6 months old - a tooth! a tooth!

if you look closely, you can see just one of the many things that's been happanin' around here lately. HANA CUT HER FIRST TOOTH!!! (well, i guess you can't see it that well in this picture but it's the bottom right one (her right)).

actually, there's been a lot going on, which is why i haven't posted in a while. for starters, my sister got married last weekend and so the run up to the wedding was quite busy. now that they are married and off on their honeymoon, things are settling down to normal. well, sort of. jon and i are in the same training for a week in his office where the day care is. so we've been riding to work as a family. which is fun, but in july when we get back to normal, i wonder how she'll adjust. also, we are going on vacation soon, to attend a wedding in hawaii. so there will actually be a lot more upset to the routine before we really settle down again.

while at the wedding, she got to spend a lot of time with her "uncle poo" - aka my brother richard. she really enjoyed that. he's amazing with kids so i'm glad she got to spend some time with him since he lives in southern california.

also in the past couple of weeks, we have started hana on vegetables. she's been eating carrots, sweet potatoes, peas and "winter squash" - which i think is actually a butternut squash. we have decided to try and hold off on fruit until after veggies in hopes that she'll take to a variety of veggies first. she seems to really like her veggies - just like her mama! her favorites appear to be the sweet potatoes and the peas (where she and her mama depart...). but she's been eating whatever we give her when she's hungry. i did relax the veggie rule the other night because her teeth really seemed to be bothering her. to help sooth her gums, i cut up a piece of seedless watermelon that had been chilled in the fridge and gave it to her to gnaw with the fresh food feeder thingy ( a little device that has a mesh bag attached to a baby friendly handle that you can put fresh food inside. they can gum the food through the bag , getting the flavor and the juice and a little bit of the substance but the bag stops them from ingesting big, dangerous chunks of food). she really enjoys sucking on the watermelon. soon i plan to try corn with her. i think she'll really like that.

the teething has shown us a new side of hana though. she is typically not fussy at all. even the daycare folks note that she never cries at day care. but over the last couple of days, she's been more fussy and has even cried for a little bit, especially after i've just left her. as i mentioned, i have been able to work out of the office she's in so i have come to see her several times a day to feed her. because of her teething, her appetite hasn't been that great, ( merely normal eating where she used to eat like a linebacker at the training table - she wants to nurse a lot at night though) but she has started to fuss a little bit after i leave. developmentally, this is about the time when they start to exhibit separation anxiety. i don't think she's actually "falling out" after i leave, per se, as she seems to recover quickly. and she, mercifully, doesnt' seem to cry every time i leave...

she's also beginning to scoot around. i have seen her scoot backwards. the day care folks have said that she has crawled forward a short distance... but i haven't seen it so i don't really count it (a little thing us working parents do - you can't miss a milestone if you don't count it. and you don't count it until you see it...) either way, one thing i can't deny is that it's time to get serious about baby proofing. we did some toddler testing - we had a friend bring her kid over and then we wrote down everything she got into that she shouldn't be able to access. so we know what we need to do - a lot! - we just gotta get it done.

also, her dad has become a bit of a nervous nelly around sun exposure. i know that it's a good thing and prehaps i should be more so. but sometimes, it is a bit overkill when i want to leave the house and he wants to find her sun glasses. but it does make for some rather cute photo opportunities. although she doesn't like when you put the hat on her head, she doesn't mind wearing it once it's on(as long as it doesn't slip down over her eyes while she's still awake). she also doesn't mind the sunglasses much of the time either. she will actually keep them on her face as long as there is something else to play with. once those things are gone, the glasses are the next best thing...