Daddy Diary: Daddy's slacking as baby's growing!!!

It's been waaaaay too long since I've updated this blog!!!! Erica has been changing in so many ways since my last post over a month and a half ago!!! I'll try to capture the highlights: (of course there are a few pictures at the end!)

She is eating real food now. Cereal never went that great for her until we added apricots. Eventually we cut out the cereal and stuck with just fruit and she loved it!!! Since then she has been on a big food eating experiment!!! She loves sweet potatoes and apples. Carrots are close behind them as are pears and mangos. She tolerates avocados but hates anything else that is green. Her faces when she tries a new food is priceless...she looks so disgusted or upset and then quickly spits it out!!! She learned how to eat from a spoon fairly quickly and she is pretty neat though she has now been trying to take the spoon from us and tries to feed herself. I must say, Laura and I have gotten pretty good at roasting, boiling, steaming and pureeing food over the past month or so!!! Erica seems to enjoy the little tastes of humus and ice cream dad sneaks her on occasion!

We really enjoyed watching her on her first Halloween!!! She was a monster...a pink, fuzzy monster!!! And she was the cutest kid ever!!! We carved our pumpkin the night before and managed to fit her in there for a cute picture. On Halloween we took her to see the grandparents and great grandparents and some other family in town before taking a quick tour of the neighborhood. She was a trooper!!! She lasted over 2 hours in her costume and endured several cycles of getting in and out of the car and never made much of a fuss!!! I think she knew how cute she was and wanted to show off!!!

Erica has become quite the mover lately!!! At first she mastered rolling over but couldn't figure out the crawling thing. She began using the barrel rolls to get from one side of her blanket and toy area to the other. One weekend I tried showing her how to arch her back the other way in order to try and get herself up on her hands and knees. At first she just rocked forward and back and eventually face-planted. Since that first weekend though, she has been moving at warp speed with her hybrid army crawl. She is super fast and can scoot across a room very quickly when she wants to go after something! This past weekend I started working with her on how to push/pull herself up on things while crawling. She now loves crawling over our legs while we sit on the floor, though she still face plants on the other side!!! She has been following us around the house and has discovered the dishwasher door to be very fun to try to get up on and has enjoyed pushing and pulling on the oven drawer as well. Needless to say, we are now helping each other watch our backs while in the kitchen and we keep her out while cooking. Just the other day she found her way over to Lexi's kennel and began swinging the door open and close. It didn't take long for her to smack herself in the face with the door. Laura and I giggled while Lexi watched from inside her kennel as if to ask us, "how long are you going to let her do this to my house before you stop her?!?!"

Lexi and Erica have become quite the pair of buddies!!! Erica is now dodging and swinging her arms when Lexi approaches to lick her. Lexi also lucky enough to start reaping the rewards of dropped/slipped food in Erica's high chair when the meals are done. For some reason she always lays at our feet while we are feeding Erica!!!

Erica enjoys her baths more than ever!!! We moved her tub into the bathtub a while ago so she loves being able splash around and play with her toys. Bath time is still as fun as ever because her and daddy get to crank the tunes and hang out for a little while together and do our thing!!!

Its become very clear lately that mommy is Erica's favorite person!!! She has become quite clingy in this stage and screams when Laura leaves the room. Laura has been quite the trooper and has definitely earned "mom of the year" award the past couple of months with the arrival of my hunting season!!! Thankfully both grandmas have helped her be a single mom on a few occasions. I definitely owe her some long days to herself!!! Last Sunday was a fun day for Erica and I to bond while Laura went out to breakfast with her aunt and did some shopping while Erica and I hung out and played together!!!

Other than that, there haven't been too many major events happening around here. I'll try to get better with these posts and get them more regular. Next week Erica will celebrate her first Thanksgiving when Laura's family comes to town. Until that first tooth pops through or something else develops, I'll keep you posted. Thanks so much for checking in on my Daddy Diary!!! Take care!!!