Poor little baby

A lot has happened since we went to Georgia. Genevieve "cut her first tooth" while in Georgia. She didn't really seem to mind but now when she gnaws on your finger, she really gnaws on your finger. I imagined that her tooth would be sharp but I didn't realize how sharp.

On our flight home, she was finally that crying baby that wouldn't shut up. She refused to nap on the plane. She screamed, kicked the seat in front of her and was just plain trouble the entire flight. We got a lot of dirty looks from passengers but when we landed a few others tried to commiserate saying that every parent has been there and that kids will do what they want. Even though we knew it was just a matter of time before it happened it was still rough.

She's also gotten a lot better at crawling and can now make it across a room quickly enough that you need to keep an eye on her when you put her down. Fortunately with the expanded baby prison we can lock her up for quite some time before she demands parole. We've been training her for backyard baby wrestling and teaching her a "game face." Where she scrunches up her face and huffs loudly. She looks really mean when she does it. I'm sure it will intimidate all the other kids when it comes for the plastic cage bouts. Carrie will try to snap a photo of the face. Think Harpo Marx from duck soup with out the crossed eyes.

Carrie took her to the doctor on Thursday for her checkup. I don't know the actual stats but she's a few inches taller and didn't gain much weight at all this month. 97th percentile for weight 95th for height. Hmm...other babies are gaining on her height statistics but she still out weighs them.

The doctor gave her two shots, Polio and hepatitis B. They seem to be making her slightly ill and she's been off all weekend. Yesterday she was pretty lethargic. She would sit in one place looking sullen not really interested in anything. Her voice became hoarse. Either she's picked up a smoking habit or she is losing her voice. It is both comical and pathetic to hear her screeches, babbles and cries with this throaty sound.

Today was worse. She's been in a foul mood all day. Crying and struggling. She doesn't want to drink her bottles or play that much. We've given her tylenol but that doesn't really help. Tomorrow Carrie is going to take her back to the doctor's office.

It is really incredible to see her whine and moan. These things are just innate. Much like the pouting lip, we didn't teach her these traits yet she just does them. Her whines, while heart wrenching and pathetic, are really cute.

Cage 2.0

Genevieve has a new and improved cage. It now has over 80% more crawling space and a softer,more colorful, more durable landing pad. Genevieve is seen here clapping in support of her parents construction abilities.

Learning to Fly

Genevieve tried to convince us that she's big enough to have her own seat on the plane, but we didn't buy it. As soon as she had the chance she was trying to gnaw her way through the straps and to freedom.

Sitting Pretty

Genevieve has developed a new skill this week: pushing herself up into a sitting position and staying that way for a while. This was pretty surprising to us since we didn't think she could sit without being propped up at all. We were beginning to think she was a little slow; all of the baby books say that she should be sitting on her own by now. I tried explaining this to Genevieve, even showing her the pictures and diagrams of happy babies her age sitting on their own. She would either just look away and pretend that she didn't understand or start saying "blah, blah, blah" over and over again. She's such a baby.

Anyway, here are a few photos of Genevieve in her new cage... er, uhm, playpen, yeah... sitting crutch free.

7 Month Update

Genevieve turned 7 months this past Wednesday. She did not have a check-up scheduled for this month, so I decided to plot her height and weight gain myself. These numbers are only as accurate as my bathroom scale and my patience with measuring the length of a squirming and very uncooperative subject, but here they are nonetheless:

Height: 28 or 28.5" - either way above the 95th percentile range for her age, and also the average height for a 15-month old

Weight: 23 pounds-ish - also above the 95th percentile for her age and also the average weight for a 15-month old. Sensing a patern here.

So for anyone that might have been worried that our dear Genevieve was wasting away to nothing and that her parents were starving her, fear not.

Do you realize that if she keeps growing at this rate (2.28 pounds per month) she will weigh 143 pounds when she starts kindergarten? Which isn't terrible when you think about the fact that she would be over 5'4" tall if she keeps her height gain steady...

At what point should you worry about gigantism?

Fun in the Sun

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

So very tired....

I have come to accept the fact that babies can get over-tired. A state, as crazy as it sounds, in which the baby is so tired they cannot fall asleep. Genevieve, if she misses a nap and has an exciting day, will get over-tired. This means that at the next scheduled nap time we'll do our darndest to put the fussy one into a food coma. There is nothing like a warm bottle of milk and some vigorous rocking to put an over-tired baby to sleep. Unfortunately that also means suffering through about 10 or 15 minutes of whining as she fights off the sandman. With each passing minute the whines get a little less confident and there are longer pauses between them. That is, until that damned gardener with his two-stroke leaf blower decides there is something in the driveway just beneath Genevieve's window that requires his immediate and undivided leaf-blowing attention.

*sigh*

However, as I said before, I have come to accept this. What happened last night was by far the strangest thing I have ever witnessed. Genevieve was so over-tired that she woke up from a deep sleep only to refuse to go back to bed. What!??!

This weekend was full of a lot of firsts for baby G. For the first time she hung out with some other babies. Some younger, some older, all smaller. Though, there is a one year old, Ava, that is giving her a run for her money. Genevieve was interested in the other babies but there wasn't much in the way of playing. Being true to form she did try to eat a shoe. For the first time she went swimming. (pictures posted soon) She enjoyed splashing in the pool though sometimes she would splash so much she would startle herself and have to take a minute to recompose herself.

All this weekend excitement lead to an over-tired baby. After a long day she passed out in the car on the way home. We took her up to her room and left quietly. This was about 10:00, only a little past her normal bedtime. She fell right back asleep as soon as she hit the mattress. Carrie and I readied ourselves for bed and also went to sleep. At 12:30 AM I hear a loud crash followed by screaming. This wasn't the normal I'm-bored-come-get-me-out-of-my-crib screaming this was the wake-the-neighbors-because-nobody-is-sleeping-tonight kind of screaming. Genevieve was shrieking her head off and kicking her crib toys as hard as she could. No pacifier was going to do the trick on this one. Even picking her up and bouncing her which can normally calm her in seconds didn't phase this child. I felt so bad for the neighbors that I shut all the windows. She's never screamed this loud this late at night before. After about 20 minutes of calming her she was finally back to sleep.

We went back to bed only to have her start up again in less than 5 minutes. We tried tylenol; we tried feeding her; we tried playing with her. I even pulled out the Baby's first year book to see if it mentioned anything about this. Nothing. Screams like you wouldn't believe. Eventually she calmed down enough for us to put her back in her crib. But again, 5 minutes later we were back to square one. This eventually went on for an hour and a half when Carrie had the bright idea to put her in her vibrating chair. Ahh, the soothing vibrations of her rocking chair. Within 5 minutes she was passed out and we put her back in her room. We left the chair running all night and she slept later than she has slept in weeks. I actually woke her up at 9:30 because we didn't want it to screw up the rest of her day. Which it did anyway, but that is a different story.

Seriously...what is wrong with this child? She was fast asleep yet because she was overtired she woke up and would not go back to sleep. That is the most preposterous thing I have ever witnessed.

Needless to say, I'm very tired. I wonder if that means I won't be able to sleep tonight.