Mothering Makena... and Hadley!: CRAWLING and more fun!

First of all...Makena learned how to crawl! On August 9th she was rocking back and forth on her hands and knees, and kind of went forward a bit but nothing else. We knew it would happen soon! Then on the 11th she totally crawled! Pam and I were frozen in place watching her, and finally Pam said "why aren't we filming this?!" and grabbed the camera. This video was taken a couple days later-

Happy birthday Donte! I can crawl now, so even if you try to run away I can still eat you!!

We had a few rough days/nights where she would wake up at 3 am all ready to play. But then she got over the excitement of being able to move and fell back into her routine. (what routine?)

She loves eating, especially from her mesh feeder thing. I've been putting frozen cubes of pureed baby foods in there, and she especially loves peaches.

She is still working on grabbing her food and getting it in her mouth, and it's a frustrating process because she wants to eat but really doesn't like being spoon fed. She likes her food, but wants to feed herself. So it's been hard to find soft enough food that she can hold on to. I baked some yam "fries" for her and she was super happy about it!

We've gone a few times with Pam while she teaches her soccer classes, and Makena is totally interested in watching the kids run around. And I think she hears her Mama's voice because she looks around.

Since she can crawl now, she doesn't want to stay in one place. She'll sit and play for a while, but I can't walk away because she knows how to either come find me or find trouble. Or more likely, she finds trouble on her way to find me! Today she was eating shoes, a magazine, a business card, sunglasses, a candle holder, AND one of my (used) nursing pads. Eww! So sometimes we have to plop her in the playpen, but she seems to be okay as long as there is some exciting stuff in there to explore! She really likes books, but mostly she gets mad at them because she can't quite always get them to open. She spent a while studying this book- maybe she'll be a veterinarian when she grows up?!

The other day I was getting all the cloth diapers stuffed and ready, so I sat her in her crib while I was on the floor in her room. I heard her laughing (she does this hilarious fake sounding laugh and I can't tell if it's real or just to get your attention!) and I looked and realized she had pulled herself up and was STANDING! So I had to lower the mattress. What a big girl!

On August 15th Pam had won tickets to see Rob Thomas in concert AND meet & greet passes! It was a benefit show at the unbelievably beautiful Mountain Winery in Saratoga. So we figured that was a pretty darn good reason to leave our baby for the first time! Yep, at almost 7 months old we left her with her first babysitter. 2 babysitters actually! Andrea and Erin came over and Pam and I left the house! Together! Without our baby! And we both sat in the front seats of the car! The concert was great, meeting Rob was super cool, the whole thing was totally awesome. But, as awesome as it was, the most exciting thing in my life was at home in bed. Crazy how having a baby changes how you feel about things that used to really excite you! (And apparently Makena did pretty well, considering it was bedtime and she refused the bottle and doesn't fall asleep easily!) It took us longer to get home than I thought it would, we were gone for 6 whole hours! (And wow did I need to pump!!) But it was a really good time and it was our first date night in... 207 days!