Dancing Queen

This week has been very busy but good. Scarlett's sleep has gotten better. We have given up on her evening nap altogether, but she is going down more easily for her two daytime naps and it has been taking her less time on average to fall asleep at night. She has come out of her mommy-only separation anxiety and is now equally clingy again with Daddy. On Thursday we went to the Light the Night 2010 kickoff with Tracy, Dan, and the kids. We're going to be walking this year on Team Goodwin. Dan is still battling Leukemia and my dear friend, Dave, is now officially in remission so we have a lot to walk for! They had a live band at the event and Scarlett was dancing her little booty off! She is definitely entertaining these days. She has a bunch of little games she likes to play now, including hide and go seek. I hide in the bathroom or on the side of her crib and she crawls really fast to find me. She squeals with excitement when she finds me! Very cute. We've been continuing to find new activities for her. Scarlett and I went to the playground to swing and play in the sandbox when I got home from work on Tuesday (Daddy was at the gym). On Saturday we went to Chinquapin Recreation Center for the soft play room. It is essentially a big padded room for toddlers who are learning to toddle! Saturday night we got together with Paul's friend DK and his family for dinner. They have 3 girls -- one 6 year old and 4 year old twins. One of the 4 year olds, Ella, loves babies so she took good care of Scarlett. Scarlett loved the girls and had a fantastic time at their house. It is huge with lots of space for her to crawl at top speed. At Gymboree this week Scarlett started to warm up a little bit, but we're finding that it takes about 20 minutes or so for her to warm up when her peers are around. She finally did start crawling around and playing with a few of the other kids during open gym. This week Paul and I both have quite a few meetings so things will be hectic. This weekend we plan to head up to Baltimore to see Flossy. Fun times ahead!

Who needs sleep?

Although our darling little Scarlett still sleeps 9-11 hours per night, she has almost abandoned naps all together, now napping 30-60 minutes at a time after fighting it for at least twice that long. Most days she refuses to take her evening nap and yesterday she only slept about 40 minutes all day. The world is just too much fun to say goodbye to it for a few hours. If that weren't enough of a challenge, her bedtime routine has become more of a bedtime battle of wills. It has taken up to two hours to get her to finally fall asleep in the evenings. As a result, we've been trying to start the battle earlier and earlier so that she will actually fall asleep before 11 or 12. Tonight it took about an hour, but that was after her only getting two 10-15 minute catnaps in her car seat all day. How does she do it?!? Most of the time she isn't even all that cranky as a result (tonight she was a bit manic though...). We are definitely open to suggestions here. She still sleep through the night without a problem... once she falls asleep. The getting her to go to sleep part is the big challenge. We read to her, try to rock her, give her a bottle (often she knows the rocking and bottle are cues that it is bed time so she starts fighting as hard as possible), turn on her "music" aka rain forest sounds, but it is still taking forever to get her to bed.

Teething is still going strong. Her two bottom teeth are coming out a little more every day and I think her top teeth may not be all that far behind them. I can't feel them yet, but it looks like there might be some white pushing against her top gums. She still has a lot of the typical symptoms of teething, but nothing too terrible.

We went to our second Gymboree play and learn class today. Scarlett was again uncharacteristically shy. She would periodically get brave and start crawling quickly into the middle of the circle or clapping but otherwise she spent a lot of the class and open gym time afterwards trying to climb me instead of the equipment or play with the other children. She was much more adventurous when Paul and I took her off to the side to play with just us (see all of the pictures).

As for new events, this week we booked our flights to Seattle to visit my parents. Scarlett will meet her "Grumps" for the first time in mid-August. We ended up using miles to upgrade our tickets to first class in hopes of making what could be a miserable flight less miserable. We are definitely looking forward to the trip, but it will be an interesting experiment. We will actually have a trial run the weekend before because my dear friend Cheryl is getting married in Miami, so we'll be heading down for that. Scarlett will be quite the jet setter next month!

Second tooth and Scarlett's new gym membership

Scarlett is 8 months old now! We already blogged about her first tooth coming in last week. Well, we realized this week that it wasn't alone! She is also getting her bottom right tooth now too. I'm not sure if that one is bothering her more or if it is the combination that is getting her, but it has clearly been causing her pain. She has had a few fussy evenings and last night she woke up at 4 am, definitely in pain. It took us about an hour to get her back to sleep -- she was trying really hard to go back to bed but she just couldn't get comfortable. She has also had a skin yeast infection which is MUCH better now, but it seemed like it was bothering her some last week too. Poor kid! Otherwise she has just been continuing to learn new tricks (standing with one arm while playing with a toy with the other, clapping, shaking hands). We have also been experimenting with foods, like giving her pieces of noodles and bread and so on. Generally little bits of whatever we are eating. We've noticed that she doesn't seem to really like baby food as much anymore. It is hit or miss, but it has been taking a long time to feed her because she likes to clamp her mouth shut. Not sure what that's all about, but she loves chewing little chunks of food up. Maybe it has something to do with her new teeth?

Today we took Scarlett to a trial play and learn class at gymboree (http://www.gymboreeclasses.com/b2c/customer/detailProgram.jsp?progType=P). They have a class for 6-10 month old babies in Bethesda on Sundays. I thought it was something that would give Scarlett a chance to meet babies her age and spend some time as a family. I think she really enjoyed it. She is normally very outgoing in a big group but she seemed a little unsure. She was crawling all over the place but wouldn't do her normal tricks (clapping) and seemed to be analyzing everything. She got pretty clingy toward the end of the class. It was interesting to see so many babies her age though and talk to the parents. She was definitely the most mobile of the group (about a dozen other babies) but there were two babies that were probably more verbal than she is -- another 8 month old and a 10 month old. We decided to sign up for the class. She can go once per week and also go to open gym time where she can just crawl around like crazy. The class involved a lot of songs and hand motions, a parachute, a seesaw, slides, and bubbles. Forty-five minutes of jam packed baby fun.

The picture are from aunt Jacy's visit. She took a million great pictures and posted them on Liam's shutterfly site. We loved having them here and hope it is permanent soon!

All in all, even at Scarlett's fussiest, she is still tamer than most. For example, she woke up for an hour one night but still slept more than 4 hours before and after. Many parents we encounter consider that a normal night, while we may have to deal with it once a month (up to this point- don't get any ideas Scarlett). Just today we met a lady who said her 7 month old started sleeping through the night THIS WEEK. Yes, we have been blessed. The one issue with Scarlett's recent minor fusses is that it gives our friends who "aren't ready" an excuse to say "see!". Scarlett is great to take out to dinner 90% of the time, but now that she is teething she isn't quite as patient. She may fuss for a few minutes, but then it goes away. Those few minutes are all that matter though! The one exception was this past Thursday. We went to Pasha Cafe (a local Mediterranean joint with 1/2 price wine Thurs/Sat). Scarlett was so upset that I had to leave the other 3 adults and carry Scarlett home just after we received our appetizers. As I passed a neighbor on my way home, she smiled and barked out "I know THAT cry" and pointed to her tooth. We walked through the front door, and 20 minutes later she was asleep.

First Peek at Photo shoot!

First 4th of July and FIRST TOOTH!

Just a relatively quick update since big things have been happening here! First, Scarlett cut her first tooth on Saturday! She had a fever on Wednesday night so I guess that is what it was. In general she has been fine, although it has been taking he longer to fall asleep lately. Saturday night we took her to crabs for the first time with our friends Matt, Amanda, Jackie, and Pat and their two kids. On the way home, she was really fussy -- way worse than she normally is and there didn't seem to be much I could do to calm her down. Then I let her gnaw on my finger like I normally do but I felt a razor sharp tooth!! It has broken through the skin, but not very far. It's her bottom left tooth. It is crazy because I sear it wasn't there on Saturday morning and given everything we've heard about people not sleeping when their baby is cutting a tooth, I just can't believe we didn't have more of a heads up! She also had some crab and seemed to love it, except for the little bit of crab seasoning that got in her mouth once. On Sunday Jacy, Joel, and Liam came over for their first 4th. We put them in coordinating outfits and headed to Joel's aunt's penthouse condo in Pentagon city to watch the fireworks. The view was amazing! The only problem was that we couldn't get back on the metro at Rosslyn with the strollers (PACKED metro cars!) so we had to walk the 4 miles back home up hill at around midnight. We had two VERY tired babies! Liam slept most of the way back but little party animal Scarlett wanted nothing of that.

The funniest thing is that we found out last night that Liam is also cutting his first tooth (bottom right!)! What are the chances of that?! In any case, both of them have had their fingers in their mouths all day long!

Today we went to Old Town for a photo shoot! Jacy arranged for a friend from high school who now has a photography business to do a combined family shoot since we have been wanting to get pictures of the kids together. They said the pictures should be ready in 3-4 weeks, so stay tuned!