...shhhhh....she's sleeping!

Yes, it's 7:51 and Jane is still asleep. This hasn't happened since, well, I don't know if it's ever happened. Maybe when she was a newborn? Have all the "late nights" finally caught up with her? Before you know it, she'll be napping, too!

Blogging for Now

In talking to a few friends of friends (mostly the wives of old high school friends) in the last few weeks, blogging has come up a few times. I was trying to articulate why I like it so much, and there are lots of reasons. Yesterday I hit on probably one of the most important ones (or at least for me right now) and that is how blogging has helped me enjoy being a mom and enjoy Jane better than I might have otherwise. And this is probably part of why journaling is important, but I have found with blogging that it helps me take the time to appreciate the little things, to really be in the moment with Jane, and (usually) helps me take more and better pictures ;-) That's all. Just wanted to do a shout out to blogging and how I am grateful. Here's to blogging and motherhood! Hopefully I'll be back here soon and more often (stupid masters).

Copy Cat

I just pulled the hair clips out of my hair and laid them on the floor near where Jane was playing and then went back to work. I looked up a few minutes later and she was trying to put them in her hair...you just never know when they are watching you. Scary!

At Long Last

Jane is crawling! Well, army crawling. She's been capable for awhile now but really just didn't want to, she had so many other things she'd rather do. Anyway, yesterday we put out a trail of goldfish on the floor and she happily crawled about a total of 20 feet WITH NO WHINING! We tried to get a video but were foibled.
Jane is also trying to learn how to walk now, too. So I don't know if she'll ever make it onto her knees. Silly kid!

I've got a big deadline this week with my Masters so I'm going to swear off bloglines and this blog for a few days...wish me luck!

No no no no no no no

Jane has now learned how to say "no no no no no no no." What have we done? She doesn't quite get the "o" part down, but she changes her tone and furrows her eyebrows a bit and is very vehement. How did this all come about? We've let the food throwing on the floor thing become a bit of a battle. Our reasoning was this: we know she understands cause and effect (as evidenced by many of the games we play, her learning If Your Happy and You Know It, etc, etc). We know she understands simple commands like: Hold Still, Fold Your Arms, Clap Your Hands, Come Here, Give Me Five, Point!, No, and In Your Mouth. (She sounds a bit robotic, eh? She's definitely into that mimic thing full fledged!)
What she doesn't seem to understand is "not on the floor!" (and she doesn't understand You Can Do It when we try and encourage her to scoot and reach for a toy...it actually distracts her) She will look at the floor when we say this, even reach for the food she's dropped. But only about 30% of the time (on a good day) does saying or doing anything to stop her actually make a difference. *sigh*
Why is this such a big deal? Part of it is because I hate to clean. Part of it is I'm still pretty limited physically with the amount of physical stuff I can do. And part of it has to do with an attitude about food I want to cultivate in her.
Any brilliant suggestions?

So Cute

I'm in the bedroom working on my MA while Eric is sitting with Jane while she's sitting on her little potty (also got at IKEA for a steal). And guess what my dear husband is teaching her? To grunt. "uuhh." So cute. Jane, don't hate us when you're older, will ya?

Also, Jane has been a walking fiend today. She's wanted to walk everywhere and nowhere, as long as she's walking.

...and a video of said Lazy Susan

It's quite the work to capture your babe's cuteness on video...that darn Observer Effect. This one is close, I had to take a lot of video to get it, BUT I edited it just for you! The first clip shows Jane's Lazy Susan technique. She was going to town with the spoon, though. It actually slowed her down. The second clip is the game Point. And I think I left her drum skills on there as well.

Speaking of drum skills, we went for our yearly pilgrimage to my dear friend Amber's house and they indulged Eric's love of Rockband. Again. Jane LOVED the sticks.

10 Months!

Daddy teaching Jane to drive

Hello Again! Didya miss us much?

Today Jane is 10 months (and NOW she's been out of me longer than inside of me ;-) and she's picked up so many new tricks, I couldn't not write.

Here's Jane's list of accomplishments:

• a waving pro--she even makes an intonation that sounds like how I say "hi." She'll even hear someone say "hi" or "bye" and will wave.
• has invented a game called Point. She extends her index finger to whoever happens to walk near her and keeps pointing until they touch their finger to hers (and if you say "point!" when you do it, you usually get a giggle, too).
• is learning to fold her arms for various lengths of time. I learned to start early with this one from my sister. We pray together as a family in the morning regularly and at meals. We try to keep them short and in the beginning one of us would help her fold her arms and whisper "hold still" in her ear (which she now knows the meaning of and will obey 80% of the time) until the end of the prayer. Today she was a champ, adults at church pray SO much longer than we usually do, and she did pretty good considering. On Friday, I told her to fold her arms and she did!! Well, she grabbed her forearms (she's still a bit chubby, you know). Now she will fold her arms 70% of the time when we tell her to. Granted, it doesn't last long, but she knows what it means and does it. Awesome.
• started scooting, finally! (not that I'm particularly eager to chase her around the house) She's figured out how to use her legs to push herself a bit and her tummy has come up off the floor a few times. I think we'll start a betting pool to decide when she actually starts to crawl, if at all ;-) She also really likes to walk with us holding her hands and gets a kick out of climbing the stairs that way too. She can only just barely get her foot up and she's so diligent and careful in doing it. Adorable.
• has a new nickname. Kind of. Jane has perfected the art of turning around and around in circles on her bum or her belly, just like a Lazy Susan. She get's going really fast, too.
• really gets a kick out of peek-a-boo, and has even started putting the blanket over her own eyes or ours. She'll then make another sound that sounds like the way we say "there ______ is" (which we say a lot in one of her favorite stories, Where is Baby's Belly Button.
• has developed clear preferences for what books she likes and will find them herself. She'll roll over, scoot over to the pile and go through it until she finds the ones she wants. The clear favorite right now is Go Dogs, Go! (Ludlows be proud!) But she also likes I Can Fly, Where's Spot, the aforementioned Belly Button book and Buzz Said the Bee. She's lost interest in the board books that don't have flaps and is fascinated by pages. She's even figured out how to use her thumb to fan through the pages (you know, like when shuffling a deck of cards) until she gets a hold of one page so she can turn it (Eric is so excited about this!). She's so careful and tonight flipped through half of Go Dogs, Go! ONE PAGE AT A TIME! And then she got bored. Or impatient. Yep, she's our daughter (careful, bored easily, and impatient! bonus points if you know which trait goes to which parent)!
• can sip through a straw (Aunt Melisa taught her this. All the Monroe's keep trying to get her to drink pop. Good thing Mom is always around to put an end to that).
• barely tolerates being fed from a spoon. Although we bought her some baby spoons yesterday and gave them a whirl this morning at breakfast. With some support and coaching, she did great. She was totally into it. There were at least 5 successful bites...aw, the small stuff ;-)
• has a new tooth! Number 7 came in on Friday, she now has three on the bottom and four on top. And we're pretty sure those molars are coming in as well (yes, her sleep has been comparatively erratic)
• has hair that lays flat 50% of the time. It's finally starting to grow enough to lay down (*sigh* I kind of miss it)
  

Love the super bib? It's full coverage! I got it at IKEA for uber-cheap...

Quick Update and A NEW BLOG!!

So we are in Idaho now (we drove last weekend! It was easier than I thought, Jane was an angel). We will be here for the next month or so staying with my parents. Eric is working at the courthouse here in town as an intern (today was his first day and he was so excited! he wore his new suit and looked very lawyerish--in a good way. It was a fun day). I have two very clear objectives to accomplish this month:
1- write my Master's Report (finally)
which is where the NEW BLOG comes in (it's so much more exciting in caps, isn't it?)
2-coordinate and participate in The Biggest Loser, for my family that is. We have two teams, girls against boys, meal plans, exercise goals, etc, etc. My motivation is to share the health knowledge I have with some of my favorite people, Eric included, and lower my BMI a little bit. Pending insurance approval, I'm having surgery (related to my back issues, don't ask) in July and a lower BMI equals lower risk.

And then there are the general objectives of enjoying my family, catching up with old friends, and breathing in the country air.

All this means that this blog will most likely be neglected a bit, at least by me. Maybe I'll make Eric start pulling his weight around here ;-) But I'm committing to writing on my NEW BLOG everyday (except Sunday) to think through things, report on my progress, and try stuff out. It's not just to keep me accountable or even to keep me writing. I think it will be a useful tool, possibly instrumental in finally finishing this thing. And YOU can be a part of it. Feel free to stop on by and cheer me on, give me some criticism, tell me when I don't make sense or when I'm full of it, or ask me interesting questions. But readers or no, I WILL be writing.

And now, for the address:
http://masteringmymasters.blogspot.com/
Clever, no? I've even already posted! Notice the standard template? I totally resisted the urge to customize or cutify. I know, right? Woot, woot!

I THINK I CAN, I THINK I CAN, I THINK I CAN.