Story Time

Since Anna was about 3 months old we've been reading stories to her before bed. Until recently, we've laid her on her back on our bed and held the books over her head. This has worked really well until a few days ago when Anna realized she might rather roll over, rock back and forth, "crawl" around, look for Filmore the frog, etc. So here is our new and improved reading position:

The book that Matt is reading to her, Dog, is certainly one of her favorites. Apparently last night it was the only one she wanted to hear...over and over and over again.

The definition of crawling continued...

On Monday night Matt & I noticed how much progress Anna had made toward crawling. We both thought that actual crawling would be coming very soon. We even placed a little bet. If Anna crawls before she goes to bed on Friday, I win and anytime after that Matt wins. So of course this bet involved Matt & I creating a strict definition of what it means to crawl: on your hands and knees, moving one hand than the other hand in a row along with the corresponding legs (and yes, Aunt Mary, this means you never crawled). The other rule was that we both had to see it. Now, on both Tuesday and Wednesday I saw Anna do this, but of course that doesn't count for our bet. So we'll see if she can pull out her true crawling moves for Dad by Friday.

Although she has not perfected true crawling, Anna is mobile! Her preferred method of locomotion is using the 1980's breakdancing move, the Worm:

In case you are curious, the object of Anna's desire is the packaging for some new toys I got her. She does actually like the toys too (some balls that make little noises), but she did like the packaging more. Today, now that moving is a little easier for Anna than yesterday and Tuesday, she will move to get a number of objects, but yesterday there was a short list of desirables worth the effort. One of them was the tag hanging off the end of her car seat (you can see it in the movie above). A second was the tray to her Bebepod chair. Yesterday she was worming across the room to get these two items (and only these two items). It's funny to see what strikes her fancy :)

Anna's critique on new foods this week:

Avocado - thumbs down
Banana - thumbs down
Zucchini - thumbs up!

First hair cut

On Sunday Anna had her first hair cut. There were a few hairs --- actually her newborn hair --- that had just grown long enough to get in her eyes. We didn't cut much so it's hard to tell, but here are some before and after shots:

Last weekend at our picnic

Yesterday during a tense moment in the game

As I said before, it's hard to notice, unless you are Anna and you no longer have wisps of hair stuck in your eyelashes.

Twins again!

A little harder to tell apart this time...

Twins!

I know it is hard to tell because we are dressed alike, but Anna is on the left and I am on the right.

Get that camera out of my face...

Anna & I worked on taking a picture for our Christmas card this morning. I've got it narrowed down to these three:

A visit from Uncle Dan :)

Anna had a great time visiting with Uncle Dan, who was here Mon-Wed this week. Dad also had Tuesday off for Veteran's Day. We all hit the park for some more swinging and some football and finished off the day at Luciano's for pizza. Anna had lots of fun playing with Uncle Dan - especially with his hair!

A new way to sleep

Recently we've been trying to put Anna on more of a set sleeping schedule. As this involves waking her up sometimes to stay on the schedule, we've learned that she sleeps less on her stomach now and more on her side...often with her thumb in her mouth:

A new way to drink:

This is harder than it looks...

Continued birthday celebration!

On Friday night Mom, Dad & Ann continued Mom's birthday celebration with dinner at our favorite Japanese restaurant followed by a Carvel ice cream cake:





And on Saturday we met Corinne in the city for lunch at Two Amy's Pizza and a stroll around the National Cathedral:

This is the most fascinating bib I have ever seen. Does your mom actually let you wear this when you eat? or is it just for pictures?

Doctor's visit

Anna had her 6 month appointment this morning. She is now 18 pounds, which is the 90th percentile for weight and 27 1/2 inches, which is the 97th percentile for height! What a big girl!!

It's a BIG day!!

It's a BIG day for the Glassman Family. Both Mom & Anna hit major milestones today! Mom is 30 and Anna got her first tooth! I've decided that like Anna, I'm not growing older, I'm just growing up to be a big girl too :)

It's beautiful in Virginia today - 70 degrees & sunny. Here are pictures from my birthday picnic at Nottoway Park:

Anna was entertained by tearing apart the cracker box

First time on a slide!

First time in a swing!

A foray into fruits

In the past week Anna has sampled pears, applesauce, and peaches. And the winner is...pears, which is possibly her favorite food so far. Although it is closely rivaled by green beans.

Trying to crawl is hard work!

Here's a little video to go along with my narrative about attempted crawling:

And I know someone is going to say, "Please say you gave her the toy after you finished shooting the film." And my answer is, I did, but apparently during the shooting of this film Anna's goal shifted from a pursuit of the toy to a pursuit of the camera. When I gave her the toy she paid no attention to it and shifted her focus onto moving toward the camera. (You'll notice she does an excellent job looking at the camera in the film. She's not doing that for the benefit of the audiance, she's just zeroing in on her next target :)

Jammin' in the Jumpster

On Sunday Anna took a ride in her jumpster for the first time:

The desire to move

I guess before you force yourself to use every muscle in your body in a new and difficult way, you've got to have an end goal in mind. While Anna is not crawling yet, she certainly has the desire to move. (I say "yet," although Matt & I had a debate yesterday as to how we will define the "First Crawl." We want to get the sticker on the correct day on her calendar :) At first, I actually wanted to call yesterday the first crawl because she made forward progress. She does this by getting up on her knees and flopping forward. Sometimes this results in going backwards, which is incredibly frustrating to her as she is measuring her progress towards whatever toy, or magazine*, she is trying to reach. But Matt convinced me that we should define crawling not by the forward progress but by actually moving a knee and hand forward. So when you see, "First Crawl" on the blog, you'll know what we mean.) Mostly, she sees something she wants a few inches out of reach and works like crazy to get there. Although it is pretty funny when she notices something that she wants across the room and this is what will motivate her to flop onto her belly from a sitting position and start trying to move. You can't say she doesn't set high standards for herself :)

*Until a few weeks ago Anna was generally content playing with her toys. She still likes her toys, but as of late she is much more interested in anything that is not hers - remote control, papers, pens, cell phone, flashlight, adult food, etc. The other day I left her sitting on the floor while I went upstairs to get something and when I came back down I found her rummaging through her diaper bag - which I can't imagine how she got because I really don't think I left it that close to her!

Happiness is a stuffed frog :)

Happy Halloween!

Anna had so many fun activities she wanted to do for her first Halloween, that she celebrated for two days! First, Anna's Halloween daytime outfit - consisting of the black turtle neck that Uncle Dan pointed out would be perfect for Halloween, a bib from her grandma, and who knew it, but she happened to have orange and white striped pants in her closet!

On Halloween night Anna slept a little later from her afternoon nap - she wanted to be well rested for her evening. When she got up, Mom, Dad, & Anna all had dinner quick and then Anna hoped into her horse costume (from her Nana!):

Anna's first trick-or-treat was at the Smith's house (next door), where she picked out some Whoppers for herself. Anna hit a few more houses before we ran into our neighbors, Elise & Andrew, who were trick-or-treating in a group of about 10 kids ages 1 1/2 to 4. We trekked around with them for a little while and Anna admired all the little kids costumes & she took notes about how to work the treats better next year :)

Finally we landed at our neighbor's Nick & Jennifer, where Anna got to hang out with Porter, the pug dressed as a devil, and Maddy, the lab dressed as an angel. It was too hard to get all three of them in the picture, but her is Anna with the "devil":


After all that excitement Anna was ready for bed. However we continued the Halloween celebrations last night by once again visiting the house with over 100 carved pumpkins. Here are our favorites from this year:




And of course, Halloween would not be complete without some pumpkin custard from Neilson's, where we ended our Halloween celebrations last night: