TIRED!!! The school year officially started two weeks ago and it's been a rough adjustment all around. The start of school means a schedule change for all of us. I'm up at 5:30am and out the door by 6:45am. Eric is still working 3:30pm to midnight, but he's now up with Molly in the morning and home with her during the day until I get home at about 3:27pm! Molly has opportunely chosen this time to attempt to give up her second nap. We're fighting tooth and nail to keep that second nap alive, just as much for my sake as for hers. With some new demanding schedule changes at school and these lingering first-trimester symptoms, I'm in desperate need of a nap when I get home in the afternoon. Thankfully, after a week of being with students, the schedule is starting to settle down a bit. And, at 16 weeks, I have high hopes that the promised second-trimester energy boost is right around the corner.The second reason that I haven't updated the blog recently is that we have one stubborn little girl when it comes to capturing pictures and videos. She has changed so much recently and she amazes me everyday with all the new little things she can do, but I guess Eric and I will just have to enjoy them ourselves because, apparently, Molly does not want her cuteness shared with the world. I've been waiting and waiting to capture some of her new skills, but everytime the camera comes out, she stops whatever she's doing and races toward the camera like it's the coolest new toy on the market. So, a few vivid word descriptions and a few rare photos will have to suffice.
A few weeks ago, we enjoyed an evening at the Saxapahaw Farmer's Market. Great live music. Yummy food. Perfect picnic conditions. It was a fantastic evening.
Molly is a huge lover of food. Despite being our little 3rd-percentile-peanut, she sure does know how to put away some food! You may have noticed that I haven't updated "Molly's Menu" on the sidebar recently. Well, that's because this child is eating pretty much everything under the sun! She's now had milk, peanut butter, honey, strawberries, chicken, turkey, and most-recently, snowballs (more on that next time). The only reactions have been to melon. Other than that, everything that was on our "wait 'til she's 1" list has been conquered and she's loving every minute of it. Here she is enjoying a plate of grapes, tortillas and hummus.
Some of her new favorite toys are her Little People castle and school bus. She likes to ever-so-carefully place the little people in her mouth and then crawl around the house with them. She reminds me of a mama cat carrying her kittens. Silly girl!
She also likes to transfer her Little People from one container to another. She'll sit for minutes on end (which is a long time for a 1-year-old) and transfer all her Little People from the bus to the Baby MumMums box, then back to the bus, then back to the box. Sometimes she'll switch it up by taking them out of the bus window or putting them back through the door. So funny to watch :)
Molly has also been practicing standing and stepping a lot more lately. She can stand on her own for several seconds and can walk across the room by holding on to two (sometimes just one) of Mommy or Daddy's hands. It's amazing how much more grown-up she looks when she's standing up "walking " around the room. She hardly looks like a baby anymore :(
Molly has also learned many new signs and is eager to communicate with people around her. If we say, "Molly, where's your belly?", she'll pat her belly with both hands (haven't captured that one on camera yet). She has also tried to use signs for "Mama" and "more", but we're not quite there yet and her signs are very indistinct. Her favorites are probably "hi" and "bye-bye". One night in the tub, I told her to wave bye-bye to the water when I opened the drain. She did and I thought it was cute, but I didn't really give it another thought. The next night, as soon as her bath began, she crawled over to the drain, started letting out the water, and was waving "bye-bye". I couldn't believe she remembered! It's now a nightly ritual to wave goodbye to the water as it drains. Again, VERY difficult to capture on video, but I did catch this little snippet. Enjoy!***Good news!!!*** Over this Labor Day weekend, Eric's mom and dad captured some fantastic pictures on their super-duper awesome camera. If you're on facebook, you've already seen how great they are. Once I load and organize the pictures from my camera, I PROMISE I'll post a great Labor Day blog. But now I must go to bed because this glorious 3-day weekend is ending and it's back to the craziness that is our life tomorrow.
