My favorite book

Vivi "reading" her favorite book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?  Photo credit goes to Grandma.

Cousins

Vivi with some of her cousins. 

Elvis and Betty Boop

At Peggy Sue's Diner in Barstow.

Visiting Granny and a new voice

We're visiting Vivi's granny. Unfortunately it's for a sad reason - Vivi's "Papa" (paternal grandfather) passed away on Friday after a long battle with cancer. We are happy she had a chance to meet him.

Vivi has been loving the baby toys at her granny's house that have accumulated from the other grandchildren who have outgrown them and the attention of family members. And she has found her voice (again). This time it's a high voice (compare to the voice she found last month -  http://a-grand-adventure-2011.blogspot.com/2011/06/beginning-to-babble.html).

Happy 4th of July

Ready to celebrate in my red, white, and blue!

My first time in a pool

Vivi's feet - with apologies to Dr. Seuss

Vivi's Feet

(Maybe I've been reading too much Dr. Seuss these days) 

I can do it myself!

Okay, Mom, you fed me yesterday and now I get it. Just give me the spoon and let me feed myself!

With nearly every bite I tried to feed her, Vivi took the spoon right out of my hand and put it in her mouth herself.  This does not bode well for the toddler years...

I found my feet!

Now that I've found my feet, I never let go of them - even in the bath.

 

 

Here it may look like I've turned my attention to my rubber ducky - but I've still got one hand on that foot.

Food!

At 4.5 months, Vivi had her first taste of solid food (rice cereal mixed with milk). More went in than fell out. 

Don't forget to keep voting for her. You can vote everyday until July 3  - as of this morning she was #105 out of 1709 babies.
http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/940459 

First trip to the ER

A Skype accident and an altercation with an iPad ended with a small cut on Vivi's forehead last night. Although it was small and the bleeding stopped quickly, the on-call pediatrician recommended a trip to the ER to get any cut on the face checked out. When we arrived, Vivi was happy and smiling at all the nurses -- until they took her temperature rectally. She was not at all happy about that.

The doc glued the cut closed and we were instructed not to let sunlight hit it to avoid a scar. The glue will fall off in a week.

Who knew? You can glue babies back together again.

Vote for Vivi!

 I submitted some photos of Vivi to a photo contest and one was selected for the voting round. You can vote for Vivi at 

http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/940459

you can vote for her once each day between now and July 3. 

Beginning to babble

 

Vivi has been "talking" up a storm these past couple of days. 

4 months old

 

Vivi's four month appointment was today. She is 12 pounds and 4 ounces, 22 inches long, and had a head circumference of 40 cm (15.7 inches) - small, but healthy. The doc said she's acting more like a 5 month old than a 4 month old - alert, curious and strong. Go Vivi! Now she's sleeping and recovering from her vaccinations.

A balloon

I should have taken video because still shots just do not convey Vivi's excitement with the balloon (though the wide open mouth in the top photo gives you some idea). The balloon was shiny and colorful - two of Vivi's favorite things. Better yet, when she held onto it and let go, it "fell" up! Nothing else she's ever encountered has fallen up. 

Random pics

Dressed up for Daddy's birthday

Little Charger fan

My little astronaut

Vivi is rolling!

Vivi is rolling! She now rolls from back to front to back to front to back to front. Sunday night she rolled over from back to front once and she's been practicing ever since. Today she is an expert - she nearly rolled across the room this afternoon - and she's fast!

Swingin' Vivi

Vivi's first time on the swing.

When does Vivi sleep? The data

We are trying to figure out Vivi's sleep patterns. Here are the data. The top graph shows the raw data. From 5am-10pm, I've marked out when she sleeps to the nearest 15 minutes. The dark areas are sleeping times. She pretty much sleeps consistently from 8pm-6am, waking up a few times just long enough to eat, so I'm not tracking the nighttime wakings. 

Below the data are shifted so that "zero" is the time she woke up. The numbers across the top are no longer clock times, but hours since she woke up.

Anyone see any patterns? The only consistent pattern obvious to me is that she tends to go back down 1-2 hours after waking for (often) a long nap. And if she misses that nap she takes a long afternoon nap.

Still trying...

... to get that ball in my mouth...

... and my zebra ...

... and my lamb ...

,,, and my giraffe.

Bath time