Cuteness

Yesterday was Mali's 8-month birthday. It's so hard to believe! She's beginning to think about scooting or crawling, though she's still not super happy about being on her tummy to practice, and I'm okay with having her in one place for a little while longer. It's also starting to get a bit chilly here, and I had to share her cute mittens and cozy boots. She has a new hat I knitted, which, if I do say so myself, really adorable. I'll try to get a good picture of that this weekend to share, because not on her head it isn't nearly as fun.

Spooky

Things I learned about the baby this week:

1. Halloween is full of cute. It was a lot of work, but on the upside, I don't think she minded her costume at all.

2. Mali likes pickles. I eat a lot of sour things myself, so maybe that's why? She sucked on the end of a pickle my mom gave her until almost nothing was left. She didn't even make a face.

3. My baby thinks I'm funny. This is quite an accomplishment, since I don't normally consider myself a comedienne. James is the funny one. But Mali laughs at everything. She's so sweet. Big chuckles until I think she's going to lose her breath. We like to laugh in our house.

Punkin'

A few weeks ago we went to the pumpkinpatch with my brother's family and had a blast. I wrote more about it for Freshfully.com, my new gig, but here are some pictures of all the fun we had :) I cannot wait to show you Mali's Halloween costume next week either!

Sitting Pretty

The sitting up unassisted is coming along! I still feel like I need to prop pillows around her or hover in order to be ready to catch her, but she can definitely sit on her own for a minute or more if she doesn't get too excited and start moving/wobbling around.

The adorable headband is courtesy of my friend Rebecca at hugsandkissesdesigns.etsy.com. Lots of fun baby stuff over there.

We're anxiously awaiting the birth of Mali's friend Ruby. I'm hoping she isn't giving her momma too hard a time!

Bussssssy

My original goal was to post here once a week, but luckily things have been super busy lately, so I'm finding it hard to stick to that goal. On the good news front, I'm going to be a professional blogger for Freshfully.com, a new website promoting local, healthy food, connecting farmers with consumers and showcasing local restaurants and markets. So far I've interviewed a turkey farmer and purchased organic apples for making baby food, and it's been a lot of fun. The website launches officially in November, so I'll keep you posted.

Baby food making is going great. Mali still loves her sweet potatoes, but she also really likes peas. We get to try the apples tomorrow, so I hope she likes them too. The biggest problem with baby food is the stains. She now spits up orange, drools orange, and mushes her face and hands into her clothing to cover them in orange. I think I need to buy some stock in Oxiclean.

Mali's getting close to sitting up on her own. She can go for a few seconds at a time, but then the wobbles set in. Also, in one day this week she learned to say Ba, Ma, and Da! I don't think she's associating those sounds with us yet, but the fact she can make them means we're getting closer!

Good Eats

Mali's 6-month checkup went really well for the most part. She's in the 75th percentile for height and head circumference and hitting most of the markers she's supposed to be development-wise. The only issue might be her weight. She eats great and is a happy baby, but for some reason she's not getting chubby -- she's down from the 12th percentile to the 10th. Dr. Habeeb wasn't super concerned yet, but wants to keep an eye on her weight over the next month as she starts real food. Maybe she'll just be one of the lucky tall and skinny people?

But, like I said, she's a good eater, and she seems to be loving real food. We started her on sweet potatoes Monday. About a month ago I'd bought two tiny jars of baby food from Publix because they were on sale, so we started with that. And I'd always said that if I was home I was going to try to make my own baby food, so after a little research on the internet yesterday I went out and bought two sweet potatoes, a bag of carrots, and two ice cube trays. That's it. No expensive baby blender or storage equipment necessary. All I had to do was roast the sweet potatoes, scoop out the flesh, and puree them in the blender with a little bit of water. James scooped the puree into the ice cube tray, wrapped it in plastic wrap and popped it in the freezer. Now we've got individual servings ready to defrost. We'll keep them in a ziploc so the trays can be reused. Since carrots are next on the list we went ahead and peeled, chopped, and steamed the carrots before pureeing them and giving them the ice cube treatment. I'd say we spent about 8 bucks for over 20 meals.

So Mali's breakfast today was homemade sweet potatoes. I think she liked them :)

Fall Rush

August (and September so far) have been slightly more crazy than usual around here. We had family in to visit, hosted and helped host two baby showers, had friends in to visit, and, most importantly, attended Sidewalk and Artwalk, two of our favorite Birmingham events. Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival is where James and I met, and we both volunteer every year (him since the beginning), so it's a major event for us. This year was a little trickier, as you can imagine, since we had to figure out how to manage our former rock (film) star lifestyles with a baby in tow.

Mali came with us to the opening night reception and had a blast, I think. She loves to be carried around in her sling, so we walked her, fed her, and even let her nap while we met filmmakers and enjoyed the rooftop sunset view of the Alabama theater. My mom babysat while we saw the opening night film the next night, and Mali came with me to see our friend Heidi's film on Saturday morning. Things were a little rougher from there. I spent the rest of Saturday at home with her while James worked (he's pretty much owned by the festival the entire weekend), and then I dropped her off at mom's that afternoon for her first night away from home. I cried when I dropped her off. I tried not to cry when I got downtown. And I really, really cried when I got home from that night's after party and she wasn't there. It didn't help that James had elected to stay on for a bit, so I was home entirely alone, and even though if she had been here she definitely would have been asleep, I still missed her. Part of the problem was that attending the festival gave me a weird identity crisis. Who am I now anyways? I can't be my former carefree self, staying up late just for fun and not seeing home for more than a few hours for three days, but neither do I want to be a stuck-at-home mom who never sees anyone or does anything. I wanted to be two people - one to party it up like old times and one to play and cuddle with Mali. Instead, it felt like I got the worst of both worlds. I couldn't fully enjoy the freedom because I missed the baby and worried she'd miss me, but neither could I 100% enjoy the time I did spend with her because I felt like I was missing out on what I consider James' and my annual event. Honestly, I'm not sure why I was so surprised and upset, because this is what being a parent is, finding that balance. I guess things just came to a head because of the intensity of the weekend and the fact that I didn't have James here to help me sort through it all.

But, I'm happy to report that tomorrow night we're going to attempt the night away again. A friend is hosting a cookout karaoke party, and rather than make mom wait up for us to get home to pick up a sleeping baby, we're just going to pick Mali up the next morning. Wish us luck!

Other than that, I've been seeing a lot of fun developments in Mali. She's getting very good at rolling from her tummy to her back as well as reaching for and grabbing things. She likes to chatter and giggle, a lot (I never could get my video to load). AND, we started her on rice cereal last week. So far she seems to like it. We have her official 6-month checkup today, so I'll report back after that.