Ten Months!

Yes, this should have been posted more than a week ago (5/21/09)!

Sarah is up to 16lbs now! Length unknown...she barely lets me dress her these days, much less measure her. But we know her legs are finally growing - they've been pretty short all this time.

She started crawling on May 5th and hasn't slowed down since. Less than two weeks later, she figured out how to go from crawling to sitting up. And the same day she started to pull up on the furniture!


This new mobility has been a big adjustment for EVERYONE, including our dogs. They're used to laying, undisturbed, on the furniture...now, a tiny head will pop up out of nowhere. And that tiny head is usually yelling with excitement! So far the dogs are adjusting well and most them know to get up and move if they're bothered by her.

We've also ditched the baby tub in favor of the big tub - she wasn't sure about it at first, but now splashes around with all her tub toys.

Still no teeth, but I'm sure they'll come along soon enough. Everything goes straight to her mouth...and I do mean EVERYTHING. Shoes (hers or others), fingers (hers or others!), we've even caught her chewing a couple of dog toys. Oops! Not a big deal...I've said it before, I worry more about germs from other kids than I do about germs from our dogs.

So, we're heading full force toward ONE YEAR OLD. Party preparations have begun, including some special "thank you" treats for our favorite nurses. We have a LOT to celebrate this year!

May - a month of firsts!

May has been a good month for us...and it's only the 12th! So far we've had...

Sarah's first popsicle! Okay, so it's just frozen pears in her little mesh feeder. That still counts.

And yes, I stripped her down to her diaper and put her in her baby pool too eat it. Good call on my part because it was EVERYWHERE by the time she was done!

Popsicles are exciting around here!

We also had our first studio portraits. We were given a gift certificate to a local studio shortly after Sarah was born so we decided to cash it in for Mother's Day gifts. We also got some GREAT photos of Sarah and her cousin, but I don't want to put photos of someone else's kid online without asking first.

Sarah also had her first dip in the pool (with WATER!) without screaming like she was on fire! She really enjoyed herself!

We also had our first trip to Kid's Gym - I went with a small mom's group so Sarah was one of maybe 10 kids there. All the other kids were older and running around but I think Sarah had an okay time. If nothing else it's a chance to get her used to other kids...in preparation for daycare. And eventual reality for us.

Yes, that's MY child...in a ball pit. I was a good sport for about three minutes. Then she started putting the balls in her mouth and the germaphobe in me took over. *shudder*

We also ordered Sarah a grocery cart cover that also doubles as a high chair cover. I was VERY hesitant to pay as much as we did for it, but we LOVE it. And it's simplified my life quite a bit. We christened the cover at Johnny Ray's for BBQ so this was Sarah's first restaurant high chair. She's also showing you the chicken she was eating for dinner!

We also stopped by the grocery store and found that it works just as well in a cart :-)

March for Babies update

The March of Dimes' March for Babies was April 24th - the bad news is that the walk portion of the event was ultimately rained out. The not so bad news is that Team Sarah raised more than $900 and the March of Dimes received every last penny of that in spite of the rain!

The star of Team Sarah:


The small part of Team Sarah that made it to the park before the rain started:

I was also lucky enough to have two friends (and their dogs!!) travel down from Tennessee to walk with us! We had Sarah's stroller all decorated for the event (notice the rain guard we purchased on a whim the night before!):

The following picture is the part of the day I was most excited about - those are three of Sarah's NICU nurses! From left to right, that's Jessica (she gave us our NICU tour a week or so before Sarah was born), Sara Beth (one of the NICU's nurse practitioners) and on the far right is Sandra. Since we spent the majority of our time in isolation, we generally had the same nurses from week to week. Sandra was one of our regulars and she took such good care of Sarah. And us! I would have walked all four miles in the pouring rain for the chance to see these wonderful ladies again!

Thank you to everyone who has donated to the March of Dimes, whether via Team Sarah or otherwise!