Brooke's Amazing Adventure

This afternoon we had a playdate scheduled, and Brooke was excited. She had a great nap, put on a cute outfit, ate lunch and let out a big burp. We were ready to go!

...But the phone rang...

And it was a friend in need, so we changed our plans and headed out for a different kind of adventure.

Paige's (new) brother Evan had a doctors appointment today, and when they got to the doctor their Mommy realized that something was funny with the car. She called for a towtruck and then called us to help, and we were ready to come to the rescue. Unfortunately, there were some hiccups along the way :( We waited for about 2 hours for the tow-truck (and she was waiting long before we got there!) ... but we waited in a bakery so it wasn't all bad. Evan and Brooke were both troopers. Evan mostly slept (hes just a few weeks old after all!) and Brooke made loud noises and played with her toys (the usual). While we were waiting in the bakery, Paige was waiting at school. Though school was over, they were nice enough to entertain her while she was waiting for her ride.

We finally got to pick her up, and she had the joy of sitting between two crying babies. Luck was on our side because the two crying babies fell asleep in the car on the way home ... and Paige could barely keep her eyes open herself.

We safely made it home (all of us, except for the broke-down-car), and although it seemed like a bit of a traumatic experience there were some highlights:

Brooke got to see a CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) bus, which for some reason she found to be amazing. She stared at it, and smiled at it. I'm thinking we need to have her watch traffic more often.

I got to have an iced-mocha in addition to the 4 cupcakes I took home. I just ate one of them and it was actually really good!

Paige & Evan's mom got to eat some cookies, which she seemed to enjoy because she forgot to save one for Paige.

Brooke managed to wait until almost the end of the whole ordeal before puking all over both herself and me. At least I didnt have to wait the whole time smelling like barf, just had to make it the ride home.

The trip home was perfectly timed to Brooke's nap. As you can see, I did my best to entertain her with a variety of toys during our little outing :)

Wiggleworms

Today was Brooke's 1st Wiggleworms class.

The Old Town School's unique Wiggleworms music program welcomes babies and toddlers to the world of music. In each Wiggleworms session, children sing, play finger games, do circle dances and play rhythm instruments especially designed for little hands. Each Wiggleworms instructor leads the class with traditional and original children's songs, while accompanying the class on acoustic guitar. Classes are designed for three different age groups and activities will vary as your child grows. All Wiggleworms classes are 45 minutes.

Basically, the instructor plays a guitar and sings songs while the moms and babies listen and participate. I had a feeling Brooke would like this class for a few reasons.
1) Jeff has a guitar and has played it for her, she seems pretty into it
2) She loves music, and should be familiar with the acoustic guitar type of music due the amount of John Mayer she is exposed to (and was exposed to, before she was even born)
3) Brooke is in a noisy phase - she loves lots of noise, both listening to it and making it.

The class started off with the instructor playing the guitar, and right away Brooke started "dancing". During the 45 minute class she showed off her vocal ability a few times, demonstrated her thumb sucking, played the maraca and got to strum the instructors guitar. I'd say it was a successful outing!

Starbucks In The Ergo

This morning we went to Starbucks, and instead of pulling out the
stroller we used the Ergo carrier. She still isn't sold on it so I
like to test it out on shorter trips :)

A Photo Recap of Brooke's 1st Vacation

Special Appearance: Sienna Jennings!

Lessons Learned On Our First Family Vacation

• When you time naps to your flight time, your plane will inevitably be delayed
• A baby in a carseat in the seat behind you means you cannot recline your seat. Choose your seat wisely.
• While the changing table feature on a plane is a nice thought, it's a bit scary for both baby and parent ... and likely meant for smaller babies.
• Everyone traveling to Arizona, from Arizona, or living in Arizona has a granddaughter or grandson that is about Brooke's age (or was about Brooke's age at one point)
• When you snicker and whisper about the baby crying in the seat behind you, the baby's parents can hear you and know what you are talking about.
• Changing a diaper blowout on the backseat of a car in a dimly lit parking garage is tricky (and messy)
• "Little Swimmers" diapers are not enough to prevent you from getting soaked when the baby your are holding decides to go
• Telling a 6 month old baby to "shush" or be quiet is a waste of time and energy
• When your baby falls asleep in the shade, the sun will move and take away that shade while you try to build a worthless shelter to keep baby protected
• While sunglasses do not stay on long enough to protect the eyes from the sun, they do make an excellent teething toy.
• Brooke is sensitive and/or allergic to the heat, the sun, sunscreen, chlorine, bananas, or some combination if the above. Since they were all introduced at about the same time, the source of the all-over-body rash is unknown.
• Travelling with a baby means you need to bring a lot of stuff, and still carry your baby while you also carry all of that stuff.
• If you dont want to have to get up when the sun comes up, remember to close the curtains in your hotel room before you go to sleep to try to throw the early-bird off a bit
• By the time you eat breakfast, get swimsuits on, lather up with sunscreen, and get down to the pool ... it will almost be time for baby's nap
• There isnt a whole lot to do in a hotel room with a 6-month-baby. Especially when that hotel room doesnt even have the cartoon network.

Little Fishy

Last Day

Chillin' by the pool ...

Swimming Is Exhausting

We make it about 30 minutes in the pool until Brooke loses her
interest and gets pretty tired. Today she fell asleep while getting
toweled off! It actually worked out well because while she was
napping we got to spend a little more time at the pool (and out if our
room)

Breakfast & More Swimming

Went out for breakfast and Brooke had her first taste of bananas.
She obviously liked them because she found it appropriate to scream
(with her mouth wide open) in between each bite. We've never been
thrown out if a restaurant before, but it got pretty close this
morning.
;
We then took our little screamer down to the pool for some more
swimming. We brought the float from home and it works great ... But
she seems to prefer being in our arms so she can splash the water
with her hands, something the float kind if restricts!

Swimming!!!

Brooke has adapted to local time and got up at 7:30. We got ready and
had breakfast and were at the pool a bit before 9 (when it opened).
We literally had it to ourselves until 9:30 ... And when we left
people were just starting to get there!

Our first pool outing went swimmingly :) Brooke loved the water, we
could walk through the whole pool (max about 3 ft) and almost all of it
had shade. Very kid & baby friendly!

She is naping now and we are sitting on our balcony overlooking the
gold course. We have plans to meet a friend who lives locally for
lunch, but have no plans for the rest of the day. Seeing as how it's
supposed to hit 100 today, our plans likely involve watching tv on our
poor-excuse-for-a-television in our room :)

Brooke Is In Arizona!!!

It's been a long day, we had some ups and downs ... But were here and
ready for some fun!

Ready For Takeoff!!

Sleep Update

Brooke has her third cold in the 6 short months of her life. She is a trooper and refuses to let it bring her down. She is cheery and smiley, but irritated by her inability to breathe and the constant boogers all over her face. Her current cold got me to thinking more about her current sleep schedule, and how we are doing with her nap routines, etc. Often a cold will create issues with sleep ... and it has. Brooke cannot breathe well at night and has spent the past few nights fitfully sleeping. We can hear her heavy breathing on the baby monitor and watch her thrash about as she tries to get comfortable. She is a thumb-sucker, which is near impossible with a cold. Her nose is stuffed up ... and when she puts her thumb in her mouth she essentially has no way to breathe. She keeps trying, finds she cannot breathe, cries, and then goes through the cycle again. Poor baby :(

Napping
I started an ab class almost 8 weeks ago (currently in its 7th week). I mention this because its a good reference for Brookes morning nap. She comes with me to this class, and I have had to do some tricky navigation as it conflicts with her nap schedule. When we started, Brooke was taking 3 45-minute naps each day. She was waking up at 7AM (for the day ... she also woke up at 3 or 4 in the morning to eat) and taking her first nap at 9AM. She would last about 1.5 hours between naps. About 1/2 way through the class (so 3-4 weeks ago) Brooke began to be able to last longer between naps. She didnt need her first until 9:30, and then she was going about 2 hours between naps. In the past 2 weeks or so she has essentially moved to a 2 nap schedule. She takes her first about 10AM, but it now lasts 1.5 hours (versus the 45 minute nap) and her second nap around 2PM (also usually 1.5 hours, but not always). Its pretty amazing now much you can see change in just a few weeks!

Nighttime Sleep
For a few weeks now I had a pretty good feeling the Brooke could easily sleep through the night, and was getting up at 3 or 4 really just to see me. I figured I could ignore her when she woke up and she would go back to sleep, but she was always so happy and giggly and thrilled to see me (more so than any other time of the day) that I didnt want to give up that excited greeting (even if it was at 3AM). In the past 2 weeks I have increased Brookes solid-food intake at night. This has obviously filled her up a bit because she drinks less milk before bed (her own choice, not by us giving her less). In addition, she no longer gets up at 3 or 4 to eat again. There are pros and cons to this. She is officially sleeping through the night ... which is good. But, because she doesnt get up to eat in the middle of the night, she wakes up hungry. And since she is hungry, she gets up early. She used to get up at 7 (7:30 on days she really wanted to be nice to me) and now she is always up by 6:30. The other negative is that I no longer get my happy middle-of-the-night greeting. When she gets up at 6:30 she is a bit dazed, and irritable. Since she is so hungry, I cant even change her diaper. She doesnt want to cuddle, or chat, or do any sort of bonding. She must eat immediately ... the little girl is all business :)

Eating
For the first year, babies get most of their nutrition from milk. When she was born she was eating every 2 or so hours (even at night). That moved to 3 hours...and now its every 4 hours (or longer). Brooke is now on two "meals" per day, a Breakfast and a Dinner. For breakfast she eats rice cereal and a fruit. For dinner she eats two different vegetables, probably about 3/4 of a cup of food. Each new food she tries she has to have for at least 3 days to test for allergies ... so we introduce one at a time. So far we have had: apples, pears, sweet potato, butternut squash, zucchini and peas. She vetoed peas the 1st time and had them again last night. She wasnt thrilled, but her reaction was not as severe. Whether she likes them or not ... she has to eat them 2 more times so we can officially rule them to be "safe". After that we are onto green beans!

By 9 months Brooke should be on 3 meals a day. I dont think we will have a problem with this since she is already eating 2 meals at 6 1/2 months :)

Good Friday

It's a good Friday (or a good any day of the week) when you get to
take a nap on Daddy's lap while The Masters is on. She's learning
golf through osmosis. (Watch out Tiger!)

Lunch With Daddy

We had quite the adventure today! We went downtown to visit Daddy at his office and go out to lunch. Unfortunately, Brooke fell aleep in the car on the way down there :( I had to wake her up, which made her cry. Not a great start...

Once Brooke was in her "big girl" stroller, things were all good. We walked through a parking garage, rode in an elevator, walked down busy streets, walked into a busy building, went in another elevator ... and then saw her Daddy. All of the things to look at made Brooke forget that she had been rudely awoken from a little snooze.

Brooke wasnt too sure about Daddy's office at first. Everyone was staring at her and she felt a bit self-conscious. Then Daddy took her out of her stroller and let her check out the office ... now that was pretty cool! Despite the fact that there were 100's of computer screens, Brooke still managed to pick out the few televisions in the office. (She sure does have an eye for those things) Brooke gave a few fake smiles and a few genuine smiles, and was very polite to all of Daddy's coworkers. After the introductions it was off to lunch.

While we were ordering Brooke decided to taste a menu. Then she tried to taste the table. After all that fun, Brooke got to sit in a high-chair. She has been in one a few times before, but this time she held herself up very well. She did get irritated at the fact she couldnt see the television, but overall was quite happy. By the end of lunch Brooke had just about had it with all of the excitement. She decided to let the whole restaurant know. She had such an exciting time that she passed out as soon as she got back into the car and took a nice, long, nap.

What Was Brooke Excited About?
We had a few guesses as to what else Brooke was excited about. All of them were quite good...but here is the answer.

These are not Brooke's official "1st Shoes" ... she actually has a pair of Converse that were the first she owned. But, these are the first shoes she has worn! (The high-top Converse just didnt go with her outfit today).

The winner is...

This is also your prize! A special callout by Brooke ;)

A Special Day

Brooke is very excited! She is going to have lunch with her Daddy ...
and see his office (and coworkers) for the first time!

There is also something else she is she is excited about. Its in this picture. Can you guess? I'll post the answer later, to give you time to guess first :)

(Winner gets a prize)

Mmmm.....Starbucks & Zucchini

Brooke had a super exciting day.

She decided to wake up at 6:20 (versus her usual 6:45). Since it was so early we decided to head to Starbucks to use up some time (it was a couple of hours before her mealtime!). So we hung out at Starbucks nice and early in the morning.

She has been a little moody lately, perhaps teething, and it made for a bit of a long day. When Daddy got home, both Brooke & her Mommy needed some fresh air. So ... back to Starbucks. After Starbucks, we tried a new food for dinner - zucchini. And she loved it! It was the best reaction we have had to a food so far ;)

We did snap a few pics at Starbucks. Looks like we all needed a bit of coffee tonight ...
No babies were harmed in the taking of these pictures. The cup was empty and caffeine was not consumed.

6 Month Photos

It was a long day and the studio was overbooked and poorly organized ... But Brooke was a real trooper! And she looked great in her pictures (of course!)

Did She Or Didn't She?

Tonight for dinner Brooke tried something new ... peas. Did she like them?

You must make your guess before scrolling down










Dont cheat! Guess first!