First swing

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Sophie's first real Fall day

What a beautiful Fall weekend. We didn't do much and really enjoyed it! Saturday we cleaned around the house and then took a bus down to Soho where we met Eugene for some Cuban food.

On Sunday we walked over to DWR to look at potential new beds, then lunch at a great new Hummus place called Nanoosh. I ordered the chicken and hummus lavash wrap. Delicious. But ow! There was a little something that didn't belong in there. It looked like a little white piece of plastic or bone. I told the waitress and they gave me the wrap for free. Nice!

We attemtped to give Sophie cereal but she didn't seem to like it one bit. Made a face each time we'd put it on her lips or in her mouth. We allowed her to stick her hands in it and of course it got all over her and her hair!

Thank you for my hat & sweater Auntie Rachel : ) -Love, Sophie

I'm Six Months Old!

Today Sophie turns six months old. Wow how time flies. Already she sits up on her own, crawls and pulls herself up to stand!

To celebrate we began 'Ferberizing' her last night. I had always heard that Dr. Ferber's methods were cruel and uneccessary. Not true! This man is the head of pediatric sleep disorders at Boston Hospital and really knows his stuff. We realized that Sophie became so used to and dependent on us rocking and singing her to sleep that when she awoke during the night, she was unable to fall back asleep on her own without our assistance. So after 40 minutes of crying, with us periodically going in to soothe her for 1 minute at a time, she fell asleep! She awoke twice in the night, cried for a little bit, then fell back asleep on her own both times. Brilliant!

Today we will start her on rice cereal which is another exciting event. We have the highchair and spoons all ready.

In non-Sophie related news, I of course downloaded (and paid for) the new Radiohead album InRainbows and I have to say it's pretty good. Not amazing, but very pretty. Still, I think I expected a little more. There just doesn't seem to be an album that can compare to the genius of OK Computer, The Bends or Kid A. But I will undoubtedly give it many more listens and hopefully fall in love with it. Today is also our first full weekend with no plans, and it's so nice to have nothing to do. And with such wonderful fall weather. Finally.

Sleep baby, sleep

Why oh why won't Sophie sleep lately? From 8 weeks on she was a sleep champ. Sleeping 10 hrs through the night, I thought we had a wonderbaby! But the last month or so she's been waking up once a night. That's fine, I can handle that, because she'll normally cry out, I give her a bottle and rock her, and she goes right back to sleep. Not the case this week. Last night she woke at 9PM, 4AM and 6AM. Each time we had to rock her anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to get her back to sleep! What is going on? And the minute she does wake she immediately gets into her favorite sitting position at the opposite end of the crib, or crawls around. We're thinking of trying to give her rice cereal this weekend and hopefully that will fill her up, but I'm not convinced that she is waking because she is hungry. It seems she just doesn't know how to get herself back to sleep lately. And I have a feeling we're doing things wrong.

It may be time to CIO (cry it out). Something we've been dreading but feel may be necessary for her (and us) to get a good night sleep again. I ordered the Dr. Ferber book from Amazon and can't WAIT to get started!

A is for Apple.

We went apple picking yesterday in upstate NY with a bunch of friends. As always the traffic there and back was a royal pain in the arse but had fun once we got there and were able to relax a bit. Still, with the mid 80's weather and no skyscrapers to shield us from the bright sun it didn't feel very fall like. But Sophia suggested we do a picnic and that was really a lot of fun. Especially when you can just walk over and pick an apple to cut up and eat your lunch with.

The best part was when a few vanloads of Trini's pulled up and set up a full feast with curry, soca music blasting and even brought out their minivan seats to lounge on. You Trini's sure know how to party!

Sophie's New Toy

I decided to try out this new video upload feature in Blogger and I must say so far so good.

So Sophie is now crawling as of last Sunday. I can't believe she is already crossing the kitchen floor! She has also discovered the kitties. This video was taken today as she followed Bear around the apartment, trying to pet, pull and chew on her foot. Luckily Bear is a very gentle and loving cat. Magellan, not so much.

And now Sophie has her very first cold. Sucks. She has become the snot nosed kid that I always try to stay away from. But when it's your kid somehow it's not so gross. My poor little Muffin.

I started back to work this week. Working 3 days in the office, 2 days at home. The nanny seems nice and Sophie likes her. But of course I still worry but luckily I had Sophia here yesterday to keep an eye on things which really eased my mind.

Happy Birthday Scottl You and Ithaca are both gorges.