A new study...

Get out the vacuum and the broom...

Although Anna is still struggling to get her finger foods into mouth, she's made a lot of progress getting leaves, dirt, pine needles, and strings into her mouth off the floor. So if you come to visit us you can admire our very clean floors :)

2008 most popular baby names

According to a babycenter article, Anna was the 32nd most popular girl's name in 2008.

Bowling scores revealed:

Matt: 157
Sarah: 57

I guess when I said we had fun hitting strikes and spares, I only meant one of us....

Big girl foods!

Since we first started feeding Anna solid foods about 4 months ago, she has happily eaten most of what we have given her. In the past few days she's become a little choosey. We think this is due to the fact that she has become less interested in mushy foods served on a spoon and more interested in small bites of food that she needs to chew. I guess these are referred to as "finger foods," because babies can pick them up with their fingers and feed themselves. However in Anna's case it's not quite her fingers that are doing the feeding yet. She is trying to feed herself though. Yesterday, with her first experience with cheerios, she came so close to getting one in her mouth herself a couple times.

So right now Anna's finger foods consist of pear (her favorite by far!), banana (which you may remember she would not eat in the mushed up version a few months ago, but she loves in small bites), carrot, potato, peas, and cheerios.

So how does Anna show her preference for these fine delicacies? Well, yesterday when her grandparents visited on the way back from North Carolina, Anna didn't want her lunch. So her grandpa peeled a pear and let her take some little bites off it. Now when it was time for dinner, she didn't want to eat her fine oatmeal and mashed lima beans so we took her out of her high chair and set her down to play. She crawled right under the counter in the kitchen where the fruit basket is stored and started motionning and reaching for the pears. Matt & I could not believe she remembered this, but we peeled the pear and managed to get her to eat bites of her mushy food in between pear bites. At lunch today she would only eat her mushy rice cereal and mushy carrots in between bites of banana and cheerios. It's a good compromise, but I can't figure out how we reached this negotiation without sharing a common language!

Well, for dinner we're going to give avocado a second try - this time in bites!

Changing Table Maddness!

Over the past few weeks Anna has become less and less interested in laying still while she gets her clothes and diaper changed. When we were in Albany at Christmas I kinda thought it was because she was laying in the middle of a big bed and she was interested in exploring. However, in the past week it's gotten worse. At this point if Matt & I are both home we always change her diaper together - one person to entertain and one person to change. A few times while Matt was working this week I had to just skip her before nap diaper change because she was so difficult before it even started. Now if her diaper is just wet, I don't feel too bad about this, but if her diaper is more than wet that's when the real trouble starts. I would say 3 or 4 times in the past week Anna has flipped over to her stomach while her butt is covered in poop, which really makes things interesting. Like this morning. Anna woke up and I went to change her. Right as I got her diaper off and went for the first wipe she did the flip over. I picked her up quick, bare, poopy butt in the air, and with no where to put her, we woke Dad up from a deep sleep to come wipe the butt...sorry Dad!

Matt & I have tried to teach Anna appropriate changing table behavior. This is pretty funny. As soon as she does the flip one of us picks her up looks at her face and firmly explains that she needs to lay on her back while she gets her diaper changed. This apparently, is hilarious, because it always makes her burst into laughter.

Hopefully this is a phase. If not hopefully Mom & Dad will gain some new skills - fast!

New Year's Bowling

Matt, Anna, & I went bowling today. We all had fun - Mom & Dad hitting strikes and spares and Anna people watching and bowling ball watching. So here's a question for everyone. Mom & Dad bowled scores 100 points from each other. What were the scores and who do they belong to?