Zoo Thousand Eleven

This past weekend, Cy took Friday off and we headed up to Columbia to spend a few hours at Riverbanks Zoo.  We had scored some discounted zoo tickets via Groupon a few weeks earlier.  It ended up being a really great day for the zoo.  We arrived just after lunchtime and all the school crowds were leaving, so it wasn't very crowded.  The weather was nice too - right around 70 degrees.  Gemma seemed a bit disinterested at first, until we saw some monkeys swinging around and yelling loudly.  Gemma enjoyed watching them swing and started yelling right back at them as loudly as she could.  She seemed to like the penguins a lot too.

I enjoyed the chance to exercise my newly learned photography skills and use some of my new photography equipment to shoot some great pictures:

After we finished at the zoo, we headed to the lake house for the rest of the weekend.  It ended up storming and pouring rain most of the time but we enjoyed just having some time off to relax.  Before the storms hit, we managed to squeeze in a quick boat trip.  It was my first time on a boat since the ill-fated cruise (and probably my last time - I didn't do so well) and Gemma's first time (she did much better than I did). 

Last Week in Review

I have several days' worth of blog material saved up, so instead of writing a bunch of individual posts, I'm just going to drop a bunch of knowledge all at once.

First things first: nobody got to pinch Gemma on St. Patty's Day because she was very festively decked out.  (I too was wearing green; however, that did not deter her from pinching, biting, attacking me, etc.)

Second, we have a new addition at our house: a swing set!  Even though Gemma's not quite at the optimal age for maximum swing set enjoyment just yet, when we saw this toddler swing set with (free!) infant swing on sale at Toys R Us, we decided to go ahead and invest in our child's future.  She seems to like it so far.  I am loving it - it lets me get outside for a little bit each day.

Meanwhile, as Cy and Pops were putting the swing set together, I was taking an all-day continuing education class on digital photography at Trident Tech with my friend Renonna.  It was a pretty good class - I definitely learned a lot of things about my camera that I had found a bit overwhelming and confusing before.  After the class I read through some tutorials on Canon's website and ordered a few accessories for my camera.  Now if I can just find the time to actually go take some pictures...

This was my favorite picture that I took while doing "homework" for my class at lunchtime:

And finally, in other news, the list of quarterfinalists for the Amazon Breakthrough Award Contest was released today...and Norfanger Plantation was on it!  I was so convinced I wouldn't make it any further in the contest that I had actually forgotten that the list was even coming out today, and only found out because I received an automated email update.  At this point there are 500 quarterfinalists (250 general fiction & 250 YA) remaining, which will be whittled down to only 100 (50 & 50) on April 26.  The good news is that someone from Publishers Weekly will actually be reading my entire manuscript as  part of the next phase of the contest, so I will at least get some professional feedback on my novel if nothing else (and I am definitely not expecting to make it any further!).

9 Month Checkup...finally

We finally made it in for Gemma's 9 month checkup today.  (Now that she is 10 months + 8 days old.)  She was doing well over all - still on the growth charts (surprisingly) albeit just barely, but is growing at about the same rate she has been all along.  I'm looking at the paper now that they gave us with her stats and they must have written them down wrong or I'm really not understanding, because what I'm seeing is this:  Height - 108, HC - 24, and Weight - 16 lbs., 8 oz.  I know the weight is correct (she will be in a rear-facing car seat forever!) but I can't seem to make those other two come out to legitimate stats for Gemma (maybe the 24 is actually her length?  She is pretty small!).  Oh well.  They did say that she is around the 5th percentile for weight, the 7th percentile for length, and the 25th percentile for her head size.

We talked to the pediatrician about some feeding concerns while we were there.  Gemma's next appointment is a few days after birthday and we will discuss a plan for her milk-wise then (since she has had a milk protein allergy in the past).  We also discussed what to do as far as giving her meat.  She has only tried meat once - a jar of turkey that caused her to break out in hives.  We were unsure if it was the turkey itself or the preservatives that caused the breakout, so he wants us to try some homemade pureed chicken (doesn't that sound delicious?) and see how that goes.  If that causes a reaction as well, we will probably have to have some allergy testing done to determine the extent of her allergies.  I really hope it does not come to that - I have had allergy testing done on myself and know how unpleasant it is.  I cannot imagine administering that type of testing to a young baby who cannot understand what is going on.  So I will be whipping up some super yummy chicken puree this week and hoping for the best.

Other than her food allergies, she seems to be doing great.  Can't believe that her first birthday is getting so close already!

First Trip to the Park

     We decided to take advantage of the nice weather this afternoon and take a long walk to the park at Bees Ferry Landing.  We've been to the gym and tennis courts at Bees Ferry Landing, but hadn't really scoped out the playground yet.  It's a little over a mile from our house, so we enjoyed a nice walk there and back.  The playground itself was very nice.  Gemma enjoyed her first time on a swing set and a ride (on my lap) on some sort of springy thing.  She mostly enjoyed watching all the other kids playing - she was giggling quite a bit at some of their antics.  I'm glad to know now that such a nice playground is so close by - I have a feeling we'll be heading that way a lot this summer!

 

 

 

10 Months Old Today!

Gemma is 10 months old today!  I can't believe how close we are getting to her first birthday - crazy!  Still haven't made it to the doctor for her 9 month checkup...we are supposed to go next week, so I will post her most up-to-date stats then.  Right now, she is still in 9 month clothes (12 month clothes are HUGE on her) so I will be surprised if she is even still on the growth charts at all. (Her head might be, but that's about it!)

She is turning into such a little person these days.  She has gotten much more comfortable with pulling up the past week and now is standing up constantly, and she has started cruising a little bit.  Won't be long before she is running around all over the place and I am losing my mind chasing her!

Super Cute Pigtails!

Gemma's hair was extra crazy today (she got a bath last night and her hairbrush had mysteriously disappeared due to her chucking it under the couch so she went to bed with it wet and crazy) so I thought I would see if it was long enough for pigtails.  It's not really, only the part on top is, but it still looked pretty cute!

I think she actually looks like me in this picture (for once - I've started calling her "mini-Cy" because she's SO much like her dad!), but maybe it's just wishful thinking:

It's pretty impressive to be copping this much 'tude while sporting such cute pigtails, but G's definitely got a handle on it: