Dastardly Faces

Sometimes we play with the baby, but luckily the baby just plays along.

bugs

Yesterday afternoon, I had a pretty scary experience with Elise. After hearing what it was, Brian told me he's sure much worse things will happen/make us fear for our daughter's safety. Probably true, but at the time it was terrifying.

I had just put Elise in the Bumbo when I noticed something moving near her. I looked down and saw a wasp-like bug crawling on her arm. It was hard not to outwardly freak out, but I didn't want to scare the bug and make it sting her. Fortunately, it decided to fly away on its own. We didn't find it again yesterday, but I found its dead body in the living room today. I'm not sure what killed it, but I can't say I'm upset that it's dead.

I was curious about what kind of bug it actually was, so I looked up pictures today. Based on the image search, I'm guessing it was a mud dauber, which is apparently a non-aggressive type of wasp. Regardless, it was scary. And yucky. I hate bugs.

This is what it looked like. Gross, huh.

Speaking of hating bugs, we've had a lot in our house lately. :\ I think it has mostly been spiders, silverfish (yuck!), and flies. We recently got a new back door, which included the installation of a screen door since we didn't have one before. Unfortunately, the screen door wasn't installed exactly right, so it doesn't shut all the way on its own. I didn't realize that and left one day without shutting it fully, and there was some major wind that blew it open and bent the thingie that holds the door open. Since then, we have to slam the door in order to shut it all the way. I was excited to have a screen door so we could leave the door open in nice weather without letting in bugs, but we've apparently been letting them in anyway. Boo. Anyway, I think that's probably how the mud dauber got in yesterday, since we were having people over for dinner and grilling.

humor

So I'm pretty sure I must be a 9- or 10-year-old boy now. It cracks me up every time I hear Elise pass gas loudly over the baby monitor.

Also, she's better at belching than Brian is. (Although he says it insults his manhood when I say that.)

surprise!

I've wanted to donate my hair for a really long time but could never tolerate "long" (for me) hair enough to grow it out for donation. During pregnancy, I found that I could handle the long hair better and decided that I would let it grow until it was long enough. Fortunately, Pantene Beautiful Lengths accepts as little as 8 inches, so it got chopped today - I couldn't stand it anymore. ;) It's short now, and I love it! I have the feeling I'll be clipping it back to keep it out of my face, but at least it's not all frizzy and gross around my shoulders and neck. We'll see if I ever decide to donate again - I wouldn't be surprised if this is the one and only time.

cute

I thought Elise looked adorable in this little outfit yesterday.

Ok, it's not the most flattering angle for her chubby cheeks, but I'm still working on the mommy photographer thing.

I can't believe she's already 9.5 weeks (just over 2 months) old! She's getting so big - I weighed her the other day with our bathroom scale to get a rough estimate, and she was around 12.5 lbs. We love her more every single day. :)

grass

Brian suggested we take Elise outside a few days ago, so we put a blanket on the grass and laid her on it. She loved it! She lay there for a long time, staring up at the sky and kicking her legs.

Unfortunately, Brian's allergies were horrific the next day. Apparently he's allergic to grass... (I didn't know, but he did.) I guess we won't be doing that again, at least while the pollen counts are high.

noises

'Lise-y Bean started experimenting with her voice on Sunday. She was making these adorable and sometimes hilarious noises, and when I would react/laugh, she would flash these huge grins. We tried to get pictures, but she pretty much stopped doing it when we pulled out the camera. However, she has continued her vocal explorations periodically the last 2 days. (I'm kind of sad Brian is out of town - in San Antonio for a conference - because he loved it on Sunday and it has gotten even cuter since then.) I tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to get video of it today. Our cameras don't take wonderful video, but here's the best one I could get (sorry about the background buzzing, I think there's something wrong with the mic):

I don't know how to edit video, or I would have cut out the parts when she's not doing anything. It's not that long, so deal with it. ;) 

She's actually napping on me as I write this. She has started smiling in her sleep more frequently, and a few minutes ago she accidentally woke herself up briefly because she was laughing. I'm debating about putting her down for the night right now vs. waking her up in an hour or so to feed her one last time. And yes, she's basically sleeping through the night now (at least, on most nights). The other night, I fed her at 10 and put her down (slightly awake but happy) right after. She fell asleep on her own and didn't wake up again until 6:30 - although I woke up twice before that because my body was wondering why she wasn't up. ;)