9 months: road trip, influenza, ER, relatives

Lots of news and events for Fiona in the past month. First, to start things off, we had my lab over for a pumpkin carving fest & Fiona had a chance to show off her Halloween costume (a giraffe!). Dad not only carved a fine pumpkin, but he tried mightily to ride a unicycle...

Jeff took his board exam later that week, followed by our next family adventure: a road trip to D.C. I was there to serve on a grant review panel for NIAAA, and Fiona & Jeff came along for the ride. We met up with Dad's high school friend Mark Yarnell for dinner one night, and with Grandpa Cooney the next night. He was coincidentally in town for a meeting and was even in a hotel not too far away. After my work was done, we spent a couple of hours checking out the National Zoo with Grandpa before piling back in the car to drive home.

Back at home, Jeff interviewed for the UNC Neurology Residency program (very successfully!), and one by one, we fell to what was most likely H1N1 flu. Fiona went first, and her duration was shortest, likely because she was the most immunized. She did unfortunately end up with pneumonia though, so we spent a not very fun Sunday in the ER, where Fiona "enjoyed" her first chest x-ray. She responded quickly to the antibiotics and we're all pretty much well now. Jeff's folks came out from Colorado to the Hampshire Ct. infirmary, and then Auntie Kim and her beau Juta came down from Boston to spend Thanksgiving. In addition to having to make the usual efforts to avoiding a 5 pound weight gain over the holidays, they also had to evade swine flu!

Here is Fiona at 9 months. Her big new skills these days are pointing at things that catch her attention, standing independently, waving bye-bye, and fishing snacks out of her "snack trap" cup. She even says "buh-buh" when she waves bye-bye, which we think is intentional. She can also climb up whole flights of stairs, but we're trying to avoid letting her do that... More photos of this month's adventures are here.

Baby games

This is one of our favorite recent videos, which I think of as "fun with object permanence." Fiona loves it when objects (or people) disappear and reappear, as shown here!

The great 8: a picnic, camping, hiking the AT, a tractor pull, a ferris wheel, and a pony ride!

 We enjoyed one of the last summery days by heading out to Duke Gardens for a picnic, where Fiona proved that she was our offspring by immediately liking fresh Guglhupf bread with aged goat cheese. Mmmm!

Our next family adventure was much bolder: we drove out to the mountains to hike a segment of the Appalachian Trail.The impetus was a cool event to commemorate the Dartmouth Outing Club's 100th anniversary, in which the DOC organized 900 hikers to hike the entire trail in one day. We picked a segment in Tennessee not too far from the N.C. border. I was happy because it meant we would fulfill my goal of camping before Fiona turned 1. Jeff was happy because it gave him a reason to hit REI and get that sweet frame baby backpack that he's been dreaming about since we knew we were having a baby!



We found a great little campsite on Watuga Lake in Cherokee National forest. We all managed to sleep reasonably well, although Jeff was forced to confront the harsh truth that our baby girl is too large to sleep in a laundry basket... Here she is crashing for the night in the tent (with Swingsley!) and waking up the next morning.

Our next family adventure was a trip to the North Carolina State Fair in Raleigh. In the picture to the left, we are shown attending a tractor pull. We actually paid money to enjoy this spectacle due to my poor negotiation of the online ticket website. While we were there, we told Fiona that if she ever expresses a desire for a temporary tattoo of the confederate flag on the small of her back, she's going to boarding school in Vermont....

Fiona enjoyed seeing lots of animals at the fair, including a barn full of bunnies, and teams of racing pigs, goats, and ducks. Plus, she got to go on her first pony ride!

We also introduced her to the pleasures of the midway: carnival rides and food on a stick! We ate a month's worth of fried food - our favorite were the fried pickles (although the free hush puppies weren't bad). Here's one of my latest favorite photos showing Fiona on her first ride: the ferris wheel.

Here's Fiona attacking her first caramel apple. As far as we can tell, she thought this was the best thing she'd ever eaten. You can see more photos from our month's adventures, including videos of her pony ride and caramel apple eating posted here.

And finally, here is Fiona at 8 months, clad all in velour and clapping, as she does these days when she's pleased. She had official "school pictures" taken the previous day, so we may have those to post eventually too.

Biting, bonking, babbling, and baby gates: Fiona at 7 months

A lot has been going on for Fiona since our last post. For instance, all that biting finally paid off, and she cut her first teeth, as she shows off here. The first top tooth broke through yesterday, so you can expect to see those top teeth in next month's post.

She has also abandoned the army crawl and is now a crawling pro as she shows off on the left, where she is playing "Find Mama". Her avid crawling has stimulated a flurry of baby gate installation, as Jeff demonstrates to the right.

Fiona is loathe to sit still these days, so it was tricky to get her to sit still for her 7 month old portrait. Here was one pretty reasonable shot. We had to prevent her from climbing off the chair head-first several times, which relates to the other theme of the month: bonking. She's been doing a lot of head and face bonking as she learns to keep her balance while navigating her world. Just this morning she raised our hair by climbing up the two stairs out of the living room. Yikes!

She's compelled to pull up to stand on whatever is available: chairs, tables, Mom or Dad, laundry baskets, and her favorite: her little stool, as shown here. She makes a beeline for it every morning. The sharp corners make us nervous, given her "bonking" tendency, so we're trying to teach her the phrase "be careful".

Grandpa Cooney was in town for a quick visit & we all went out to a farm nearby to pick pumpkins. Turns out that it was the first pumpkin patch visit for all of us! Fiona was pretty tired, but she seemed to enjoy the visit. Here she is hanging out with some pumpkins. Although it's not pictured here, Jeff found the very biggest pumpkin in the patch to take home...

Finally, Fiona has been babbling up a storm, which you can see in a video posted here.The first thing she started saying was actually "Blah, blah, blah", which cracked up us. Here's photo where she's babbling  AND standing, two of her favorite things to do.

6 months: sitting, seeing family, going mobile

Fiona is no longer really interested in lying back and letting the world come to her, she wants to sit or stand up and reach out and grab what's out there. Here she is enjoying the novelty of going for her first ride sitting up in her stroller like a big girl.





She's eating for more than recreation these days, with a diet that now includes: rice cereal, oatmeal cereal, sweet potatoes, avocado, peaches, pears, bananas, and yogurt. As I write, Dad is getting ready to introduce papaya. She gave two thumbs down to plums (actually pluots...), but we thought they were delicious! Here she practices walking with a little help from Dad.





Grandma & Auntie Kim came for a visit a couple of weeks ago. Auntie Kim hadn't seen Fiona since she was 5 weeks old, and as you can see here, they were a little slow to warm up to each other (ha ha)...





Auntie Kim brought Fiona some stylish baby clothes from her recent trip to Paris, which she models here with help from Grandma. Fiona gave Grandma a warm welcome at the airport & followed up with a wave bye-bye when we dropped Grandma off to fly home.




Fiona enjoyed another milestone while Grandma & Auntie Kim were here: sitting in a restaurant high chair for the first time. As you can see here, she thought it was awesome! She chewed on straws, tried to choke on a sweet potato fry, and practiced her bird calls, much to the delight (I'm sure) of the other patrons. If only it had been basketball season, she would have fit right in at the Top of the Hill...


At 6 months, Fiona posed more cooperatively than usual for her monthly portrait. She seems to have come to recognize that we want her to look at the little silver box and smile. I am beginning to think that she looks like Jeff when she's smiling and like me when she's serious faced.



Although she posed cooperatively for a while, she soon wanted to climb over the side of the chair - See ya mama!

This week Fiona did her first "army crawl" and is now officially a mobile creature. She can't crawl with her belly up yet, but she is very, very close. Here's a photo of her in action yesterday morning. She seems most motivated to get to things that aren't toys (like this Roomba beacon). All the outlets are covered, and the cupboard under the kitchen sink is latched, now for the stair gates and all the glassware cupboards...


You can see more recent photos here.

Fiona at Five months: discovering animals

Here's Fiona a 5 months old showing what a big baby she's getting to be. She started going to daycare recently and so far, she doesn't seem ruined. She's as happy as ever and she seems to enjoy "school" and to get a lot of positive stimulation and good naps there, so we are happy.


One of Fiona's favorites things in the world is our cat Isabel. When she gets to pet Isabel she can't contain her excitement. Isabel is remarkably tolerant and seems to like Fiona, though she often keeps a slight but safe distance as shown here.



Another thing that's been lighting up her face these days is seeing a hummingbird visit our feeder. Since her first glimpse, she keeps a keen eye out and will smile when she sees it appear. She also watches squirrels, cardinals, bees, goldfish, and dragonflies with interest.







Although she recently had her first bouts of illness - nothing serious, just a cold and then some projectile vomiting - these have not dimmed her sunny disposition. Fiona's happy to wake up every morning and the opening of a poem by David Swanger, called "My Daughter's Morning" (thanks Michele!) captures it well:

"My daughter's morning streams
over me like a gang of butterflies..."

We've posted some more recent photos here.

Fiona: four months, food & more flying...

Here's our girl at 4 months old, showing off her large size, and her chatty, sunshine-y demeanor. We think that her hair is going to be red, though it's not so red in person as it looks in photos.









Fiona was showing all the signs of readiness for solid foods, so we started out with some rice cereal, then gradually moved on to bananas, then sweet potatoes, which were voted most preferred food (determined by the fact that she emptied the bowl), as shown here.




However, we flew to to Nevada to visit Grammie & Opa and she discovered avocados on a trip up to Lake Tahoe; they quickly went to the top of her food list. Here she's shown hovering above the Lake, courtesy of dad.








Fiona enjoyed some minor league baseball in Reno, Grammie & Opa's dog Buddy, and their fun jumper toy, as shown here. She had a great time on the trip and flew like a champ, even with indirect flights.








Charlotte enjoyed being able to watch the Giants on TV, and Jeff prepared for his future career as a physician, as shown here.
More photos are posted here.










Not long after we returned home, Wilbur took a turn for the worse in his struggle with cancer and now he is resting peacefully in the yard next to a rhododendron. We miss him a lot. Here he is around Christmas 2007, at the table, because that's where we were and where we were was always where he wanted to be.

Baseball, swimming, a family wedding, and fun with food...

Fiona's been keeping busy as the spring winds down and summer approaches. First, she partook of America's pastime when UNC faced Dartmouth in the NCAA baseball tournament. Jeff was impressed by the showing for Big Green.

Fiona's next summery adventure was a trip to the pool. She was quiet and warily curious. Yes, it does look like she's sporting mohawk, and we are not responsible, it's nature's doing (we get a lot of comments on her hair...).





Fiona shows off her traveling savvy here: all passengers must retain boarding documents... This time the family fly to Chicago for Dad's cousin Jim's wedding. Fiona got to ride "the L", meet her Great Aunts & Uncles Ann & Todd and Peter & Ann and hang out with Grandma & Grandpa. We discovered that Fiona cries at weddings, but not the silent weeping kind of crying!




At least she looked cute! Plus she had a chance to wear the sweater knit by Great Aunt Ann.






She's been tasting a lot of different foods, and this shows her reaction to a tasting a grape. You can see more photos and a video of grape tasting here.

Airplanes, hiking, and 4 generations in Colorado

Newly outfitted with her very own Southwest Rapid Rewards account, Fiona successfully completed a flight out to Colorado to visit Gramma, Grampa, and Great Nain in Fort Collins. Happily, Charlotte and I also managed to complete the flight without incident, although I might have liked another Diet Coke. This trip brought together four generations of the family, ranging in age from 3 months to 97 years!

During this trip Fiona also seems to have discovered her tongue, and spent much of the time sticking it out and making funny faces. Here is one (of many) representative photos.

Fiona also enjoyed her first trip to the mountains, reaching 10,000 at Dream Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. We're hoping that this is only the beginning of many hiking trips!

Charlotte has uploaded a more extensive collection of photos here.