Alice's First Cold

Alice officially has her first cold. She woke up sniffling and coughing, in part due to our furnace failing over night. Her room was 13C this morning! The furnace has now been repaired so she’ll be warmer tonight. Much to our surprise, Corinna found Alice cheerful most of the day. A typical day includes three or four naps. Today Alice had five! Being well rested makes her a cheerful little darling. I just put Alice in her crib for the night. I wasn’t convinced she’d fall asleep, but so far so good. It’s hard for her to breathe through her nose, so I’m not sure she’ll be able to sleep with her soother. And only time will tell whether she’ll sleep through the night. You know how it is when you catch a cold – I can’t imagine what it’s like for her. She doesn’t know why she’s coughing and sneezing. Poor little girl!

My Left Foot

Yesterday evening Alice discovered her left foot. We were getting ready for her bath; she was lying on the change pad, all ready to go. As she often does, she pulled her legs up to do crunches. With her left hand she grabbed her left foot. She thought her foot was pretty interesting, though she’s not sure what it’s supposed to do. She’s been holding her left foot quite often since last night. It’s always her left hand holding her left foot. Won’t she be pleased when she discovers she has a right foot too?

Alice likes peas!

Alice tried peas today and it’s the first vegetable she hasn’t made faces at, so she likes it! She’s also discovered there are “toys” on the coffee table, such as Mommy’s daytimer and the remotes. Oh, we’re in for trouble soon!

Alice thinks green beans are sick!

This afternoon Alice had her first serving of vegetables- a teaspoon of green beans mixed in with her cereal. She thought it was quite disgusting, judging by the look on her face. Mommy was terrible and couldn’t stop laughing! Alice also pulled Chase’s tail today for the first time- he wasen’t impressed but didn’t bite her, he just meowed. He is very good to Alice and always seems to be concerned when she is crying, wondering why we don’t go and get her. Maybe he just wants the noise to stop as it interferes with his world… Alice has started sleeping better, partially because we do let her cry now. Once she’s down for bed we do not go to her at all, and she eventually falls asleep. It seems the longer she cries the longer she sleeps. She is a wonderful girl!

Alice knows her name!

Today I discovered that Alice knows her name- that is to say she responds to “Alice” when you call to her- mostly when she’s distracted during feedings. She is also starting to be quite interested in the cat- Chase better watch out, he’s in for some rough treatment pretty soon! Alice also started mixed grain cereal vs. plain rice cereal today- at first she thought it was disgusting, then cried once she finished it. Just like her daddy, not picky. Well, so far.

Alice Learns How to Squeal

Yesterday Alice figured out how to make squealing sounds. They’re quite cute, and she uses them liberally whenever she would normally make cooing sounds.

There is No Spoon

Alice has been eating rice cereal since about January 9th. We actually gave her pablum once a few weeks before that, but only once – at the time it made her really mad. But by the 9th, she was okay with the idea. It has been really hard to figure out this spoon business though. When you’ve spent your whole life drinking from a bottle, a spoon is a bizarre concept. For the first while, she tried to use the same technique – sucking. This was moderately successful and fabulously messy. We thought it was very cute, too. But we think everything she does is cute. We can hardly stand the cuteness. As she grew more accustomed to her pablum, she refined her approach. She kind of smacked her lips a little, and seemed to get more in her than on her. Now that she’s had a few weeks, and she’s discovered she really likes rice cereal, she’s figured how to open her mouth. This has been cheerfully welcomed by mom and dad. When Alice sees the spoon in front of her, she’ll open her mouth ever so slightly. It’s a small target, so there’s still quite a bit of mess. And lots of the cereal dribbles back out again. But she’s making real progress. Another development: today Alice grabbed my glasses for the first time. She managed to pull them off, too. Left a cute little hand print on the left lens.

Enabled Permalinks

Thought it would be cool to enable permalinks in WordPress. It was pretty easy to do: I enabled the option from the admin page, then created the .htaccess file as recommended. This didn’t do anything until I also enabled .htaccess files in Apache for the wordpress directory:

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75th Percentile -- Just Like Her Daddy

Alice had her 4-month vacinations this afternoon. She now weighs 14lbs 15ozs and is 25 inches tall. This puts her at the 75th percentile for weight and height. See what we mean about her being the big Murray? The needles went better than expected. She received two in the right thigh and then one in the left. She didn’t even react to the first needle, but she sure did to the second one. The nurse gave us a minute to comfort Alice before the third needle. It probably didn’t really help Alice, but it did help her parents. It’s so hard to see her upset like that. Heartbreaking, those little cries. Luckily, Alice settled back down again within a minute or two. Once we went out into the hallway, she seemed to be herself again. You have to wait at least 15 minutes before you leave, in case there is an allergic reaction. By the time we left, Alice was smiling at everyone and laughing. So far, she’s had a pretty good evening. She’s had much worse days, even without needles. We’ll have to wait and see how she sleeps tonight.

Alice Rolled onto her tummy and now stands on her legs!

Yesterday Alice rolled all the way over onto her tummy and was trying to push herself up. Before this she would only roll over onto her arm and was stuck there. She also today stood up using her legs- before she would just let you support her and let herself be floppy. Now she enjoys pushing against you with her legs, and she pushes so hard! That’s my girl! This is probably due to her use of the exersaucer, which she started using this week. This is progress! We have started the “Baby and You” class with the Calgary Health Region. There are 12 other mothers and babies, and Alice loves it all! She really likes to look at the other babies, especially the ones sitting on either side of her. She tries to interact with them, smiling and cooing. Usually the other babies just stare at or around her, not paying any attention. Alice is a little social butterfly! She is better behaved most of the time than all the other babies, probably because she is so interested in trying to be everyone’s friend!