Five Months Old!

California Shades & Babylegs

You will find Tua sporting her new look in the house and around town. I found Babylegs through the cloth diapers websites as an accessory for diaper changes/potty training. However, they will come in handy protecting her knees when she starts crawling and they make quite a fashion statement. They have polka dots and stripes, cotton and wool, regular and organic. She is also enjoying her pair of sunglasses. Now that she is outside quite a bit, I thought she would appreciate the sun protection as well as some sophistication. I think the drool really adds to the look, don't you?

First Hike

Yesterday, we broadened Tua's appreciation for where she lives. That was what we had attempted to do from the moment we began. It seemed to go pretty well for her on the two hours up to the top of Abraham, a mountain to the North of here. We were with a group of three other couples and, including Tua, there were a total of three children under the age of 18 months. The summit was beautiful, though too chilly to pause for a photo.
Tua and Bug, with the Green Mountains below.

At the trailhead, at the end of the climb. Tua expressed sheer discontent at the little amount of sleep received. The tears are evident in the two photos above.

Diaper Free

Tua has been reading the latest in childhood development philosophy. The Diaper Free Baby is a new winner. I was a bit skeptical of the title and its apparent connotations. Her mother finished reading it last night and I got an opportunity to snap through the main points. The book describes an ideal of elimination communication and how early infant training is a perfect building block for communication further into life. It also branches out into the idea behind the convenience of a diaper free baby. Not only is it convenient for you as a parent, but it is ( more importantly) more convenient for the child. And since we are a nation of dependant upon convenience this ideal should be most agreeable to us. Our food is fast, our fuel is relativly cheap, our roads are paved, and credit here is legal tender. When it comes to diapering its infant population, the US again stands out from the rest of the world. While our global neighbors have their children potty-trained by the age of 8 months, it is estimated that our nation keeps its young in diapers until the age of three. Diapers are a necessity in the life of any child. For Tua, we're hoping to make this necessity as short as possible.

BIBS

Babysitting

I am still working for the National Park Service, but in a capacity which allows me to stay home with Tua. Sometimes I need to catch up on my hours and work on the weekend when a babysitter is available. Seth is great with incorporating Tua into his daily tasks. You will find him working in our front yard prepping for sowing grass while watching the baby in her jogger. Here, Tua cuts a new pose. We call it the Glory Hallelujah.

"Birth Announcements"

We finally got our birth announcements sent out. However, everyone knows about Tua by now so they are hardly announcements. We kept them simple with just her picture and her birth date. For those who would like the details of her birth, she weighed 8lbs. 4 oz. and was 21 inches long. Now she is a mere 12lbs. 12oz. and 24 inches long...she has her father's high metabolism. If you haven't been to this blog before, the January link to the left shows some hospital pictures and a brief story of our life once we brought Tua home. The picture above was taken at 3:45am, just 3 hours into Tua's life! I am reminiscing because my cousin Heidi just had her first baby on Tuesday. My Aunt Marcia is preparing for her first granddaughter by holding Tua at Easter. Heidi and David's blog link is http://robbinsnest04.blogspot.com/.

Little Elf

Tua, at four months, has finally reached an age we've been waiting for. The pictures below highlight her infectious smile and her winning ears both of which were passed on to her by her mother. Picture 3 in the series is for your consideration. It is of Bug and her older sister Cydil when Bug herself was four months old. The resemblance is spooky.

Last night, we thought we'd take Tua to the spa, so to speak. So we gave her a steam bath with baby-safe lavender scented carbonium bath salts, scrubbed her scalp with balsam oils and pampered her with a thorough, deep muscle massage. She seemed to relish it all and afterward was only too eager to pose for a few shots. The one above is one of her after the spa, still in her robe. Below, she and I prepare for an evening stroll. The carrier is a 'maya wrap'. We have found it to be one of the best ways to carry her through the day.
The last picture is from April's visit to the land of Lincoln.... Tua and the latest eye fashions.

Family Time

The month of May has been a tradition of travelling for Seth and me. A couple weeks ago Seth posted some pictures of Scotland and I've found some pictures of our trip to San Francisco we took in 2005. The last picture is of our current journey...

New Shoes

Sorry it has been a while since we have posted. Seth has been busy now that Spring as arrived in Vermont and is busy with outdoor tasks. This is a shot of Tua that Seth's mother took yesterday. Seth's parents are visiting family in Italy and wanted to bring some pictures of their first granddaughter. She is sporting her new socks that have shoes "painted" on them. Very clever. Someone asked me if they make them for adults. We should look into that.