0.5 year!

Ms. Erin Beatrix had her 6 month appointment today.  She wanted to point out she is really 6.5 months old. She took 4 shots and 1 oral vaccine like a champ, and seemed to enjoy the naked baby looking back at her in the mirror. 

For those who are keeping track we offer the current stats:

Weight: 19 lbs even (95%)

Height: 27" (90%)

Head Circumference: 45.5 cm (above 95%)

Handlebars Part II

Per Brian's Request:

... That's a lot of fuzz.

Handlebars

Someone was recently speculating what Brian would look like with an enormous mustache.  Well, here at McMillerPDX we aim to please. Brian has sported many facial hair styles over the years.  While a shining example of a REALLY huge mustache remains elusive, hopefully these will suffice. 

I love how his shirt nearly exactly matches the color of the ocean.  Brian's coordinated like that.

Long hair to accentuate the 'stash. Again, the attention to detail is remarkable.

Arthur Joseph Miller, Sr.

Dear Erin,

You were a very lucky girl when you were born. All your grandparents and two full sets of great-grandparents were here to welcome you. This picture is of you and your great-Grandpa Miller; your mom called him Gramps.

Gramps loved hot dogs and Sees candy. He fought in WWII and was very proud of it. He married his sweetheart and loved her his whole life. They were always holding hands, and would always touch each other tenderly.

He would pick your mom up sometimes from school when she was little and drive her home, always asking how her day was. He was good at listening to her little-girl issues and giving advice. He told great jokes. He had elaborate model train sets and spent a great deal of time smoking his pipe and setting them up. They were fun to watch. He enjoyed a cold glass of Coca-Cola.

You mom bought her first car from Gramps. Six months later she found a small cheesecloth bag of old tobacco under the drivers seat. Gramps explained this is used to clean windows so they fog up less. He had lots of tricks like that.

Gramps and your Grandpa had the same name: Arthur Joseph Miller. This made it amusing sometimes when Gramps' old army buddies would call up and leave cryptic messages, "Is this the home of the 300 lb canary?". Your mom proudly has the same initials, AJM.

You won't remember it but you got to meet him when you were 2 1/2 months old, and again when you were 6 months old. He loved meeting you. You were his first great-grandchild. Your mom is very, very happy you got to meet him before he left this world.

Love, Mom

Toys!

This illustrates a favorite game of Erin's.  Here's how it's played: 

1. Investigate container of toys.  

2. Remove toys individually.

3. Play with individual toy for 10"-5'.

4. Drop toy on lap and ignore.

5. Repeat 1-4 until (a) box is empty or (b) toys remaining in box are no longer within reach of infant-sized arms.

Erin the Explorer

Erin spent some time in the yard today in her bad-assed ladybug sunscreen.  She played with the grass.  She likes grass.  A lot.  She also likes English daisies.  I turned to Erin at one point, she smiled at me, opened her mouth to show me a masticated daisy, then proceeded to hack up the flower.  Pretty much like the cats do. Erin likes the yard.

Overheard: On the Changing Table

Brian, bewildered, to Erin this morning while dressing her in a new and fancy smocked outfit:

"Buttons?! What kind of !@#*!# sadist puts buttons on baby clothes?"

To Go, Please

We here at McMiller Household Inc. have had more than our fair share of nursing strikes lately.  Between teething and multiple ear infections it's taken ongoing gentle & loving coaxing to get enough food into lil' Miss E.  So with that preamble...

... We go on a walk every night as a family before Erin goes to bed.  Since she's getting near the maximum capacity for the Baby Bjorn, we borrowed an Ergo from Mary.  Tonight was the first test run.  It went well - Erin was a little fussy at first but she was fussy all evening.  Then we get going.  She has a ball - looking at things in the neighborhood and laughing.  Then she starts pecking at my chest, gumming my shirt.  Just prior to setting out we struggled through a half-completed feeding, so knowing she was hungry and seeing no one around, yes friends, I whipped out good ol' lefty and we nursed on the go.  It was surprisingly discrete (picture is of a mom nursing).  She ate fairly well from the side she protests at the most, then a few blocks later she fell asleep.  We are now officially attachment-style, slightly crazy,  Hawthorne parents. 

You can do side bends or sit-ups, but please don't lose that butt!

Darren and I were talking about babies, and I was talking about Erin's cute chubby thighs.   Darren, replying about his six-month-old kid Henry, said "Henry's a really skinny kid.  You can still see his ribs."   I said it was fairly likely that Henry was destined to be an underwear model.

Later that evening, while playing with Erin, I mentioned this conversion to Ms. A.  Upon hearing what Darren had said about Henry, Ms. A looked down lovingly towards Erin and said with a straight face, "Last time we saw your ribs, Erin, was in an ultrasound."  Then, Ms. A cackled with laughter.  

This line of humor is so going to give Erin a complex in 14 years.

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Mmmango.....

Apologies for the multiple posts on the same topic but it's just so darned cute.

Dude... seriously, where did she learn to eat?

So, tonight we fed Erin some oatmeal. Holy crap -- she ate like a pro.

She was like, "Oh, yeah? Bring it on! OK, lemme show you how this is done, rookie. I'll walk you through it. Spoon to my mouth. Now. Let's not dawdle."

I think the whole episode was over in two minutes. Erin meant business, and something like 95% of the food made it into her belly.

I expected the usual image of babies being fed -- food everywhere, food all over the face and floor.

Not Erin. Erin made every effort to ensure no food went to waste. At one point between me getting spoonfuls from the bowl she actually brought her shirt up to her mouth so that a blob of oatmeal would not go to waste.

That's my girl.

Daddy's A Cheetah - by Erin

This Sunday I got to watch my Dad run a race.  I took Mom along because she kept me warm.  

Dad ran really fast. He smiled the whole way.  He ran the fastest he's ever run. 

After the race Dad and I played together.  He says he will teach me to run someday.  Maybe then we can be cheetahs together.

She's Irish-American, right?

Story time.

So, we're at dinner tonight - we've gone out rather than ordered in. This is a big event because we've gone out to dinner maybe two other times since Erin has been born. We're at a Balkan place called Two Brothers, a new place for us. Everything is going swimmingly. Then the food arrives.

Erin becomes transfixed. She's been carefully watching us eat for a few weeks now but now she's serious. She reaches. She turns to mom. She turns to the food. Mom picks up a fry, cools it off and holds it to her mouth for a taste. We've offered food before; she has always just stuck out her tongue for a taste. Not this time. She opened up, slowly closing her mouth on the fry. She gnawed a bit off. She chewed. (when did she learn how to chew?) She swallowed, coughing a bit, then went for seconds. She proceeded to eat every bit we gave her.

Yes, baby's first food is French fried potato.

We will be giving her "real" baby food tomorrow.

Poison Bottle Update

So I freaked out my coworker who has two small boys and used the same bottles mentioned in the previous post.   She contacted friends in Europe who informed her the Avent bottles (and other BPA containing bottles) are not banned in Europe, as I'd read on some sites.  She found this and this.  The first, compiled by, as far as I can tell, a completely independent source brings up some good points about how rodent models may be inappropriate for testing BPA exposure.  The second is from a website sponsored by the Polycarbonate/BPA global group.  Might not be the most unbiased information source around. 

Either way, we've switched bottles 'cause dangerous exposure or not the milk in those bottles smelled & tasted awful. Here's what manufacturer of the offending bottles has to say.

Bubblegum

Erin has tasted several things by now.  They are: 

1. breast milk. 

2. her feet

3. grape flavored baby Tylenol

4. cherry flavored gas drops

and the most recent fruity flavor.....

.... 5. bubblegum (!) flavored antibiotics. 

How strange this must seem for her.