The Greer Chronicles: Scene II: Milestones & Zoobies

Alright Sophie is officially growing. Oh, right she’s been doing that all along! Anyway . . . it’s funny how suddenly you look at your baby and think–oh man, she’s really gonna grow up, it’s gonna happen!

My sweet little one is 8 months old now and she’s crawling everywhere, very quickly I might add. She’s also cutting her two bottom teeth and you can see them slightly poking through. They aren’t fully erupted but they are getting there! It’s really cute to see her smile and see those tiny little white tips poking out of that bottom gum. We’ve also got lots of smiles. She smiles all the time and it’s just so darn cute!

She can sit up in a highchair really well but not on her own. She sits for a bit if you prop her up yourself but if she wants to move she’ll flop over to the side, catch herself and then just go into a crawl.

Just yesterday she discovered how to pull up on the bed rails and put her cute little hands on the edge of the bed. She’s not standing but rather on her knees with her hands gripping the top of the bed rail for dear life. She did this when we had put her down for a nap and she didn’t agree that it was nap time. David just peeked the door open and says, “Stacy! Hurry, come here!” I said, “Do I need a camera?!” And so I snapped a pic of her. Now she looks like she is crying but she’s actually doing her huge grin that she does once she’s been crying and then discovers that you are there to save her. It’s real cute.

She also has this cute little “wind-down” thing she does in the car before she’s about to pass out. She’s incredibly loud but we always laugh a lot while she’s doing it. Then suddenly she’s quiet. Here is a snippet of her wind-down. In this video we are on our way to the airport so I’m in the back seat with her. You can see at the end her start to zone out.

Now here she is about 45 seconds after she started the wind-down.

I’ve also got to say that (I posted a link to this on my facebook page for anyone who follows that) I found this incredibly innovative and darling invention for babies and kids. I was searching for something before we left town and somehow came across this website that had these parents giving these things high ratings. I took a look and fell in love just looking at them. They are called Zoobies. They are a toy, a pillow and a blanket all in one! I ordered one for Sophie for the plane ride and she absolutely loves it. I got her the pink hippo and the baby version. The kids versions have blankets that are actually quite large and I wished I had gotten a larger one for when she’s toddling and older. She’ll play with “Hada” (that’s her name, all of Sophie’s toys have names!) and she likes to suck on her tags and her feet. She’s super soft and the blanket is a fleece blanket that is incredibly soft too. I turned her into a blanket on the airplane and Sophie was holding onto Hada and had one corner of the blanket in the other hand while she slept. Now that we’re home I put her in the crib and she literally hugs on her like Linus with his blanket. She plays with Hada when she wakes up too. So I highly recommend a Zoobie for a gift idea for any baby and/or kid!!

The Greer Chronicles: Scene I: Michigan

Well I need to break this up into a few posts because I have a ton of stuff to throw at ‘cha! Let’s see . . . where to begin . . .

Last Friday David, Sophie and I left for a family trip to Michigan. Sophie’s first plane ride. I had been reading and researching and all kinds of stuff in hopes that we would have a smooth ride and she would be comfy and happy. I packed just about everything I could think of and of course things she didn’t necessarily need but we were prepared to say the least! We had perfect timing for leaving and coming home. Sophie was due for a bottle and a nap both ways the second we began backing out of the terminal. It was just perfect. We also opted to get her a seat for her car seat instead of just holding her. Which was the best move we made. She would not sleep if we held her and she was oh so comfy in her car seat. We fed her in the seat, she was cranky for a minute or two then as soon as those engines revved up she passed out. She slept at least half way thru both flights and then woke up happy and we just took her out of her seat and played with her. She was fine and talked and chewed on the Sky Mall magazine. Here we are on the trip up there.

The weekend was great. We went to Clarkston, Michigan to have a family weekend as a memorial for his late Grandfather (who passed away in May). We went to visit David’s Aunt, Uncle, cousins and all of their babies. His cousin, Angela, lives in Tennessee now so they came from Tennessee for the trip. My brother and sister-in-law live in Chicago so they came from the windy city.

They set up for a photographer to do family pictures where we all had to wear the same shirts and pants. The babies all wore the same too. We took most of the pictures in the photographer’s backyard that was an amazing sight to see! You can’t describe it, you just have to see it. Anyway, here is a slide show of the family pictures. Some are from the photographer and some are pics I took with my own camera.

The trip was short but great. We ate a lot of yummy food and just sat in the nice 75 degree weather. It was just gorgeous up there! . . . . Margret and Dave have an awesome backyard designed with kids in mind! The grass is soft and plush, there is a sand box, pea gravel under the tree and loads of space. We all had a great time. Stay tuned for Scene II of The Greer Chronicles . . . . Here is a little snippet of Sophie in the swing.

Moving right along . . .

Well it’s here. The crawl. She’s an official crawler. Boo hoo my days of a bit of freedom are over. It only grows from here. But she’s absolutely the cutest thing on the planet. Do all mothers think that? I mean I really do think she’s just the cutest thing ever. I could just squeeze her all day!

Today I went in after she had a nap mid-day and she was awake and talking to herself. She hears me when I come in and I always see that just adorable face peering over the top of her crib bumper since she’s always on her tummy in there. She’s got a grin from ear to ear. I could smell that she had a poopy diaper from the second I walked in. I walked over to the crib and peered over and said, “Do you have a poopy diaper even with that smile?” And I sort of laughed. She started to laugh at me and then I laughed harder and so did she and we sat there laughing literally at each other for about 1 full minute. It was so cute. Then I grabbed her up to smooch all over her.

We are packing for Sophie’s first [air] plane ride. We are going to Michigan to see David’s family (Aunt, Uncle and cousins, etc.) for the weekend and we are all flying. I’m excited and nervous as I sure hope she’s a little darling on the plane. I’ve been reading a blog I found that a flight attendant wrote just for people who fly with kids. What a wealth of great info that has been! So, I think we’ll be all set.

I had to get her a few new outfits that are long-sleeved, namely PJs, since she’s too big for all the ones she has. She wears a 12-18 month now in just about everything. She’s so long! I’m guessing she’s very close to 20-lbs because she is almost in a size 4 diaper too and that is for 22-37 lbs. Big girl!

Ok. Here is a video of her crawling. Don’t you just want to grab her up and eat her? She’s just delicious.

Knee Pads.

First off Sophie’s still and Grandma and Grandpa Greers as I type this. She spent the night last night and so David and I went on a date. We went to dinner and to see Harry Potter. It was nice but Sophie hasn’t been away from us in a few months now and I discovered that I really missed her all night. David woke up this morning and was happy to sleep in. I can’t sleep in. Too much to do and I’m used to getting up with the cutie pie anyway. So I’ll try to get some things done before we meet to go get her.

Onto some Litta News (Litta is Sophie, BTW) . . . Sophie’s on the move big time and she mixes in actual baby crawling with the army crawl. She still feels more comfortable army crawling and can do it pretty quickly but she’ll stop, put that hiney in the air, lift her legs and then move some more. It’s funny. You can see the gears moving in her little head trying to figure it all out.

She also likes to crawl over to my bunny slippers, which I wear all the time, and grab at them. Pretty cute. I took this cute shot of her. I said, “Whatcha got there?” and she looked right up at the camera so here it is.

Due to all her new found adventures she’s got some pretty red knees. David took some old socks of hers and cut them to make some knee pads.

Boing. Boing. Boing.

This has been a much better week for me in many ways than last week–whew! First of all what is up with all this heat? My grass is angry at the sun. It’s all shriveling and wilty. I feel sorry for it. I actually give it pep talks in the mornings–come on, hang in there, you can do it! Anyway, I never did plant any flowers or anything in the beds and I suppose that’s a good thing because they may not have survived.

I am having loads of fun riding my bike every Tuesday and Thursday with this dog that I am supposed to walk. I started walking him (yes like a dog walker, even though this isn’t really what I do I am doing this for the money) back in April when it wasn’t so bad. Once this heat hit I was re-thinking the whole job. It is just too hot to walk long enough to really get the dog exercised. So I had a light bulb go off and I thought–what if I had a bike and I rode a bike and held his leash? He could run and we could go for shorter distances and for shorter time spans. So my good friend Michelle had a bike she never uses and she let me borrow it. So I load it in my car each week and I’ve been biking with him for about a week and a half now. Funny thing is he’s worn out after 8 minutes. Seriously, it’s the shortest trip ever. He’s so tired that he’s lagging behind the bike and I have to spout out words of encouragement to keep him trucking along. He’s insanely cute. A huge white Golden Retriever named Riley. Big guy, known as the “English Golden” so they are bigger and blockier. He’s about 90-lbs. He’s the sweetest thing in the world.

I also have taken Noah a few times myself in our neighborhood because he can keep up better than anyone else. We have gone after dusk when the pavement isn’t so hot and he’s always excited about it. I’m going to try to get David to get some of it on video. It’s really cute with my big booty on this small little cruiser bike and a dog running next to me.

Onto the little one. She’s still only army crawling but she’s attempting the full crawl for a couple of seconds at a time. She’s just about there. And she’s quite speedy. I am vacuuming even more than usual (yeah who’d have thought that was possible) to keep the hair and debris off the floor. I still pick her up and I have to use the sticky roller to get the hair off of her! Poor little girl. She doesn’t meet health code standards.

The other morning I went to let one of the dogs outside and I put her bottle on her highchair tray. I came back and she was feeding herself. She’s never done that so I got a picture. Cutie. She’s able to do some problem solving. David gave her some magnets and she studied them for quite a while.

However the good news is that the jumperoo is still a saving grace. She loves to bounce in that thing still . . . for now. Here she is going to town!

Walmart Tire & Lube.

Well I said I’d be back for the Sunday Edition and you all will be glad that I separated it from the week’s end review. This was one of the craziest Sundays ever. Remember how I mentioned that I must be Job and God was testing me? Well I don’t think he wanted to end the test on Saturday.

David and I got up and I knew that I needed to get an oil change. My car is overdue and I can’t afford to let it get too bad and then hurt my car. We also were going to take a look at some things at Sam’s. Walmart is next door. I said, “Hey isn’t Walmart’s car place open on Sundays?” And of course it is so we took it there to get the oil change. Simple enough. They told us it would be 15-20 minutes.

[11:00am] I (thank the Lord!) brought Sophie’s stroller in and had her in it. We browsed around and went up and down the aisles. After about 15 minutes we went back to check on my car. David went to ask at the desk. “Well Mr. Greer there’s been a situation.” A fat guy standing there looked at me and said, “Oh that’s never good.” And so the fat guy was right. . . . “When he went to get the oil cap off he twisted it too hard and it broke. We have to go to O’Reilly Auto and get you a new one.” Annoying enough. I was getting frustrated but we waited for a bit. About 20 minutes later David asked again. “Sir he had to go get cash and he’s on his way to get the cap.”

[12:15pm] I was getting ansy because I had a client that I could, under no circumstances, reschedule (that’s a long story). I had to be at this client’s in Highland Park (Dallas) by 2:45pm. I had not showered yet, no make up on, no lunch. At this point Sophie had fallen asleep. I strolled her up and down the aisles so that she would stay asleep.

[12:45pm] I go to the counter myself after saying to David–oh honey don’t worry we aren’t paying for this oil change! (They had told him they would give him half off.) I asked the girl at the desk again what the status was. “M’am he’s just left to go get your oil cap.” I said, “You told me that 20 mintues ago. Are you kidding me? I’ve got a baby and I’ve got to get to work you need to step on it. And by the way, I’m not paying for this!” “M’am I understand I need to call a manager to see if we can give this to you for free.”

Meanwhile David got on his cell and called the main store number and asked to talk to a manager. He told him we were in the Tire and Lube and having a horrible experience and they were wasting our day. He said, “I’ll be right there.” (He was somewhere in the store.) 20 minutes later he shows up, after an employee called and had him paged to the Tire center. (There was another older man next to us who was now also angry as his oil change was taking over an hour.)

[1:15pm] David said the manager he talked to was Greg. So was the manager that the girl paged. Coincidence? Doubt it. So when Greg pranced up I said, “We talked to you on the phone 30 minutes ago, where have you been?” He looked at me like I was nuts. He also looked like he just got out of high school. He didn’t apologize or offer us anything. He went behind the counter. By this time Marvin (we got to know our Walmart moron) had come back with the oil cap. Whew. Finally. He walks up to the girl as I’m standing there. “This oil cap doesn’t fit. Not even close.”

[1:30pm] Karen Campbell lives pretty close to us and she was ever so gracious to come get us. We got home by 1:45. We left the car there. I made it to my clients on time. I called David on my way home around 6pm (my client was a 3-hour lesson) and he told me that around 4:30pm David called and they said to him, “Oh yeah we never did do the oil change we couldn’t get some cap off without possibly breaking it. You’ll need to take it where you got it changed before . . .”

So my car is still at Walmart because they close at 6pm. And it’s still not had an oil change. I’m really a happy camper about it all. I get to pull David out of work so he can take me to get my car tomorrow all for nothing. I actually said to the manager, “You need to hire someone besides Dumb and Dumber over there . . . ” as I walked out the door.

Fun Times.

Well my week was a rough one. Just one of those weeks, struggling with everyone else in this economy and doing what we can to get by. Work is very slow for both David and I and I kind of “unraveled”, if you will, at week’s end and was hoping a fairy would sweep me up and take me to a far away place . . . . to top the wonderful week off my car window on my passenger’s side was broken when David was doing the yard. We just found the window shattered all over the street and just 5 minutes before it hadn’t been that way as I had just gotten home. David thinks a rock hit it while he was edging, which sounds like the most likely thing. Anyway, I know God tests us and I think that I was Job last week. I know others are far worse off than us and so I can actually thank the good Lord for the wonderful people in my life and what I do have–a great husband, wonderful family, a beautiful daughter, four fuzzy dogs and my coffee maker.

My in-laws went to St. John last week for a whole week. David and I could have gone but I couldn’t bring myself to 1) leave my sweet Sophie for that long and 2) put my blubbery butt into a swim suit. So we opted out. (We went to St. John last January with the whole family, so I know how marvelous it is!) However they brought us some fun gifts back. T-shirts (my favorite!) and a cute little onsie for Sophie. Then, Sophie’s favorite, a little Caribbean doll we named “Aunt Vie” See Aunt Vie has this little shack, literally, on the far side of the island and she makes the best food you could ever want. Seriously, if you go to St. John find Aunt Vie’s Shack! Anyway, so when we give Sophie the doll and she smiles really big and then she likes to hold onto her and chew on her dress.

Yesterday was a big day for everyone. Tracy had her big Mary Kay debut party and Andy had to work so she had no one to help her set up or get ready . . . and she has a 15-month old. So around 9:45am Tracy comes walking in our door and has Kelton in tow. David ever so graciously babysat both Kelton and Sophie while Tracy and I ran errands and then had her party. David watched them until around 4pm. Kelton put Sophie’s jelly sandals on and had fun with those.

However, to top off the busy day David and I had a BBQ planned to be held at our house at 6pm. David’s parents and Aunt (Margret came down for her 2-week summer visit from Michigan), Tracy, Andy, Kelton and then the Greer’s long-time friends Karen and Richard Campbell were all on the guest list. So while at Tracy’s party I get a text message that says: When are you coming home we have a messy house? Little Kelton is a busy little bee and I walked in around 4pm and each toy that Sophie owns plus all of our alphabet refrigerator magnets covered our entire living room. It was funny and I’m thinking: Oh my time is coming!

We tidied up the house while David still watched the kiddos. David was really cut out for kids. It’s rather cute and handy for me every day around 5:30pm! Kudos to my hubby and his Daddy of the Year Badge! The guests all came and David fired up our grill and cooked hamburgers and hotdogs. Margret cooked her yummy cheesy potatoes, Susan made yummy watermelon and cantelope salad as well as pasta salad and Karen and Richard brought ice cream and toppings! I had me some Reisling, a bottle we had since our wedding! Andy brought David some Dos Exis and we all had a nice little get together!

Today has just begun so I’m sure a story will come of that . . . so stay tuned for my Sunday Edition!

Why don’t friends with kids have time?

Someone posted this on facebook and I had to share it because it’s so great. Click the image to enlarge and read.

Army Crawl.

Sophie’s almost there and my freedom is just about to be snatched away! I got a few cute little videos of her crawling over, or rather army-crawling, to the other side of the room and then to Amos.

I’m really happy that Amos is ok with her. Back a few years ago Amos was severely afraid of toddlers and kids. They seem to terrorize him because he’s so big and he’s such a wimp. He’d run for shelter with his tail tucked. He just lies there now. I was afraid he’d hate Sophie but he was so calm and cool with her grabbing his big ole paw today.

Here are two different videos . . .

Happy Birthday, America!

Well we went to Austin for the July 4th weekend to stay at my mom’s. It was David, me, Sophie, Tracy, Andy and Kelton. It was a busy weekend but it sure was fun. Sophie did her first night of sleeping all way through without a dream-feed and she slept from 6:45pm-8:30am the next morning! It was so nice!

We BBQed out on Saturday evening in Mom’s nice, newly-landscaped backyard! She’s got a heck of a set-up and it’s perfect for these little get-togethers! She’s got a hammock too and I swung back and forth in it with the kiddos for a bit. They both giggled and giggled.

Our trip to and from Austin was pretty easy, as far as Sophie goes. The traffic was terrible! We stopped a few times on the way home but overall Sophie did great, sleeping much of the time or talking to us.

It was a nice weekend for some relaxation! God Bless America!