Aurelia Marie

 

She loves to scoot the tube around the room and roll it over her head.

 

 

This is Mom’s “lazy-hat,” since I didn’t manage to make a hat this week while preparing for my qualifying exams.

 

Yummy – I love fruit. As a matter of fact, I eat nothing but fruit right now!! At least she is getting enough fiber :).

 

This is the reaching thing that she does. It might be “I Love You,” because that is what we do to her when we greet her and pick her up. Who knows what she is thinking at any given moment.

 

 

She finally figured out the walking toy that she got for Christmas. She uses it as a crutch to get around the room now that she can take up to about 3 steps on her own.

OK, so it’s not exactly “ultimate” fighting, but definitely a wrestling match to get Aurelia’s teeth brushed. I have to hold her down while she is using both arms and legs to pry my hands away from her face! She definitely needs them brushed. I can see stuff accumulate around her little upper gumline by the end of the day. She just thinks that I’m trying to kill her when I try to brush them. The toothbrush – loves that!! She likes to hold hers while I brush my teeth, and she’ll move it around in her mouth – but she isn’t actually brushing the teeth.

Any suggestions on how to brush baby’s teeth without the battle? I don’t want to learn that brushing her teeth is a bad experience, anyway.

Aurelia is having a rough start to this week. She has started crying when I drop her off at Baby Gator. It doesn’t help that I’ve forgotten something in the car the past couple of times and had to make a second trip inside. So, apparently she quits pretty shortly after I leave and plays all day without much relapse, but it still makes me sad to leave her.

Yesterday afternoon, she came home with a bite. It is inevitable that a roomful of teething babies will bite one another from time to time, but does it have to be my little one? She had a red mark on her left wrist, but not broken skin. The teacher fills out a report for the parents whenever something like that happens, but the biter is kept anonymous to prevent parent squabbles. Once we got her home, I was playing with her on the bed. Marcus asked me a question about a job application, and I looked away for just the number of seconds it took for Aurie to fall off the side. Ugggh. She had a mouthful of blood – bit her tongue. We totally freaked out! I hate to see my baby’s blood! She was cheery again in a matter of minutes, but she did keep her tongue hanging out for the next half-hour. That part was cute. We decided no more putting her on the bed except for sleeping with us, and we need to figure something out to keep her from trying to grab the fan on Marcus’ computer, which we cannot move out of reach.

A cute thing that happened later is that she found an innertube that we have for playing in the pool. She pulled it over her head and sat in the middle, then climbed out of it and played peek-a-boo with the side. Then, we slipped out of the room to let her experiment on her own. From around the corner, we watched her push the tube around the room and climb into it in various spots. She is so creative in her play! She also likes to pile things on her little “animal train” and the hit the button on watch it pull the stuff around the room.

She is amazing – I just can’t get enough. Sometimes when she is sleeping, I just want to go hold her and feel her breath against me. I miss her at night!

I’d better quit, because I am in work-avoidance mode, and I could write all day. Then the post would be so long that nobody would read it. :)

 

Here is me not looking, since I hadn’t intended to be in the picture. You never know exactly what someone else it taking when you hand-off.

 

On the left is my professor, Tom, and on the right is Alex, Aurelia’s little buddy. His parents are both visiting scientists at UF (Dad is in my lab), and they brought the boys with them from Spain. Alex and Aurie always have a lot of fun together.

 

Smiling from Mommy’s lap getting ready for a dip in the coooold spring.

 

I thought that this looks as if a new tree is trying to climb out of the old stump – kinda creepy!

I also just realized that I didn’t take a photo of the actual spring, but if you come visit, you can see for yourself – hint hint!!