Hayley and Kate Minter

The blog’s been quiet because nothing much new has been going on baby-wise. She’s sleeping a lot better, if a bit restless. For example, she went down last night around 8:30, and went until 7am without us having to go in there. She’d stir every hour or two and make some noise, but then go on back to sleep.

I think the top tooth we saw was a false alarm. The little white bump on the gum has disappeared, and no tooth is in sight.

She’s getting the hang of the cracker, though. When we crumble one up and give it to her, she’ll grasp the pieces and get most of them in her mouth. Or, when we give her a whole cracker, she can hold it and take bites of it.

Other than that, she just keeps getting bigger and cuter.

Hayley’s certainly not one to let a newfound gift lay dormant. We’ve been treated to a veritable symphony of “Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma…” recently. It’s usually pretty random, but just a few minutes ago, while Holly was on the phone and Hayley was sitting at her feet, she unleashed a “Ma-Ma!” that sounded just like “Hey! Pay attention to me!”

Tooth #3 is on its way in. We can see the pale white bump on her top gum now, so it’s just a matter of a couple days before it breaks through, I bet. Then she’ll have teeth on top and bottom, and can inflict some real damage while she’s nursing. Glad I’m the daddy. Ouch.

She’s also officially into the mobility phase. She chased the cat from the kitchen, all the way through the living room, over to the steps today. Once she got to the steps, she pulled herself up on the side of them, and stood there. If you’re sitting on the floor, she’ll crawl over to your legs, then crawl over them to get where she’s going.

We tried an experiment in finger foods today - we gave her a saltine cracker (with salt scraped off) to play with. She didn’t quite know what to think of it - she was treating it more like a toy than like food. The few times she got any in her mouth, she didn’t seem too impressed.

Hayley’s outgrowing her carseat in small steps. When we push her around in her stroller now, she faces forward in the real stroller-seat, instead of us putting the carseat in the stroller.

We’re going to miss Aunt Jenny - she’s heading back up to school for her senior year. Hayley may be walking when you get back! Heck, Hayley may be driving when you get back, at the rate she’s going.

Hayley is seven months old today! More than halfway to the “Big One”!

I had one of those great “Dad Moments” Tuesday night.

Holly was out mowing the lawn, so I was keeping an eye on Hayley. We played downstairs for a half hour or so, then went up to her room. I was showing her some of the toys in her toy basket, and she was crawling around the room looking at other stuff.

She eventually made it over to a set of shelves, and found a little pink-and-white plastic comb. For the next 20 minutes, she played intently with the comb. She’d pick it up, twirl it around to look at it from different angles, chew on it, put it on the shelf and pick it back up - all sorts of things. I just sat quietly by and watched. It was wonderful to just watch her learn about the world for a while. As a bonus, she’s also learning about proper grooming.

Yesterday marked the first time that Hayley consistently used the “ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma” sound. She’s been “mmmmmmmm”-ing for a while, but this was new. I’d like to think that she’s recognizing Holly, but as Holly pointed out, if you listen to Hayley, then she, I, the cat, her rattles, and a used diaper are all “ma-ma”.

Yesterday also marked another big moment - Hayley pulled herself up on the fireplace, and “cruised” from one end of it to the other by herself! Ok, I was right there ready to catch her if she fell, but she managed to do all the movement without me helping at all!

Hayley is starting to resemble Aunt Jenny - “The Destroyer.” At some point over the past couple of nights, she managed to pull on her crib bumper hard enough to rip the ties right off of it. So we’ve removed the bumper, at least until we can repair it.

Holly came back from Virginia with mastitis, her second bout with it. The fever was a little lower this time, and once she got medicine on Monday she started feeling better quickly, but it hasn’t been fun for her.

Hayley has decided that she’s such a big girl that she no longer needs sleep. Sunday and Monday nights she went down around her usual time (9:30-10), but was up screaming at 11, 12, 1, 2, 4, and 7. And not just awake, but awake and hollering like somebody was taking her soul. Couple that with her new-found powers of standing up, and I’ve been going into her room at night to find her standing in her crib, holding onto the bars, wailing. It’s like a midget prison movie.

It’s been a trying week, and it’s only Tuesday.

I almost forgot - today marks one year since I started the BabyBlog! Now would be a good time to start at the beginning and follow one geek dad’s journey from “It’s a girl” to “Oh my God she’s crawling”!

Hopefully friends and family have gotten some use out of this to keep up with Hayley as she grows.

Hayley’s back to her normal (good) sleep paterns the past couple of nights. Even though she’s still a bit more restless in her sleep than normal, she manages to put herself back to sleep without going into full-fuss mode.

Holly and Hayley are up in Virginia for a couple days visiting the grandparents. The house is going to be creepy-silent again. I’ll be glad when they get back.

Hayley has not been her usual easy-sleeping self the past three nights. The pattern has been the same each night - she starts getting tired around 8pm or so, we put her to bed, and she’s asleep around 9:30.

But between 10 and 11, she’ll wake up screaming, and nothing will make her happy. We go in, hold her, rock her, and she’ll calm down and fall asleep on us, but as soon as we put her down, she’s wide awake again.

Her new tricks are working against us, too, since now she can pull herself into a hands-and-knees or sitting position, instead of staying on her back and possibly falling back to sleep. Last night, we heard the screaming start, and went in to find her sitting in her crib with the most pitiful look on her face. I think it was around midnight last night before she finally went down for the night.

I dunno if there’s something wrong, or if she’s just going through a phase.

We’ve got a new video online for your viewing pleasure. It features Hayley crawling around her room trying to get The Forbidden Newspaper.

As a bonus feature, she also shows you how sitting up is old hat for her now.

Enjoy!

Yup, it was the precursor to crawling, all right. Hayley’s been making many trips across the living room floor tonight. The cat is no longer safe.

Daddy got to spend about four hours alone with the baby tonight while Mommy went out by herself for only the second time since January. I survived, Hayley survived, and I got to see lots of crawling. I’ll try to get the crawling on video this weekend, if she’ll cooperate.

Yay baby!