Well, yeah, there was that...

The previous posting refers, I believe to:

The Great Cat Food Grab of 2011. By which, unbeknownst to her parents, one Miss Alice scooted, crawled, and otherwise propelled herself bodily and with great haste toward the breakfast bowl of Miss Ginger D. Cat. Miss Alice (hereafter MA) proceeded to take up two full fistfuls of Miss Ginger's breakfast food -- wet, it should be noted -- directing them into her mouth forthwith. Her parents, Mr. Appalled and Ms. Chagrined, declined comment.

Food update

Alice continues to have new foods every day, and we are introducing them at an increasing rate. Recently we've added peas, watermelon, bread, pasta, cheese, flax seeds, Pork By-Products, Water, Pork Liver, Chicken, Rice, Corn Starch, Oat Fiber, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Fish Meal, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken Liver Flavor, Calcium Sulfate, Guar Gum, Fish Oil, Brewers Dried Yeast, Glucose, DL-Methionine, Choline Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Taurine, Cysteine, Calcium Carbonate, Dried Egg Yolk, Glycine, Vitamin E Supplement, Iodized Salt, Potassium Citrate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Zinc Oxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Beta-Carotene, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin, Biotin, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid, Calcium Iodate.

Mobility 3.0

Lots of exciting news for Alice in the past month: mobility, teething, new foods, and delightful new interactions with us and with Lizzie.

Since I last checked in about a month ago, Alice has gone from barrel rolls to a commando crawl to full fledged all-fours crawling. For a while we wondered if she would ever bother with a real crawl -- she was so good at the commando crawl, she seemed to find little need for the real thing. But about a week ago she started to try, and by a few days ago it was clear she'd be making the switch. As of today there's almost no belly scootching at all. And she's FAST. Dangerously so. Developed concurrently with the switch to all fours crawling is Alice's "knee-up" maneuver, by which she pops up onto her knees to reach things on chairs, table tops, etc. The magazines are no longer safe on end tables; I've lost 2 issues of the Economist in as many days..

Next up in the news, and this just in today -- the first sign of a tooth! Bottom right-center, just barely poking through. She has yet to bite me, but I sense it's coming. I remember Lizzie's first forays into toothyness, and I must say I'm not looking forward to a repeat... But we celebrate the tooth nonetheless. Our little baby Alice is growing up!

New on the list of foods are: wheat (pasta, well cooked and cut up as finger food, as well as a soft roll yesterday); cheese (soft, in little pieces); whole black beans; diced avocado; and a host of other fruits and veggies in soft baby-food type preparations.

Last but not least, Alice and Lizzie are having more and more interaction with each other. THIS, people, is what it's all about. SO wonderful. So cute. And I am so very proud of both of them: Lizzie is gentle and kind (mostly), and Alice is enthusiastic and patient. Tonight they took their very first bath together. A few pics from then, and also earlier in the evening, to give a sense of how they behave together. (Mostly Alice glowing from Lizzie's attention, and Lizzie loving the limelight she gets as the exalted big sis.)

cheerio fiend

Alice is full fledged Cheerio addict. Once she sees them, she howls and bangs on her tray until she gets them. Then she shoves them in her mouth as fast as she can and "asks" for more. Other than that, feeding goes well, and she is agreeable with most new foods. Hard to say what her favorite is, except Cheerios.

She's turned into a very regular sleeper, and we've finally managed to eliminate night-time feeding. Her first real sleep-through-the-night was just a few days after her 7 month birthday. Basically Mom and Dad had been slackers and just didn't have the energy to deal with getting her out of the habit of eating during the night. She adapted very quickly and without much protestation. She is a good napper, with a morning nap lasting about 1-2 hours, and an afternoon nap of 2-3 hours. Sometimes the naps are a little too short, but she can usually deal pretty well with a short nap. Again, she's a very mellow and agreeable baby.

She's mobile now. For a couple months she's been rolling places intentionally. then she added the pivot, and a few weeks ago a very deliberate commando crawl. She doesn't do a classic crawl yet, and I think that it might be delayed a bit, because she is so good at the commando crawl. Liz never did a commando crawl and the first way she figured out to get around was the actual crawl. Alice could move faster with a real crawl, but it seems the commando crawl meets her needs for now.

She has been sitting for a few weeks and can now sit herself up off the ground. Its funny: sometimes, I can put her in the center of the rug sitting up, and she gets frustrated. I think she gets frustrated because when she is sitting she can't move around - like she hasn't figured out that she can flop down, crawl around, and sit up again. This happens most often in two places: in the living room and outside. These places house her two favorite obsession other than Cheerios: the fireplace screen and grass. Usually she can crawl to either of them from where she is. But if I plop her up sitting on her butt, its like she gets stuck. I'm sure it won't last.

Bye for now.