big day

It was a big day for several reasons:

• Aria slept all night for the first time in a while. She's been getting molars in and the pain has woken her up a couple times a night for about a week. So we were pretty happy to get some extra sleep.


• Kathy took Aria outside and she played in the dirt for about an hour. That's new.


• Then when I got home I took her outside again and we kicked a ball around for a while. She would roll the ball down the driveway to me, and I'd roll it back up to her. I really liked it. :)


• After I made dinner tonight Hosanna was a little later than usual getting home, so I got some really good time with Aria on the couch reading books in front of a fire in the fireplace. We read through "My Big Word Book" (a gift from our friends Pat & Amy) and I am amazed at how many words Aria knows now.


• Also, somewhere this afternoon she said what I think is her first phrase: "One shoe." It was because one of her shoes came off while walking around the house, and I said "You're walking around with only one shoe!" Then she very deliberately said "one shoe" back to me. She said it a few times. Shoe is a word she already knows so I felt like this time she knew what she was saying, as opposed to other times when she was just mimicking us (e.g. the day a couple months ago when she walked around all day saying "I know, I know, I know, I know" over and over again).


• Perhaps the biggest news of all, Aria went from 12:30 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. without nursing. When Hosanna got home from work, we all had dinner, and Aria had a pretty big portion of stir fry noodles and tofu. Usually, Aria clamors for "num-nums" immediately when Hosie walks in the door. This was a nice change which we hope (knock wood) will turn into a trend. I don't think Hosie is ready to wean her yet, but she would definitely like it if she nursed less often. That way Hosie could get away for longer periods of time.


• Another milestone - she somehow got a cut on her head. As far as we know that's the first time she's ever bled from the head. The weird thing is none of us knows how she got it. Kathy noticed a good sized scab right in the center of her scalp this afternoon, and neither she nor Hosie or I had any idea how it got there. Freaky. Luckily, later when we washed her hair in the bath the cut turned out to be a lot smaller than it originally looked.

vacation reminiscing

Just to reminisce - here are some pics of the post-Christmas lounging-around-the-house that was the final days of my vacation. No plans. No travel. Just sitting around, having fun, and bonding with my wife and daughter. What a week that was.