Riley loves her new tent!

Walking--->Running

While I was in Boston to watch the Red Sox win the World Series (OK, really on business, but I did see the people gathering for the parade after the team returned), Riley started to walk more than a few steps at a time. She can now walk across the room without falling.
It is pretty funny to watch. She holds her arms up for balance, kind of like bird wings, then starts to walk, slowly at first, but then picks up speed and either catches herself and slows down, or falls down.
Tonight, she tried walking backwards, but didn't get very far.

Very soon, she will be running, and running out of sight.

Baseball!

A little late, but Riley was rooting for the Red Sox...

Riley is digging her new bike, in fact, she has already learned to "ride" it back and forth in the house.

Here's Riley doing a little assisted walking. Seems google squashed the video a bit, so the image is a bit distorted, but you get the idea....BTW, she loves to walk, and has tried on her own without thinking about it. She will be standing, and decide she wants to be somewhere else, so she will start to walk, but then usually falls down.

Riley's First Birthday!

Here are a few pictures from Riley's birthday party.

Singles Add for Riley

If Riley were to put out a singles add, here's what it might say.

Cute female, not too tall, not too chubby, seeks friend to share some fun with.
Likes:
Chasing cats and dogs around.
Shredding toilet paper, and sometimes eating it.
Dancing and doing the Twist.
Cuddling.

Dislikes:
Getting my diaper changed.
Getting my clothes changed.
In fact, just being near the changing table.

If interested, call my Mommy.

Talking?

Mama
Dada
Dog
Cat
Uh Oh
Ball

These are Riley's favorite words.

Standing

On Saturday night in Ashland, Riley started to pull her self up into a free standing position, using either Colleen or my self to balance herself. She would then just let go and try to stand on her own.
This morning, in Bend, she stood up in the middle of the floor without any support, and stood for about 8 seconds.
She will be walking very soon.

Big Update

OK, I know it has been a while since the last update, so let me just start with a list of things that have happened since July.
She started to crawl in the middle of July, middle of The Tour, to be exact.
One day, she made a single crawl step forward, then three backwards, the next day, she had it down.
She just started to get a mass of new teeth, looks like the upper front teeth and several others are coming in all about the same time.
After less than a week of crawling, she was able to pull herself up into a standing position against furniture. She is now very good at it, and in fact, she is starting to try and stand without assistance.
She loves to point at stuff, and is now clapping her hands when happy or excited.

With her new mobility, she has discovered how much fun it is to explore, so she is everywhere, and we have to keep a watchful eye on her as our house isn't baby proof, and probably never will be completely.
Unfortunately, there is the downside to her excited explorations. She managed to fall off our bed the other morning by crawling over the pillows we put around her. Quite a shock for her, and myself, but after a few minutes of comforting, she was back to her happy self.

We have a ton of pictures, so I will try and put a few up in the next few days.

Couple more pics.

Happy 4th of July!

Colleen, Riley and I had a nice visit with family for the Fourth.

Jumping Johnny

Riley loves her new exersaucer/jumpin johnny/edutainment center.












One other thing I forgot to mention regarding Riley's cognative development, she has a space shape fit toy that she got from a friend which she is already trying to fit the pieces into the correct spaces.

Major changes.

It has been just over two weeks since my last post, and there have been many noticeable changes in Riley.

To start with, just over a week ago, she started to use the pincher grasp, that is, to use her index finger and thumb to grab and manipulate things. It was pretty crude at first, but now she is getting good at it.

She also started to wave when she sees us, or, like this morning, at the house when we left for school.

I have also heard her humming and sort of singing to herself or along with Colleen. At one time, she followed the melody of a song Colleen was singing to her.

Finally, we count to five with our fingers and aloud to her, and in the past she get excited and grin and watch, sometimes laughing. Just this past week, she started to try and count on her fingers along with us. She can only get to three as she is still lacking in dextarity, but she is trying.

Basically, this past week has shown a real advancement in her cognative development.

Sorry, no pictures this week....

The Zoo

We took Riley to the Oakland Zoo on Friday. It was her first visit, and the first time she had seen any other animals besides the usual cats and dogs (and birds). She was enthralled, looking at everything the whole time, even going beyond her usual feeding and nap times. Of course, when she finally realized she was hungry and tired, we made a bee line to the car, and home. Fortunately for us, it took less than 4 minutes to drive home!

More dinner pics.

Riley anticipating desert.

Here it comes!

La la la

So, Riley has been running a bit of a temperature the past few days, and today it is my turn to stay at home with her. Bummer for her for not feeling well.
One upshot, she said a new thing just now; she said "la la la". Couldn't get her to say it again, though.
In case you were wondering, her favorite words are "da da da", "yeah, yeah yeah", and something like "hiya".

The Tickler

Riley is learning to laugh more and more. She laughs at you when you make funny sounds. She laughs when you play peek-a-boo. She laughs when she learns new things. She laughs when you count.
Today, the most amazing thing, she made herself laugh by tickling herself! She was sitting on the bed, and reached her right hand across to her left side and started to scratch. But, instead she tickled herself. She then did it a couple more times, laughing each time.

Oh, she is 7 months old today, and it is Colleen's birthday as well!

Dinner Time

Riley is just learning how to eat. Didn't take long to figure out the part of what to do with food, but how to get it into the mouth consistantly is a little more difficult.

Self Portrait

Six Months Old!

Yes, it's true. Riley is now six months old.
Every time I start out a blog, I can only think to say that she has changed so much since .... And, it's true, she has changed so much since the last blog.

Big thing right now are teeth. Last night she was fussy and crying off and on. We figured teeth, but couldn't really see or feel any. This morning, she fussed early, then shortly after, was happy and talking like usual. I checked her mouth, and sure enough, her two lower front teeth are coming up. They really grow fast, thankfully. Don't want to prolong the misery any more than we have to.

I mentioned that she is eating solids. She absolutely loves to eat with us, and just lunges at the spoon. If your plate or her bowl is close enough, she will grab it and fling it. She knows she wants it, but doesn't know what to do when she gets her hands on it, so off the table it will go.

Last week, she started to roll completely over onto her stomach without any aid. This has led to her using the roll over technique to grab things (or us) that are just out of her reach otherwise. She can also prop her feet against the crib, or, more likely, kick and stomp it.

She is getting bigger and more interactive now, so I will try to post some pictures on the next blog.

Big Day for Riley

After several months of Riley staring us down during meal times, we finally decided to let her try a bite or two of her own solid food. We always have her at the table with us at dinner time in her magic chair, and usually put her in our lap near the end. This gave her the opportunity to watch and learn as we ate. Generally, she would watch very intently and as soon as we would look at her, she would start smiling and laughing (more on that in a bit).
So, tonight we fixed up a bowl of porage for her. Not sure how she would react or take the food, I simply put some on a spoon and brought it up about three inches from her when to my surprise, she lunged forward and put her mouth over it. Each successive spoonful, she would lung and "bite" the spoon. Now, that was easy, but, she wasn't quite sure what to do with the food once it was in her mouth, so not all of it stayed there. She did start moving it around with her tongue, and I'm sure that the saliva started to flow which would cause her to swallow, so she probably got about half of it.
Too bad most of it came up about 20 minutes later.....

Now, about the laughing. For the past four or five days, her laugh has turned into a full on giggle. Before, it was a simple ha ha. When I first heard it, I thought she was about to cry, but then I saw her smile and realized she was really laughing. I think it was when I was tickling her. During bath time, she will play tug-o-war with the wash cloth, and she thinks that is hysterical. I think she and Colleen spend about half the bath time with this game.

Oh, speaking of the tug-o-war game, nothing is safe if it is within her grasp. If she can get her hands on something, it will end up on the floor.

Finally, she has begun forming complex phonemic sounds. You can really see (hear) the foundation of speech being developed. Anybody want to teach her Danish of Swedish?

Lots of new changes.

The past few weeks have been amazing. It seems that Riley made a huge jump in dexterity and interaction. She is grabbing things, holding on, inspecting, throwing, playing, and having fun. She has realized she wants to go places, and is trying to do so on her own. Of course, she also had another milestone, her first cold.

Where should I start? How about the cold.
Last Friday, she started to get a little cough, and by Saturday, she had a good rattle going in her throat. Through it all, she stayed pretty happy with just a few periods of fussyness. At night, she was getting pretty noisy with her breathing, and at times, she would wake up with trouble breathing. So, today, I took her to the doctor. And, she's just fine..
Oh, we had another milestone of sorts. After one of her fussy periods on Saturday, we fed her, and I gave her a little bit of Tylenol, then picked her up to comfort her. Big mistake. I got her just to eye level, when I say this blinding white light (or so it seemed), and it was coming right at me. I didn't even have time to close my eyes all the way. Blam! She puked right in my left eye and all over my face. My eye felt weird the rest of the day.

On to the more interesting things!
Last week, I put her in her swing which has seat belts and a little motor to gently rock it back and forth. Well, I had just set her down and taken my hands off to grab the seat belt when she suddenly lunged forward. I was able to catch her, but it felt close. Once I got her buckled in and the motor set on medium, I turned to start breakfast. About 30 seconds later I noticed that the swing sounded funny. When I turned around, Riley was lunging forwards and backwards with the swing causing it to swing way past even the highest setting. Wow, she wasn't just passively sitting in the swing like previous, she was controlling it, and laughing! I took a video, but I can't post it here, so if anyone wants to see it, send me an email, and I'll email it back.
Today, almost a week later, I put her in the swing, and she did it again. Amazing.

Lauging and playing, and just about to roll over.
She now plays with her toys in a much more interactive way. She grabs, pulls, twists, hits, bites, grunts, gurgles, growls, and generally beats the heck out of things.
Here she is on her play mat. Previously, she would just wack at things or try to grab them, but now it's all about playing. Also last week, she discovered a Teddy bear. When we would give it to her, she would thrust her hands out to grab it, then grunt and pull it back and bite it, then burry her face in it. She smiles when she sees it in her crib or on the bed.

Bumbo
Another really cool thing was when her mommy brought home a surprise. Riley likes to sit upright, but she doesn't have enough strength to keep from falling over, and all her supportive seats put her in a very laid back position. So, mommy got a thing called a Bumbo which supports her butt. This picture is of her sitting in it for the first time yesterday. She absolutely loved it. Tonight, I had her in it in the kitchen while I cooked dinner. She enjoyed watching me, but she started to laugh out loud every time Laney (the cat) walked by. This picture might be the one we send to the Parents magazine contest (thanks Chris!).



Time for a nap.
Well, there are too many things to list tonight, and like a busy baby, I get tired and need a nap. For Riley, that means a nice little nap in Grandma's lap!
Good night!

Happy Valentines Day!

Riley wanted to send everyone her love today.

Back to work, and to daycare

Daycare
Last Thursday, I went back to work, and Riley went to daycare. Colleen is working from 6:30 to 3pm so she can pick Riley up early and spend the evening with her.
So, that morning, after Colleen had left, I got Riley and all her gear together and loaded up in the truck, then drove her to daycare. I was a bit nervous about leaving her with strangers and other kids and had a few butterflys in my stomach the whole drive. After I dropped her off and drove to work (one block away), I realized I had this nagging feeling that I was forgetting something. I checked the car seat, it was empty as it should be, and I knew that she was at the daycare, but I just felt as those something was wrong. This was the first time we left Riley with someone outside of the family. Weird feeling.
At 3:15, Colleen picked her up, then called me crying. She was sure Riley wasn't getting the best treatment; like what we could/would give her.
I think the whole thing was harder on us than Riley.
Friday, we took her to the doctors for her 4 month checkup and shots.
Today, she went back to daycare, and just to make sure all was well with her, I made a surprise visit after lunch. Well, when Riley saw me, she looked up and smiled, then went straight back to her bottle. No problem there. I then talked to the teachers to find out just what they do all day and how Riley is taking to it. They all say she is super mellow and gets along just fine. That, I think is very true. When I arrive in the morning to drop her off, she doesn't cry or seem scared, just very interested in the new place and people, especially the other kids. They also say that she is very interested in story time. She watches the teachers very intently when they talk to her. They also work on muscle strengthening for when she will start to crawl, and several of them mentioned how strong she was.
Well, so far, I think all is well at the daycare.

Friday's doctor visit

She had 5 booster shots, and she didn't like them.

Now, for her latest numbers:
Height: 26 inches --> 90-95th percentile
Weight: 15lbs, 8ounces --> 90th percentile
Head Circumfrence: 40.9cm --> 50th percentile

Learning to eat

We decided the time was right for Riley to learn to eat adult foods. She has taken it upon herself to start with solids.

16 weeks today!

It has been some time since my last post. I've actually been a stay-at-home dad this month, but that certainly doesn't mean I have any more time to post updates.
We are wrapping up a great visit with Grandma Joan. We all had a fun time, and I even got the lawn mowed (basically cutting off the frost killed tips). I could see in Riley's eyes that she was very content with GmJ, and will miss her.
Speaking of Riley, she has gone through so many subtle and overt changes this past month that it is hard to know where to start!
I guess the biggest thing is that she wants to move. She cannot sit still in your arms for long. She is either trying to touch and play with everything in sight, or she is trying to figure out how to get closer to things out of her reach.
Her smiles and laughs are more regular when she sees someone, especially when Mommy comes home from work. Yes, Mommy is her favorite person!