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.

Easter, more visitors & a trip to the farmer's market...

Well, it looks like Jeff & I will not be frequent bloggers, but here's our latest update. Grandma-Nain's visit wrapped up on Easter & we celebrated with brunch at Parker & Otis. Here is a shot of Fiona from that day:A few days later, Mom's childhood friend Sara came out for a visit from Seattle, allowing Mom to go into work a bit and make her first post-partum visit to the gym...

She met yet another new person: Mom's friend from graduate school, Michele, also out for a visit from Seattle.


She posed semi-willingly for her 2 month old portrait, showing how large she is getting...


Finally, she took her first trip to the farmer's market, graduating to facing out in the Baby Bjorn. She greatly enjoys looking around at everything when out and about.


And here she shows off her support for the Durham Farmer's Market, along with her "full body smile".


You can see more photos here. Next post: Fiona takes her first trip by plane!

Fiona's first spring brings more visitors

First Erin (Charlotte's friend from grad school) & Tara came to visit from Virginia, and although Tara is only 3, she looks like a giant next to Fiona!








Next, Bethany (Charlotte's college roommate) came from Philadelphia. No photos of Bethany yet, as they went back to Nevada with Grammie, but the evidence is Fiona in a Phillies shirt - Mom intends to raise a National League girl!





Then came Grandma & Grandpa Cooney from Colorado and Auntie Kim from Cambridge, MA. Grandpa & Auntie Kim were only able to stay for the weekend, but Grandma stayed until Easter, getting lots of chances to change diapers & soothe a crying Fiona...












Here are some of our favorite recent photos showing Fiona's most endearing skill: smiling! You can see more recent photos posted by Charlotte here and photos from Grandpa Cooney here.