Not a cuddly baby

Anja really isn't a cuddly baby. And now that she's stronger she's learned that she can pull her knees up and put her feet on your stomach and push really hard. And arch her back. Every kid is different. This one is nonstopmotionallthetime.



And she's still working on that "crawling" thing.

Not quite hands and knees

In this house we don't crawl on our hands and knees, we crawl on our feet and face.


And we play with toys while we're sleeping.

Daycare

We are starting daycare next week. We've put it off as long as we can, the wonderful woman we chose for daycare has generously let us wait an extra month before starting (we signed up with her last February), but I can't ask her to wait any longer. And Jay really needs to focus on his work while I need to spend more uninterrupted time applying for jobs. It is really difficult to get much done that requires concentrating when you're watching her. Up until now we've been taking turns getting stuff done, but we can't do that anymore. Each job I apply for requires several hours to find the job, research it, and fill out the appropriate materials and send it in. And I'm reaching the panic stage of being unemployed now. The first few months home were really nice while I recovered physically and was able to spend time with Anja. Now it's just constant stress while our savings disappear to nothing and I still haven't found a job. I really didn't start applying in earnest until last week after I finished my thesis, so there will likely be some lag time before I start to hear back about any of the jobs.

Anyway, I'm a little sad about starting daycare, even though I really like the woman we are using. She is SO excited that Anja is starting next week, so that makes it a little easier. And she is very competent. Much more competent than us, I'm sure :-) She's been running a daycare for 20 years. But I don't want to miss all the new things I'm sure Anja will be doing. I'm pretty sure she's going to start crawling in the next week or so, she's up on all fours all the time now. I know you can't be there for all the milestones, but you can try! So I told her we would start with a schedule of 9-3. That gives me enough time to get some real work done job searching, but she won't be gone all day. We still have to pay for full time, but that's fine. It sure will be quiet around here.

Anja's not worried about starting daycare:


Recently we got some new toys for Anja: some stackable tupperware and this magazine:


They were a big hit. She likes the crinkly noise of the paper and the tupperware is big enough to grab easily and doesn't weigh much. By the way, check out that fuzzy head!

And this week, Laura's baby is as big as a head of cauliflower. Good job Laura!

Biking crawling sitting eating

Dalmac went great. Anja slept pretty well at night, usually just up once to eat. It's actually a little easier to get her back to sleep in the tent than at home since she's right between the two of us and we just hold her hands until she falls asleep. It's pretty comical, really, but she likes it. She wasn't always good driving around in the car and we had to stop frequently if she was unhappy. She was really a little celebrity on the ride. People are so friendly when you have a baby, everyone wanted to talk to us. One night we camped in Boyne City and went to a (non-smoky) local bar to watch the MSU football game. A woman at the next table over kept staring at us and I was convinced she was going to criticize us for having a baby at the bar, turns out she just really wanted to say hi to Anja.

And a lot of people asked me if I rode my bike with her in the front carrier. Seriously? But the funniest thing is how many women commented to me about how great Jay was for taking care of Anja when I biked, and how good he was, carrying her around in the carrier, even though I did the same for him when he was biking. As if somehow he shouldn't be competent or willing. I'm surprised that a father taking care of his child is still so surprising to people these days.

Here we are at a couple of rest stops:




And here we are near Wilderness State Park


In the last week she has really gotten a lot stronger. I know I keep saying that. She is starting to push herself up on all fours. It isn't for very long, but she's definitely doing it. And she's also starting to push up into a half sitting position. The first type of sitting that babies do is usually supported with both hands. Mostly she still tries to crawl with her forehead on the ground. Even if she's not on all fours, she is definitely all over the place now. She sees toys she wants and crawls over to them, or rolls several times to get across the blanket. It's really fun to watch her learn new things.

Here she is up on all fours


And here she is pushing up into a sitting position.


We decided to start solid foods this week. It's a pretty long process, you are supposed to introduce new foods one week at a time and make sure there is no reaction to it, and then the next week you can try another food. We started with rice cereal - little flavor, little texture, and it doesn't stain clothes! Plus babies generally do well with it. She did surprisingly well. I say surprisingly because she's never been easy to feed. From the 10 weeks of failed breastfeeding struggle to the many different types of silicone nipples we had to buy to find the one kind she will actually use (including the $12 breast-shaped bottle!), to the struggles we've been having lately of just generic freak outs during mealtime, I assumed solid food would be tough. But she was very calm and did a great job. We mixed up two tablespoons of the dry flakes and she ate it all.



In conclusion, look how cute:

We're off again

We're leaving in the morning for Dalmac, the 4 day bike ride from Lansing to Mackinac. We're bringing Anja, but leaving the dog at home. We will be splitting the biking, one of us will drive with the baby while the other bikes. This will be a real test - 3 nights in a row will be the longest we've camped with Anja, plus the camping situation is really close quarters, the tents of our neighbors will almost be touching ours. So, late night baby noise will not be appreciated by tired bikers who have to get up early. And staying in a nearby hotel if we need to won't be an option because they will all be booked up by the other bikers. So we're committed, whatever the situation.



In other news, Anja is growing so fast. It took so long for her to grow into the 0-3 month clothing, but now she's fully into the 6-9 month stuff. She's really long so she's outgrowing footie pj's fast. I Just picked up some new outfits at the used place. It's hard, but I also sold some stuff back. The special ones, and the ones that are non gender specific I'm sending Laura who is due in December.





More crawling action:

And..... action!

Lately all this kid does is move! We use a full-sized bedspread now instead of a blanket on the floor and she crawls off that pretty quickly. Today we spread a bunch of her toys around the edge of the blanket and she quickly crawled to each of them so she could frantically wrestle with each one in turn. And she makes noises all the time. She squeals and shrieks and blows loud bubbles while rolling all over the place and wrapping the blanket all around herself. If you put her in the bouncy seat she kicks and rocks for hours.

She hasn't gotten up on all fours yet, but she's really close. She can get both knees underneath herself at the same time, and she's starting to push up with her arms now. She's almost had it a few times before she crashes back down. She's very driven to push and kick and scoot around on the floor constantly.

Rocking and rocking:


Places to go:


Lots more rolling:


Anja says no more video:

This kid is so smart!

Look, now she can feed herself!