Daddy's Birthday

Rob celebrated his birthday two weeks ago and Gloria dressed up for the occasion. She was as pretty as a picture in her cute dress and headband.

"I'm cute and I know it."

"Happy Birthday Daddy!"

Gloria had fun helping Rob open his presents. She liked the shiny wrapping paper and all of the tissue paper.

"What's in there?"

I've been trying to get more pictures of Gloria's teeth, but no such luck. They have grown in very nicely so far and are very cute. As of now, she has no more teeth trying to come in yet.

"Are you trying to see my teeth?
They're in there, I promise!"

I pulled out a few new toys from the toy box last week. One toy was a ring tower. Gloria was excited to see some new things and had fun playing with the rings. She's figured out how to get off the top blue ring and how to turn the tower upside down so they all fall off! Gloria has also gotten very good at sitting up to play, though she still prefers to be on her tummy or back.

"Look at me sitting up and playing!"

"I took off the blue ring!"

"Now I have two rings!"

"Mommy, why did you put this ring on my toes?"

Sleeping the night away

As you read earlier, we moved Gloria into her crib in her own room a little over a week ago. She has adapted great - better than we had thought she would. I didn't mind having Gloria sleeping in our room, but it sure is nice to not have to worry about making noise when I climb into bed or when the alarm goes off in the morning. And I'm sure Gloria is enjoying sleeping in her big girl bed with room to stretch out and in a quiet room.

Rob is still doing the nighttime routine in our bedroom - reading books, singing songs, taking vitamins - and I still nurse her to sleep on our bed. After she falls asleep, which is after 5-10 minutes of nursing, I carry her across the hallway to her room.

The first night that she was in her room, she slept from about 8:30pm to 7am straight through! I was in shock since she had been waking up around 2am fairly consistently for quite awhile. Since then she has slept straight through almost every night. There have been two times, I think, when she's woken up at about 5am. I nurse her for a few minutes and she's back to sleep for another 2-3 hours.

Deer Forest!

"My first trip to Deer Forest!"

Last week, Gloria and I spent the night at my mom's house without Rob. It was the first time that I've had night "duty" by myself. Gloria has been so good with sleeping through the night lately that I wasn't worried. She went to sleep great like she always does at night and only woke up once around 5:30. She didn't want to go right back to sleep after nursing, so I spent the next hour holding her and nursing. Then she slept another hour until 7:30.

While we were in St. Joe, we went to Deer Forest with April, my mom, and my grandma. Gloria had a lot of fun watching the animals and seeing us feed them. She heard a cow and loud donkeys. We rode the train around the park two times and Gloria even went on the pony ride. She was so brave that she stood up on the saddle. Of course I was holding onto her the entire time. We will definitely be going back next year (more than once, I'm sure).

"Auntie April wasn't scared of the little goats."

"That deer is just a bit too close."

"I want some food to feed the deer too!"

"Be careful Mommy!"

"Riding on the choo-choo train was exciting!"

"I rode my first horse!"

"The lady running the ride was amazed that I wasn't scared.
Me, scared? No way!"

"'Whoo whoo,' says the owl."

"Maybe I'll be an astronaut when I grow up.
See how cute I look in a spacesuit!"

Picnics and swings

"I love my daddy so much!"

On Friday, August 15th, Gloria and I met Rob at a park for a picnic lunch. It was a gorgeous day, not too hot with a nice breeze. As Rob and I ate our sandwiches, Gloria played on the blanket and watched a squirrel. After lunch, we let Gloria try out the swings for the first time. She had fun, but just don't push her too fast quite yet.

"What exactly does this thing do?"

"Whee!"

On August 10, Gloria had her first taste of mango and enjoyed it. Two days later, on the 12th, she tried peas. Again, she really liked them. On the 15th, we introduced Gloria to broccoli and that went over great as well. We gave her nectarines and mixed grain cereal (because we were out of oatmeal) on the 16th and the next day we noticed a rash. The rash was on Gloria's neck, chest, tummy, and a little bit on her waist. At first we thought it was from Rob's scratchy whiskers since he had been getting her with kisses. But as the day went on, the rash didn't disappear. So, we figured it was probably from one of the new foods that she had had in the past few days. The rash went away in a day and we waited a few more days before giving her broccoli again. She's had broccoli again with no problems so we'll wait a few more days and try nectarines again. We think it was probably the mixed grain cereal because it has wheat in it, and wheat is a common allergen. We won't be trying the cereal again for awhile, mainly because we don't have any reason really to give it to Gloria since she loves her oatmeal so much.










Gloria has been working on her scooting every day. She's been getting up on her hands and knees a lot and rocking back and forth. She's also been lifting her body up and making herself into a "tent" on her toes and hands.

Every once in awhile she'll try to propel her self forward by rocking forward, but she just lands on her belly. She tried this once last week while she and I were at a breastfeeding group and she bumped her nose on the hard floor, giving her her first bloody nose. She cried for a few minutes and then she was okay and kept swiping at the wet paper towel I was wiping her nose off with.

Fun in the pool

Next Tuesday is Gloria's last swimming class. But don't worry - I've already signed us up for the next session which starts the week of September 15. We'll be going on Fridays for the new session. During the two weeks when there are no lessons I'm hoping to bring Gloria to the pool during open swim time, and maybe Rob will be able to join us for a day.

"Balancing a boat on my foot helps me to remember to keep my toes up when I float."


"Mommy is so silly when she blows bubbles!"


"My favorite part of swimming lessons is playing in the shallow beach area!"


"The fountains are fun!"

The following are pictures from July 31. Gloria wanted to show everyone how flexible she is. She's our little acrobat.

"Here's my foot!"

"See?!"