Blueberries and Smurf-babies.

On Wednesday of last week, we tried yogurt with Campbell. She loved it but was super cranky all day. I think we will try again in a couple of weeks.....this is the only dairy she can have until she is at least a year...so it will be a bummer if she can't have it. Plus, my mom broke the seal on the peanut butter for Campbell while we were in Chicago. No ill effects, and she LOVED it. No surprise there since I can't live without my PB. FYI-for the next few months, we are going to be making our own baby cereals in addition to the fruits and veggies. Can't wait!

Today, we tried blueberries. This was a natural progression....and we had a ton of them in the freezer. I cooked the blueberries and threw them in the grinder (BTW--Campbell is totally conditioned to the sound of the grinder. She stops what she is doing and stares into the kitchen when it is being used. Smart kid) with some oatmeal and milk. It made waaaayyyy more than I thought it would. Luckily, I made what I did. She ate everything....and then wore the last 2 tablespoons. Here is the progression of lunch. We ended up having to hose down her bumbo and scrape blueberries off of her legs, face, and even her ears! Oh, and blueberries stain skin in case you didn't know. We now have a blue-faced baby asleep in her room. I am hoping the stain comes out before she has to go out in public again.

Chicago and the Nerdoscience Meeting.

A week ago, we went to Chicago for a conference. Grammy (Erin's mom) met us up there and we had a big ole time with the baby in the city. Campbell was EXCELLENT on the plane..on all the planes. She was amazing and we could not have asked for a better experience. The first couple of days, it was cold and rainy, but we got out and explored a little. Most of the rest of the time, Campbell kept Grammy on house arrest in the room (at least the view was nice....see the picture below from our window at the hotel). Apparently, Camysue used up all of her patience and good behavior on the plane ride. We had a great time and we could not have done the trip without having my mom there with us. Campbell would not have tolerated all the nerdiness at the conference.
Here is a pic of Campbell in her winter-wear.

Catching up a little.

So--the month of October is almost over and I feel like a bad blogger. Going to try to do better and catch up today. Here's what we have been up to:
1. Campbell got two teeth at the end of September and beginning of October. No more teeth since then...and for anyone that is interested, they are both on the bottom. We are still breastfeeding until she gets an upper tooth and then we will be weaning. Everyone seems to want to know what the deal is with that, so I thought I would just put it out there. :-)

2. Campbell started trying a new food on Thursdays and Sundays. Everything has gone really well...the only thing she hasn't LOVED was butternut squash, but we are going to try again with that one. So far she is up to carrots, peaches (#1 all time favorite), peas, green beans, plums, apricots, plumcots (hybrid of the two), squash, apples, pears, oatmeal, rice cereal, avocado, and banana. I think that is where the list left off prior to our trip to Chicago. More progress has been made, but you will have to see the next couple of posts for those.

3. She is "swimming" which is what we call the scooting she does to get everywhere...she lays on her belly and moves her arms and legs alternating as fast as she can go. She is getting some speed and agility and we are in big time trouble once she gets up on all fours consistently. Now, it is just practice. She is in love with the dog, his water bowl, eating cat fur off the floor (I am a terrible mother, I know, there is cat fur on the floor), tearing up magazines (#1 all time favorite activity), and generally touching anything and everything she can get her hands on. I can not turn my back for a second....the dog just looks at us like "are you going to let her touch MY BOWL???". Charlotte is going to baby-proof the house while we are at work the first week of November. Thank goodness for Auntie Cha Cha.

4. We started applying for jobs. This process is going to be going on all winter. We are not applying to as many jobs as we did last time. Hopefully, we will hit on something wonderful. The market isn't as strong as it was a couple of years ago, but it is WAY better than last year. We'll keep you posted.

I think that is about it....we have been working, trying to get home to see the baby before the witching hour (7-8 is rough around here), and then getting back to work after the baby is in bed. She is doing great. We are exhausted, but managing to be as productive as possible.

See the next post for the details of our trip to Chicago.

Toothless no more

Last weekend, Campbell finally had her tooth breakthrough. I only say finally because she was cranky and not sleeping very well for a week beforehand. :-)

Anyway, her tooth broke through and all seemed to be well. Then she got fussy on Friday night (last night) while Kyle was gone fishing and this morning she has another tooth! I will try to get some pictures of the new additions, but she is not in love with showing them off.

Animal lover

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty. Notice the Death-grip she has on Hera's back fur.

Anyone that is on Facebook has seen these pictures....but I thought I would post them here too. I have gotten alot of questions/comments about the pictures of the dog "kissing" Campbell. Yes, the dog has licked the inside of Campbell's mouth. No, this is not something we would like to continue. Yes, Campbell actually opens her mouth and seems excited when this happens....she laughs ALOT. I figure that since she isn't going to daycare, she isn't being exposed to all those germies and could probably use a little immune challenge. At least that is what I tell myself when I see these pictures.

Come here, doggie.

I love you, too, Kale!

Miss Monkey.

Here are a couple of pictures of Campbell just

messing around. For the last 4-5 weeks she has been very interested in fabrics...mostly with putting anything fabric in her mouth. While I was reading her a story, she get very excited about this sock monkey so I brought it up into the chair with us.....and immediately she leaned forward, mouth open and licked the monkey. Nice, huh? Miss Monkey is now a permanent fixture in play time.

Practicing her UFC moves on Miss Monkey.

Tap out, MONKEY. I have you pinned!

The grumpiest lab rat

I have pictures to post and a couple of things to catch up on, but I wanted to make a note of this first. Today was my day working from home with Campbell. We missed storytime at the library because the cable guys didn't show up on time. When they finally got here, Kale freaked out that they went near the baby's room (she was sleeping in her crib) and managed to wake her up with his commotion. So--she didn't get her 2 hour nap this morning, it was more like a half hour...ugh.

At 1:30, we went for Campbell's next experiment at A&M. Campbell is a return offender in the infant cognition lab. Today she went in for another experiment and totally freaked when they put the head gear on her. She was having NONE of it. So--we have a very cute baby that is not going to wear head gear. God help us if she has bad teeth and needs head gear. She might have to be sedated.

4 month check up

We took Campbell for her 4 month check up on September 1st (a couple of weeks late, BUT my flexible spending account for health care didn't kick in until then!). Here are her stats as of September 1st

Campbell Susan Baumbauer

Weight: 15 lbs 12 oz

Height: 27 inches

Head size: 44 cm

We didn't get her percentile scores, but according to the interweb she is above the 95th percentile for length and head size and between 70-80 percentiles for weight.

Avocado--who knew?

So we are following (sort of) the Super Baby Food Diet. The list of first foods for babies includes bananas and avocados. After that you can do other fruits and veggies and so on, but those two are supposed to be low allergen risk foods and they are the right consistency when mashed up fresh. Anyway, we did banana, waited the four days to see if she exploded or had a reaction and then we tried the avocado. She loved it! Here are some pictures of the avocado...though it looks pretty white in the bowl, I swear it is avocado. I was hating that it looked for stain-risky than the banana, but got over it pretty quickly when she seemed to enjoy herself so thoroughly.

I completely didn't realize until I posted these pictures that she was wearing the same outfit for both meals.....maybe this is her "eating ensemble".

Hungry baby.

Campbell is becoming very interested in food and eating. She stares at us while we eat (frankly, it is a little creepy) and everything goes straight in her mouth. I am sure it is against every mother rule in the world, but a couple of weeks ago, I held the lemon from my iced tea up to her mouth and let her lick it/gnaw on it for a minute. She got really excited...made a terrible squished face and then started grabbing for it again. We thought it was a sign that we could start exploring foods. Here are some shots of her trying to score chips and salsa at Chili's. Later that weekend, she tried to grab Kyle's corned beef hash at breakfast. No accounting for taste, I guess. :-)

First we tried banana. Mashed up some fresh banana, mixed in some breastmilk and we were off. She was fascinated from the first bite. She kept kicking and laughing and was loving it. Unfortunately, mommy and daddy are stupid and didn't realize that banana acts as an anti-diarrhea treatment and she was totally stopped up for the next couple of days....not awesome. Note to self--> bananas should be mixed with prunes. Here are some pictures of the first food.

Travelingthetrip

We went to a funeral in Louisiana. Not exactly NOLA, but in that area. Anyway, it was one of the least depressing funerals I have ever been to and Kyle and I got to meet a bunch of his cousins. These are folks with that wonderful NOLA accent...and a love for food that can't be beat. I think we have some new family to visit when we are in the area and Campbell definitely has some cousins to meet in the future. :-)

Here are a couple of pictures of us on our trip:

We ate lunch at another of the Top 50 burger joints in TX....this one is in Houston (#38 on the list). Other than Campbell totally blowing out her diaper as we paid the check, the experience was great.

Hanging with Grandma at lunch....for the 5 minutes that cousin Donna wasn't holding her. :-)

Campbell DID NOT enjoy being in her carseat for so long, but she did her best to tolerate it. I am hoping this is not a sign of fights to come when she doesn't want to go back in her seat.

Tough noggin, I hope

For the last couple of weeks, CamySue has been getting more and more wiggly.  She scoots around on her belly and then turns in a circle to see what she wants.  I have been telling myself to prepare for the day when I can no longer lay her on my office arm chair to sleep (for anyone that has seen it, it is that lime green chair from our house in OH).  Well, today was the day that all my fears came true.  

Campbell was great all day.  I put her on her tummy to take her nap (she was already asleep and dreaming) and then I covered her with a little blanket.  I went about doing some statistics that I have been avoiding.  About 20 minutes later I hear a fabric-on-fabric noise (swish!) and a thunk.  I look around and the chair is empty.  Campbell is lying on her back on my office floor looking really confused and dazed.  Apparently, the renovations to the building included making the floors out of some ridiculously hard substance.  Anyway, she looked at me like "Why mommy?  why did you let me fall?" and then commenced to wailing.  I felt so bad I thought I would burst into tears.  She cried for a few minutes...and then fell asleep.  

It is now an hour later and I am worried that she has brain damage or a concussion or shaken baby syndrome or rickets or some other horrible injury because I tried to squeeze one more day out of the comfy office sleeping spot.  Ugh.  I hope her head is hard enough to take my mothering.  :-)

We are spending the weekend in New Orleans to attend a funeral with Kyle's family.  This is Camy Sue's first trip to the Big Easy, the first time she will meet most of Kyle's family and our first real road trip with the baby.  Wish us luck.  We'll post pictures next week.

The unofficial weigh-in

So--we have Campbell's 4 month well-baby check scheduled for September 1st, but we were very curious as to how much she weighs at this point. So--Kyle got on a scale at work and weighed her. She is just over 15lbs! I can't believe that she has grown that much. It is amazing.

Other things of interest at the moment:
1. Camy Sue has found her voice. She squeals and laughs and grunts and does a Xena warrior princess-like yell when she is trying really hard at something.
2. She can grab things and kick at objects of interest.
3. She tasted her first lemon....in a restaurant I let her lick my lemon wedge. She made the best face ever and seemed very interested in having some more lemon.
4. She can turn in a circle on the floor and she can flip over from back to front.
5. She drools. like. crazy.

Stay-cation 2009

Catching up on some pictures and posts.
We took a day trip to the Natural Bridge Caverns near San Antonio. As you can see from the pictures.....Camy Sue was shocked and amazed. :-)
Here's one of me trying to fit Campbell into this Dinosaur Egg.
Here is Kyle standing in front of an amazingly fake dinosaur.
This is the entrance to the cave system. Notice Kyle has the baby in the front carrier (we have found that chicks dig this.....women smile and flirt with Kyle non-stop when he has this thing on).
Here is one of Campbell. I think she got bored by the tour guides along the way....she totally snoozed for over half the cave tour.

BTW--while Kyle usually gets smiles and tons of attention while he is wearing this carrier, we had one bad encounter a couple of weeks ago. Two women (one in her 30 and the other looked like her daughter maybe in her late teens) walked by and made some not-nice comments about Kyle and the baby. They laughed and were not very kind. Kyle took it in stride, but I was totally pissed. What the heck is wrong with people? Why would it be bad for a father to participate in the rearing (and carrying) of a child. For pete's sake people! I managed to keep it together long enough to make some quiet comments about the fact that they were hideous excuses for human beings....but at least I kept it quiet. :-)

Lounging by the pool

Last Friday, I took Campbell to a friend's house and she has a little dipping pool. Campbell not only loved swimming she got totally exhausted and slept most of that night and most of the next day too. Kyle and I finally got a chance to take her to the pool down the street this Wednesday. It was great. She looked unsure at first, but then she started kicking and giggling and having a big ole time. Here are some of the pictures we got. Notice how nice the pictures look. The new camera is AMAZING!Here's a shot of her patented mermaid kick. Up in the air for a loop-de-loop.Splashing Mommy in the eye...and getting herself wet in the process.Backstroking.I twirled us around in a circle....I got dizzy and she made this hilarious face (part bird, part thoughtful professor).This is right before she plopped her face in the water. No tears, but a very confused look followed that.

Lab rat

Campbell is currently participating in a study at the Infant Cognition Lab in our department at A&M. She had her first task on Tuesday. They took a saliva sample, took a picture of her hand, and tried to get her to watch a cartoon on a screen so they could track her eye movements (this last part didn't go over well....we had a MELTDOWN). Now she has a baby low-jack on...it is a monitor that looks like a house arrest bracelet. Hopefully, this is not a sign of things to come.

Voted cutest....

We have been getting together with two other mom's from the department and their babies....the babies don't play much, but we get to chat and vent and eat delicious snacks.

The last time we got together, one of the mom's said that her husband asked her which of the babies was the cutest. Apparently, even though her son is in the group, she said that "hands-down, Campbell is the cutest.". Score! I think it helps that Campbell is the only girl and the baby-clothes for girls are infinitely cuter than the boy ones.

Bliggity-blogging and Facey-spacing.

Campbell was helping me update the blog this morning and got bored. So--we tried the newest in child entertainment at the Young Baumbauer house---a toy. That's right, Campbell has discovered toys and likes to play with them. Mostly she just stares, but today we did some "discovery" playing where I took her hand and wrapped it around the crinkly sounding wings on her toy. It crinkled, she laughed. It was a big morning for everyone. I managed to get a couple of pictures with one hand while she played with the toy in my other hand.

Going away party

We had a little going away party for a couple of friends that are leaving A&M. We had a bunch of grad students over as well as the two research techs that are leaving. It was a great day, but having a baby at a Barbecue when it is 10,000 degrees outside takes some planning. Luckily, everyone wanted to hold Campbell and she managed to stay in the A/C all afternoon. She did not want to go down for a nap, but she only had a minor case of the cranky-pants. It was actually a good experience for our friends...most of them didn't believe that she ever cried at all. Now they know that Miss CamySue can let her desires be known....and heaven help the people that disrupt her schedule.

Fingers crossed! We are on night 5 of the "sleeping through the night" stage and I am hoping that it keeps up. We are totally different people when we get enough sleep. Here are some pics from the get-together.

A good night's sleep

Campbell slept from 9:15pm until 6:30am and woke up the MOST ADORABLE BABY EVER.
We have had a series of very rough nights, so I was not sure we would ever get a good night's sleep again. On Tuesday morning, Campbell rolled herself from her stomach to her back all by herself, so we thought we would try putting her on her tummy to sleep. That did the trick and she slept like a log.

We probably could have put her on her tummy earlier, since she could hold her head up. Unfortunately, the "back to sleep" campaign made us paranoid so we tried not to do it. Now that she can hold her head up and roll over, we are so happy!

Funny thing is that even though she slept the whole night, we woke up several times to check on her. But---even with the waking up on our part, we still got the best night's sleep that we have had in months. Today is an excellent day.

Random Bathtime pictures.

We got a new digital camera that takes AMAZING pictures. So, of course, we have been taking pictures of everything...all day long...to justify the expense. So far, I am liking the new camera.

Here are some random pictures of bathtime. We do a bath right around 8 o'clock every night and then get the baby ready for bed. She has been doing better with her evening routine and I am hoping that she will be sleeping more than 5 hours straight in the very near future. Tonight she went to sleep at 9pm...and she should be out until 1:30 or so. Then she will be up to eat and back to sleep for another 2-3 hours. If we could stretch that out a little further, I feel like we might almost get caught up on some missed sleep. :-)

Visitor!

My BFF Amber came to visit this past weekend. We shopped, we ate way too much, I had two margarita shakers at lunch....it was a very full 2 days. :-).

This is a Poison onesie. It says "Talk Baby to Me"...must get a better picture of that awesomeness. God, I love the hairbands.

We spent a lot of time in the car since Amber flew into Austin (the closest airport, FYI). Lots of time to chat and look at the mesquite trees rolling by. Everything is so far away in TX that we have gotten used to driving an hour and half to get anywhere. It is relaxing....thank goodness Campbell likes her car seat.
On the way home from the airport, we had to pull over for a diaper change and a snack (for us and the baby). Here is a supercute picture that Kyle took while we were addressing CamySue's cranky-ness.