The Tongue

So cute, right? Here's another one:


She is just LOVING her tongue lately. It's totally adorable. Also, slightly annoying. Kelli has started feeding her solid food during the day, and told me that Sabrina will sometimes try to lick the food instead of eating it. Actually, that's cute too.

Sabrina is also totally crawling all over lately. While I dry my hair I let her crawl around just outside the bathroom, but that's not good enough. No, not for Sabrina. She always makes a beeline straight to the toilet, where she tries to play around the base. Yuck. The other place she always wants to play is in the dog's water bowl and food bowl. Sigh. At least she doesn't try to eat the dog food anymore.

Wookie Baby

Although the name "Tiny" is still in effect, another of my favorite nicknames for Sabrina is "Wookie Baby." Zane started it because of her noises, but it has stayed in favor because whenever she has a bath her hair from about halfway back sticks straight up. I think it might be related to her three cowlicks in the back, but whatever the reason, Sabrina is a fuzzy-headed wookie baby.

Messy face!

I confess, I have always been a teeny bit contemptuous of people who, after feeding their babies, have more food outside their baby than in. I mean, yes, a baby can't swallow very well since they push the food out with their tongue, but geez, just scoop it off their chin and put it back in! After a few months of feeding my own baby, I realize that I reckoned without the baby's hands, which she puts in her mouth, on the spoon, and in the bowl, and then rubs in her hair. Sigh.

On another note, Sabrina has really enjoyed sticking out her tongue! It's soooo cute to see her crawling intently after something with her tongue poking out the side. She looks so intense. I haven't gotten any good pictures of it yet, but I'll be sure to post some when I do!

Beautiful Babe

It's been a few days since I've posted anything. Partly, that's because I wanted to get Tiny's pictures downloaded so I could show you how pretty she is in the dress Grandpa brought her from Hawaii. See? SO cute.



I only wish it was summer here. She would wear this dress every day. Okay, every day it was clean, so about once a week. Hold on I need to go save my baby--Sabrina's stuck standing up. Okay, problem solved. She can pull herself up, but can't always get down. I'm back. The only problem with this dress is the head hole is a little small (we called them "ear-pealers" in my family), so Sabrina does not like to have it taken off. I think I may have to do a little surgery to make it easier put on and take off, because it will be a cute shirt when it's too small for her to wear as a dress.

Here's another cute picture I took of Sabrina on a cold February morning:



That girl can crawl like anything! People keep telling me how bad it is when they (babies) become mobile, etc. and so forth. I love it though! It's so satisfying to see her see something and go after it. She is so dang cute.

Today I didn't have school, so we danced and sang to Billy Joel and read "Are You my Mother." Then Sabrina crawled around after the cat, never quite catching him, but always coming so close that she kept trying. Later today: crawling after the dog and eating stuff off of the floor. It's good to be a baby!

25 Random Things

There is a "write 25 things about yourself" going around the internet, mostly on Facebook. So, here are mine!

1. I am terribly, terribly afraid of falling down the stairs while holding Sabrina.

2. I check on Sabrina constantly when she is sleeping, to make sure she is still breathing.

3. I love action movies, and generally hate romantic comedies.

4. Whenever someone is pregnant, I know. I don't ask (except Jamie, for some reason) if they are pregnant because if they haven't told me, they must not want me to know yet, but I always have "a feeling." Then, a few weeks later when they announce their delicate condition, I get to say I knew it. Ha!

5. I am a middle school teacher and I love my students. I don't need your freakin' pity, all right? Even 13-year-olds will act like human beings if you treat them like they are. Usually.

6. I grounded Zane from picking movies for a month after he chose "Shoot 'Em Up" from Redbox. It was even worse than it sounds.

7. I have the best parents and little bro in the world.

8. Ditto for sisters-in-law.

9. I played soccer in high school. After high school, although I was recruited for a Division III team, I never played competitively again. It was 5 years before I could pass a soccer field without crying that I wasn't still playing.

10. I love reading about WWII.

11. The misuse of apostrophe's really bugs me. I can hardly let thi's misuse continue in thi's post, even for laugh's.

12. I spent a year in inner-city Birmingham as a tutor for AmeriCorps. I was the only white girl in my program, and one of about 5 white people in the whole school. Being a minority is weird.

13. I know all the words to the verses of "We didn't light the fire" by Billy Joel.

14. I loved geometry, especially proofs.

15. I love maps. I can sit for hou...well, long periods of time looking at different types of map--population density, water fall, climate, the earth by night...

16. When I was in high school, my friend Lisa used colored duct tape to write "Chun" on the back of my car. I took it off a few months later. I still miss it.

17. Although I am well educated in music and love drama, I suck at visual art.

18. A proper Sunday afternoon includes someone else in my house watching football. I just love the music that goes with THE NFL ON FOX, or whatever tv station airs football.

19. I love to paint. Walls, that is. Not pictures. See #17.

20. I have three college degrees, including a BA, BEd, and MS. And I still can't stop feeling that every meal should end with sugar.

21. I once had a student that used Star Trek as serious proof as to why communism would work. Really.

22. When I was in foust gwade I had to go to weesouwce for my auws. I mean, resource for my rs. It was vewy twamatic.

23. When my students are bored, they draw pictures of me. I have the best hanging in my classroom. My favorites are "The Termibuys" and half angel/half devil. Guess which side the students see?

24. I love breastfeeding. All those sweet, sweet calories leaving my body. Yes, thank you, I will have another cookie.

25. I love to read. I love Twilight, and I don't care what you think. I'm in the process of reading the Harry Potter series for the 49th time. I love Guns, Germs and Steel, Life and Death in Shanghai, and Calvin and Hobbes. So there.

WHO is going to babysit my child?

It's that time of year again: Parent-Teacher Conferences! Yay! In all seriousness, I have fun at PTCs. Mostly, I say "You have a great kid who is going to turn out okay" (who coined that phrase? I can't remember) and the parents love me. Besides, it's always true. Well, almost always true. Here's the problem. I work in Salt Lake and live in Ogden, a 45-minute drive. I have PTCs until 8. Who is watching my child? Her father! Bwah! Will he sing her a song before bed? Will it be the right song? Will he wash her little face and read her Goodnight Moon?

I hate that I feel this way. I don't think it's babysitting when I take care of Sabrina. Why should it be babysitting when her daddy takes care of her? He's her parent too, right? It's just so hard to think of someone else putting her to bed, and feeding her, and playing with her at my house. I've gotten used to babysitters, but Sabrina at home, without me? So sad. Maybe I'll get lucky and Zane won't, and she won't go to bed until I get home.

Applause!

I am a genius. Other people may have said it before, but rarely with such justification. Einstein, psht. ANYONE can make a nuclear bomb these days. No, I have figured out how to clean my house in such a way that I don't hate it!

So, here's my strategy. 10 minutes of cleaning the kitchen. Has to be done anyway, and 10 minutes almost always finishes the kitchen, and sometimes allows me time (it takes 3 minutes) to clean a shelf in the refrigerator.

10 minutes of picking up. Sometimes, because there is little to pick up, I can attack junk areas, like the top of the dresser. Usually it's just a quick run-around of the house and getting random stuff put away. For instance, a few weeks ago I found a Christmas decoration that had gotten stuffed somewhere. Normally I would just leave it because downstairs is SO FAR AWAY, but hey, I have to do 10 minutes anyway, right?

10 minutes of floors. I don't like sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming, but I can do 10 minutes of anything. And I do really like clean floors. Today my goal is to get the Shop Vac out and clean up one of those nasty little corners where firewood drips bark. Normally my floors are so nasty (see "I don't like sweeping..., above) that spending the time to do that little job seems like a waste of time, but I have to do 10 minutes anyway, right?

So, there's my plan. Sabrina is so good at clapping that I don't need any other applause, except what I give myself (obviously a lot!).

Clapping, Crawling, and Cat-calling

Sabrina has gone into high gear with learning new tricks. Last weekend we took her to a U of U gymnastics meet (the first of many!) and she was was so good! She was startled by all the noise sometimes, but did get to use her new trick of clapping! Mostly she swings her left arm and leaves her right arm in place, but that just makes the whole clapping thing cuter.

Also this weekend, she got up on her hands and knees (yawn, old trick) and started crawling (new trick)! She's not fully mobile yet, but definitely getting there.

To round out our three Cs of tricks, she is now cat-calling. We have a cat named Achilles (to go along with our dog named Sparticus), and when I call to him I sort of do a prrrrr? with a rolling r. Today Achilles was lying near us, and Sabrina started blowing raspberries. At first I thought it was just, you know, blowing raspberries, but I realized she was looking at Achilles and calling him. She is so clever.

My baby

I was holding Sabrina this morning, and thinking how much I love my baby. Then I thought about how she is my baby now, but in a few years she won't be mine--she'll be her own. I mean, I'm still my parents' daughter, but I'm my own self. It made me sad, and also happy. Maybe it's the virus that's invading my system.

Sabrina has leared some new tricks lately. She pulls herself up using my hands and takes steps, plays a toy piano, and holds up her arms when she wants me to pick her up. That is, beyond doubt, the cutest thing I have ever seen in my 31 years, even cuter than puppies and on par with newborn polar bears. Motherhood. Amazing.

6 month pictures

I may have mentioned that when Sabrina was born, I got a deal with a place called Gingerbread Photo that for $40 they would take pictures of Sabrina at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, and at the end of that time I get a panel of the four photos. So, I had her 6 month pictures taken last week. She was a bit tired, so she didn't sit really well, and wouldn't smile. Good thing she's so pretty.

I think the pictures in general turned out really cute, but Gingerbread Photo is a little to frou-frou for me. They're the type of place that wants to put angel wings on the baby and have a sky background. Cute, but not me. At all. There was one series of pictures that was really cute, but Sabrina was wearing purple polka-dotted leggings (really), and a semi-Skandinavian hat with fake blond braids on it. Hmmmm.

Oh, and curse that groundhog. But, as Dad always says, "I'd be happy if there were only 6 more weeks of winter!"