A Calliope Post

I am finally getting a video of Calliope online... And wanted to post a little more about her.

She is a tiny little thing. Last time she was in the 6th percentile for weight, which doesn't bother me at all, though she is all about food these days -- she eats well. She is starting to show some of her little personality, which is powerful.

You may not hold her facing you at all, ever, for even one tiny second before she is wrenching herself around to see out. Everyone who holds her remarks on this. Her hair is coming in pretty thickly and very blond. She may actually stay blond as she didn't have Clementine's dark hair and what she's getting now seems blonder to me than Clementine's was (thought she is outside a lot). She is aggressive about what she wants (as you'll see in the video) and she is doing the soldier crawl pretty effectively now. She is all about cords, so we'll have to go through are really baby-proof the house. I think she will be crawling soon, and walking pretty fast. It's hard to believe that we'll be out of baby mode and into toddler mode so quickly! She stands up powerfully, and can even hold herself standing up in front of the couch. She is also very bouncy if you ever hold her on your lap, and we're looking into a doorway bouncer or something so she can work that out (and be corraled and Ryan figures out how to watch two mobile kiddies). I am a little sad that baby-ness is so short. In another 6 months Calliope will be a toddler and that will be it. I was just looking back at some old videos of Clementine crawling and eating her first food. What a difference! Clementine didn't crawl until 8 months, and I'm sure Calliope will be crawling sooner so she can follow her big sisert around. Clementine's funny faces over the rice cereal (and our nice clean highchair, bib, slow and patient feeding...) -- whole other ball game. Calliope also has a very sweet "milk smile", a wide, closed-lip smile that she reserves exclusively for when she's nursing. Such a sweetie.

Anyway, here is her first food:

Firsts Today

Calliope seems hungry all the time these days, so we jumped the gun and gave her rice cereal 4 days before her six-month birthday. She has been so interested in food, staring at our forks throughout entire meals, we were starting to feel guilty eating in front of her.

Anyway, none of Clementine's stunned faces or confused spitting-out, Calliope couldn't eat it fast enough from the very beginning. We made her two bowls and she still wanted more. I'd say she even got more inside of her than down her front.

While we were washing off all that cereal, we realized that she is getting her first tooth. OOoooohhh! No wonder we're not sleeping!

AND Clementine wore training pants all day and had NO ACCIDENTS!!! YAY!!! This is a big first, and we're very excited for all of us.

Will post first cereal video when I have the mental and temporal availability. :)

First Solid Food and Happy Anniversary

Well, firstly you will note that Calliope had her first solid food last Thursday. We were eating, where we always eat now, on a picnic blanket in the back yard. Calliope, who is now an expert roller-overer and scootcher, having already had dinner, was messing around while Clementine engaged in her usual dining practice: eat one bite, then try to run off all the calories in that bite, then come back for another. Being thus distracted, Ryan and I did not notice what our spicey little number was up to until she'd removed all four hamburger buns from the bag and somehow chewed, tore or otherwise compromised each of them. You can see she really has her paws on this one. So much for the rice cereal her sisert started with... In fact, Calliope is getting up on all fours now and rocking back and forth. I think we're in big trouble.

Week before that, Thomas the Tank Engine came to Durango, and we got to ride him, plus hang out in the bouncy house (somehow we run into bouncy houses like every other week here in the summertime), petting zoo, sing-along, etc. It was a little anti-climactic as Thomas is only, ya know, in the front of the train, so while we were on the actual train ride, Clementine kept asking about seeing Thomas. Hrm. It was fun, and it's really a beautiful engine, even if he has that weird frozen expression on his face.

We also celebrated our anniversary last week. Eight years! We were very lucky to have GAK and GUR-Pop-pop babysit for us while we went to Durango's latest, Cosmopolitan. It's a lovely, hip-seeming restaurant (would seem even hipper if they turned down the lights so we couldn't see all the aging touri in their "I'm with stupid" t-shirts and knee-high socks). The scallop appetizer is actually to die for. yummy. It's amazing to think that at our last 4 anniversaries I've been, respectively, pregnant, nursing, pregnant and now nursing. One of these days I'm going to have me a whole cocktail again!

Clementine's day care is closed for two weeks, and while it's hard on Ryan, it's heartening to see that she really misses it, and demands, sometimes emphatically, to "go to cool". At least Ryan's stress fracture has healed and he can chase her more easily! As always, more recent photos on Flickr.