Emi's new haircut

Previous haircut:
















Meet Emi Ray Cyrus (mom and dad's attempt of a haircut):



Today:














Background: About a month and half ago (I think), Emi started pulling her hair out. It started out with just a few strands here and there, and then we noticed the receding hairline across her forehead. Then it turned into a completely bald spot spanning almost 1/4 of her head (the left front quadrant). We asked the doctor about it, and she said it was probably a bad habit that she has developed along with sucking on her finger. As she pulled the hair our, she kept going back further to find more long hair to pull. After a bunch of lab work to make sure she didn't have a mineral deficiency or anything else, the recommendation was to shave her head to break the bad habit. I didn't want to completely shave the kid bald, so we tried a half way solution. Not good, and we chose not to go with the hari krishna look either. So meet the new Emi, bald for the first (and hopefully last) time in her life. I think in about 3 months she'll have the head of hair she was born with...

Goodnight

I'm not sure why I am feeling so sentimental tonight. It might be because it's so quiet in the house tonight, or that things have settled down a little earlier in the evening than normal, or because I just finished watching a relatively intense episode of "The Closer". But I can't help but think that life is short, and that it if you are not careful it can pass you by faster than you could ever anticipate.

As I turned the TV off, prepared bottles for daycare tomorrow, turned off the lights and headed upstairs, I had to fight the urge to pick Emi up and just cuddle with her for the rest of the night. If I am lucky, I will have a very long time to hug her, to show her I love her, to get to know her and hopefully become friends with her. I think about my parents and how lucky I am to have them as such a big part of my life. They are some of my favorite people in this world, and I am fortunate that our relationship has blossomed into what it is today. I hope that I am as lucky as they are. I hope I get at least 35 years to know my daughter, to see what she becomes, and stand by her every milestone in life.

35 years sounds like a very long time, and hopefully it will turn out to be much longer than that. But right now, I just feel like Emi's first year has flown by. If the remainder of the years pass at this pace, it might make 35 years feel more like 35 seconds. I can only hope that one day I will be old and gray, and Scott is by my side and we can look at the daughter that we created and know that the world is right. But right now, I just feel like I want to hug Emi and not let this moment, this age, this day, this overwhelming love I feel for her go.

July, already?!

I sometimes see Scott going to this blog to see if I have updated it lately, and he sees that nothing has changed and goes onto the next surfing site on his list. Of course the guilt has set in, and I am now updating things so that he has something to read next time he checks. I am still convinced that he is the only person that reads this...

Emi has started walking up a storm. We definitely see her walk now; every day, all around the house, up the entire flight of stairs (ok, that's more crawling), and right out the back door. She seems to prefer being on her feet now, and her balance is getting better every day. She can walk the entire circle of our living room and kitchen without falling, and we can sit on the couch and listen to the sounds of her heavy footsteps on the floor as she disappears from sight on one side and comes back on the other side of the kitchen. It's the cutest thing.

We had a nice 4 day 4th of July holiday. I packed it full of activities, and maybe it was just too much because I got sick on the last day of our holiday. We went to see The Last Airbender, took Emi to her first Padres game, saw Avenue Q, and met with friends. Emi did great at the Padres game, and I think she really enjoyed it. She ate almost an entire pretzel, and bounced every time the music played. She even took a nap through the 8th and 9th innings.

I have been sick since that weekend and spent almost this entire past weekend in bed. Scott was a lifesaver and took care of Emi and let me get the rest that I needed. It seems like we didn't have quality time with each other this past weekend, which really sucks and it's going to make this week feel very long until he's home again on Friday.

All in all, things are great, and I can't believe that the summer is already half over. Where is the time going? Next things we know, Emi will be 1 year old (I am a little sad about that) and it will be fall.

Mom and Dad are the last to see things happen

On Friday, I picked Emi up from daycare, and they asked me what I had been practicing at home. I'm sure I had a confused look on my face, and they explained that they thought I had been practicing walking with her because today she took 3 steps, and yesterday she walked a little, too.

So that's the trouble with daycare. Your kids will most likely take their "firsts" when you are not around to see it happen.

All weekend we watched and waited, and urged Emi to walk. No luck. She stood up on her own (a first for us, too), but no walking.
UNTIL, Sunday night when grandma/pa were over for dinner. Upstairs, grandma and I were getting Emi's PJs on, and she walked a few steps towards grandma. Then downstairs, she took a few steps in the living room. Yay!

As much as I have been waiting for this moment, it's a little sad now that it's here.
My baby is growing up so fast... I look at some of her newborn pictures and think "who is that baby, you look nothing like her anymore".

Guess how much I spent for this?

Scott says I have a new obsession (this time I agree, unfortunately). But it is saving us a boat load! I paid $3.58 for all of this: 11 boxes of pasta and 4 roma tomatoes.

I always clipped coupons, but I was the person who looked through them every 5-6 trips I made to the store only to find that they were all expired. I have started following various coupon websites and blogs, and have started matching up sales at the store with my coupons. The trick is to try to get multiple coupons (mom saves the adds for me from the paper, I print them off the web, etc).

I must give credit where due:
The Krazy Coupon Lady
Money Saving Mom
The Coupon Queen, who may have a weekly column in your newspaper (she does in mine, and started this craziness for me!)


Above, Ronzoni Smart Taste pasta sells for $2.49 a box. They had them on sale for $1, and I had 11 $.75 off coupons. Each box only cost me 25 cents! And those who know me well know I love pasta, so this will eventually all get eaten.

Now, I need to hunt around for some sauce on sale and I'll be all set!

Socks!

The other day, Scott said that I had a sock addiction. I think it's completely normal, you have to buy what your child needs, right?

Last week I noticed that she outgrew all her plain white socks. All the socks that she had were colored or striped, and didn't go with some of her outfits. So we went and got the 6 pack of plain white socks at Target.

Here's a pic of my sock score this past weekend. Since she's starting to stand up on everything, and Bema thinks she's going to walk soon, I figured I should stock up on socks that have the little rubber grippies on the bottom so she has some traction. It's a tile floor at daycare, and regular socks can get awfully slippery! They had a sale going on, so I figured I would also buy the next size up, to take advantage of the sale. I also found the cutest knee high socks to make more legwarmers for her. It's getting to be summer (and her old legwarmers are getting a little small), so she'll be in onesies and creepers more, and needs the legwarmers to cover her knees for all the crawling that she does.

Completely normal, right?
BTW - I am still so irritated that all girl baby clothes (and socks) are always pink! What if we don't like pink? How about some cool colors like magenta, or black, or leopard print?

Our new normal - for now

It's been a while since I've updated this, so I wanted to get something out here since we've had a lot going on lately.

Scott:
On March 18th, Scott graduated! Emi and I went to DC, and both sides of our families were there to help him celebrate. We all flew home from DC together, and after a few days off, Scott reported to his first day of work in LA. It sounds like he's starting to get settled in, doing a lot of admin "new guy on the block" kind of work, but hopefully he'll be getting some exciting assignments soon. Until we decide what to do with our living situation, Scott is staying at Eric's place Sun - Thu night (thank you Eric!), and coming home on the weekends. His commute from the office to our house is about 2.5 hours, and his commute from Eric's house to the office is about a half hour on good days.
On April 10th, Scott had a birthday (the first birthday as a father). I didn't get him a card (oops), but we were together and had a great weekend. Happy Birthday, honey.

Emi:
Right before we went to DC for Scott's graduation, Emi started crawling. She is now all over the place, and the little bugger is fast. She seems to love the dog's bowls, and has more than once put her hands in their water bowls and made a mini-mess. We got her a jumperoo, and that thing is her favorite toy. I try not to put her in it too much (don't want the novelty to wear out too soon), but when she does go in, she can jump and play for about an hour. That's plenty of time to get things around the house done without having to chase Emi. A few weeks ago, Emi started pulling herself up. She can stand herself up in her crib, on the coffee table, on Bear, on us, pretty much anything. And I guess we are lucky that she also knows how to plop herself down again. I've heard stories of kids standing up in their cribs in the middle of night, and cry because they don't know how to let go.

Colette:
I've become a pro at flying with Emi (ok, maybe it's her that's become the pro). I've also gotten in a pretty good routing with work, daycare, and taking care of Emi. Things at work are pretty busy, and I'm also trying to squeeze in a bit of quality personal time during the week with Emi, with friends, and getting out of the house for errands and shopping. This past weekend we splurged and decided to get the BOB stroller, and it's great. Hopefully now I can work some exercise time into mix. At least now there is greater incentive to walk to daycare! Last week, we had an earthquake which we all felt. We were in the kitchen, and Emi was in her jumperoo. That was the most exciting thing to happen in a few weeks!

Our new normal feels pretty good for now (after Scott being gone for 5 months, this is a big improvement). I know he's sad to leave every Sunday night (it must be so much harder for him than for us, since we get to stay in our house each week), but things will work themselves out and we'll end up where we are supposed to be in a few months. Overall, the Z's are hanging in there!

Commando Crawling

Emi can now sit up on her own, and she is getting very close to crawling. It's getting to the point where you can't really take your eyes off her anymore (and unfortunately, I have to vacuum a lot more!) She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks as if she's about to take her first crawl any day now. When she wants to get from point A to point B she will do her "Commando Crawl".

6 months - how time flies

I can't believe my little girl is 6 months old. At our last check up, she didn't gain any weight or grow at all, so the doctor said it's time to really pick up the amount of solids that she's eating. She is getting cereal twice a day (once at daycare, and they said she's doing great with it) and veggies at dinner. I'm going to start giving her fruits in the morning, too - so she'll be eating 2 full meals a day along with all the milk that she normally gets.

So far, she has had (and loved): rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, squash, sweet potatoes, pears, carrots, and apples. I am trying my hand at making baby food, and I have made her the carrots and apples. Hopefully I'll be able to make most, if not all, of her food. The challenge is finding containers to store them all in. I bought little baby food containers, but the batch of carrots made so much that only half of what I made fit in all the containers. I am keeping the Gerber containers that she finishes, and I still had no place to put the rest of the carrots. Mental note: don't make so much at once, and don't throw out the ice cube trays that come with the fridge next time (no matter how much I think that I will never use them since we have an ice maker).

She also was diagnosed with an ear infection at her last doctor's appt. So she started another round of antibiotics, and she seems to be feeling much better. She still tugs a little at her ear (she finished the medicine about a week ago), and I'll have them check her ear again at her next appt in 1.5 weeks.

Emi and I went to DC to visit Scott for President's Day weekend. I came down with some sort of stomach thing the day before our trip (I blame the Chick Fil A that I had that night), but was feeling well enough to travel. I didn't take a stroller, and checked the car seat in, so it was a very easy flight with nothing more than the baby in the Ergo carrier and the diaper bag to carry. She did great on the flights, and even ate dinner on the plane (sweet potatoes) on the way home. It was a short but great trip, and of course it was wonderful spending time with Scott. We got to visit with family and friends, too.

Six months has really flown by with Emi, and I still can't believe that I am a mother and I seriously still feel like I am learning about Emi and how to take care of her every day. I guess that feeling will never go away, huh? As soon as I get use to something and we get into a good routine, she starts to do something new and we have to adjust again. Oh well, I take it one day at a time, and I love every minute of it (most of the time :-P )

Firsts (cont.)

At Emi's 5 month check up, she weighed in at 14 lbs, and 26 1/4 inches. The doctor said she is definitely teething, and that she's ready to be started on rice cereal. Wow, my baby is growing up!

Firsts

Emi went through many firsts, in the span of just 2 weeks.

First cold
First sinus infection
First antibiotics
First plane ride
First trip to DC
First Christmas
First New Years

Minus the sickness, we had a very nice xmas. The trip to DC was actually easier than I thought it would be. Flying with Emi wasn't bad (she was only a little fussy on the last 2 hours of the flight home). The biggest hassle was all the stuff that we traveled with. Next time, I plan to check the car seat in as luggage, and not bring the stroller. I'll just bring the Moby wrap, or borrow or buy an Ergo Baby, which I hear is the best baby carrier around.

Scott's parents drove to DC to spend New Years with us. Scott spend all xmas day and half the following day in bed - but that's the price he paid for having his sick family in town for the holidays. Even through the sickness, I'm sure he thinks it was a small price to pay for having us with him (at least I hope that's what he thinks!). Seeing him over the holidays made me miss him even more once we got home.
I've already booked my flight to be in DC for President's Day weekend.

Hopefully 2010 is a great year, and I have a feeling it's going to fly by.