksgiving and is doing well all around except for her most recent ear infection which will have us bringing her in for surgery in early Jan.



She has seen two snowfalls already (a brutal start to winter!)...and soon will see her first XMass tree. Until then we continue to work on waving and crawling.



The video shows some Mar time on the floor....

Hurtling towards the holidays...

The holiday decorations are springing up everywhere as Marlay is quickly approaching her first Turkey day and XMas. I have not been able to write much over the past two months due to work and our home computer crashing. Here is a quick update of what has happened with Mar over the past few months...

Mar has recently learned to eat Cherrios. She isn't very good at it yet, but she loves it.

Mar can almost crawl...she gets on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth, she's almost there.

Mar is now at Goddard School day care, which she likes a lot more than her parents. She is great with other kids and cracks up when they steal her toys...not sure how much longer that will last.

Unfortunately, Mar has been dealing with some ear aches as well and may be headed towards tubes.

Mar watched the Phils break the title drought. OK, maybe she didn't watch it exactly, but she was there.

Mar feeds herself now, holding her own bottle.

Mar goes down at night with her eys open and puts herself to sleep...and sleeps through the night.

Mar laughs everytime she goes into the car seat and smiles when you take her out. The kid loves life.

Mar has gotten to play with the now very mobile Emmakid a bit now that she is back from her summer at the shore. They seem to get aong great, although Mar seems more interested in Em, than Em in Mar.

Teefs

Well, Marlay had a few milestones over the past two days. She got her first day-care cold unfortunately. She was pretty stuffed up and had a runny nose for part of yesterday and through the night. She snored like a sailor and woke her daddy up multiple times crying out in the night. Hard to tell if that is from her penchant for sleeping on her stomach (without the ability to roll back over) or the cold.

This morning, we noticed milestone #2. The little one has finally had her teeth come through. She has both of her lower fronts protruding ever so slightly...you can clearly feel and see them though. I am already going to miss her gummy old lady smile. I can't even imagine her with teeth.

On an unrelated note, the neighborhood is up in arms over a break-in the other night. Apparently a man broke in to a house on Fennerton (one street over) and entered a woman's bedroom sans clothing (I can only assume his intention wasn't to use her shower). Her rotweiler woke her up and she scremed startling the man off. This is disturbing for a number of reasons. First, his intentions can be reasonably interpreted to be rape. Entering the bedroom naked is a pretty desperate act, I don't think this guy is thinking clearly. Second, I doubt it was happenstance that he picked a house where a woman lived alone, I would assume he had scoped out the neighborhood. Lastly, he fled through backyards on Biddle. Very thankful that we have an alarm and a raised entryway, making our house (I believe) somewhat unappealing to this type of intrusion.

Here is a link to the story, it was the lead on ABC the other day.

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=6380558

Marlay's Summer

Since my last post back in June, Marlay, like all babies her age, has grown up a ton. She has continued her march towards being the baby who gives out the most free smiles and hasn't lost her cherubic look as of yet. We continue to try and document her ealry life with pics and videos. I don't even recognize the dark haired little baby in her early pictures. It is amazing how quickly the time is passing with her in our lives.

Over the course of the summer much has changed. She was baptized, so we took care of that whole original sin thing. She now likes to be on her tummy, which is a change from her early days of forced tummy time. She still can't roll back over, so we get her out of the crib every morning while she is in mid push up, her patience waning. She can sit now...for about fifteen seconds, then she falls over. She doesn't seem to mind. Her hair continues to grow, despite Marlay's best attempts to pull it out. Her new favorite toy is her bouncy seat (no idea why we call it that since it hardly bounces and isn't a seat), which is helping her get stronger in the legs, back and tummy.

Over this Labor Day weekend she hit two more mini-milestones. She took her first trip and made her way off to daycare.

First the trip. Despite her father's belief that she would be a nightmare in the car. With only two stops along the way, she made the 2.5 hour trek to Arlington VA with nary a cry from the backseat. She was a gem. When we landed at our friends house Marlay quickly doled out some smiles and then got ready for the pool. It did not take her long to adjust to being in the water. Her arms were in a near contstant state of water splashing, this kid was clearly a waterbaby (just like her mom). She wasn't quite the trooper on the way home, but all in all a pretty successful trip and definitely worth it if for no other reason that to get her into a pool before the fall encroaches.

This morning was the more important event in our lives. After having Marlay at home with me all summer, Jenny took her to SEI daycare this morning. While I think Mar was thrilled to be going somewhere, Dad and Mom definitely welled up at the thought of leaving her...even if Mom was going to be just across campus. While I firmly beleive this is the best thing for her at this age, the amount of time I will get to see her has just plummeted substantioally. Not quite sure how I will adjust. As I write this it is 9AM, she left an hour and half ago and I am rooting for the clock to start moving faster.

..waiting to hear another one of Mar-Mar's songs (she is singing in the picture at the beginning of this post)

Mommy goes to work

So today was the day. Mom back to work, Grandmom is now Marlay's primary caregiver during the day. It is only 11AM and I think I have checked on her 5 times to make sure she is adjusting. I think deep down Jen and I both know that she is going to be great with almost anyone. She has become pretty social and likes to 'sing' through most of the day. She likes her schedule and seems to be able to sleep almost everywhere/anywhere.

On a lighter note, Marlay got to witness and incredible US Open and she is keeping up with the Phils push towards the pennant. She is a big Jimmy Rollins fan and think Cole Hamels changeup may be as good as lefty's curveball was.

Marlay sleeps through the night

Marlay's gift for Father's Day is that she decided that her last bottle was no longer necessary and she was on board with the idea of a 12 hour nap. I know at some point she will become difficult, but right now she is a dream. She smiles a ton, loves to make cute little noises and has become accustomed to eating out with Mom and Dad. If she cries, it is a rare event and there is typically something we forgot (like a bottle or a nap).

Jen and I both love waking her up first thing in the morning because she almost always greets us with a smile and a few yawns, very cute. I still think this is all some clever plot to ask me for a very expensive car one day. If it is, kudos to her, it's working.

Keeping you up to date on Marlay..first post

So I realize that probably only two people will ever read this blog (yes, they live in Fla), but I'm stating it anyway. If nothing else it will replace my earlier plan of trying to get some of my thoughts about raising Marlay down on Video, which so far has not really happened.

As I write this, Mar-mar (I guess that is how it is written) is pretty much the perfect age and the perfect kid. She sleeps, eat and poops when we expect it, rarely cries and frequently smiles. She's a bit behind on her 'tummy-time' so crawling and walking may be a ways off, but I'm OK with that. I probably wouldn't be opposed to freezing time for a few years while she is at this age (although I am VERY curious to hear her talk).

Things Marlay likes....getting awakened in the morning, her first bottle, playing on her mat with Mom and Dad, going in the vroom-vroom as long as it is in constant motion, summer naps in her swing after dinner, bathtime, falling asleep on her parents after a long day of playing.

Things Marlay does not seem to care for...meeting other kids, her car seat, her first burp of the bottle, when you pull her onsie over her face