Celebrations

We've had a couple of family parties up here recently. The first one was a housewarming party for Mike and Jane.



Then last night Matt's parents had a party to celebrate Jamie getting back from Australia. We're so happy to have her back!


I was debating about having a party for my being finished with work for the summer, but I think we'll just head to the pool instead...

Baby Pat???

As Brooke hair has all but completely fallen out, my options for bows are limited these days. Do I stick a bow on to the remaining shock of hair that she has on top of her head and risk a few of those hairs falling out, or do I embrace the ambiguity that comes with a bald baby?


I don't think it's fair that girl babies be required to wear pink ALL the time or risk being mistaken for a boy. While I don't mind the color pink, I'd like her to have a little variety in her wardrobe. However, while I'd like to think that Brooke is feminine enough to look like a girl even in brown or blue, when I'm objective about it, it could really go either way, ala "Pat" from SNL. So, I've decided to not be offended when people call her "him" (like the lady at the airport last week when Brooke had a giant freaking flower on her shirt that happened to have a green stripe on it). But come on, when commenting on a baby, just leave the pronouns out, people!


(Case in point, Brooke and Matt inadvertently wore matching outfits the other day.)

The "Little" Things

I like to think that working in a preschool with children with special needs, I'm able to appreciate Brooke's health and typical development. But when my dad recently told me about this video, I realized how much I still take for granted. While I thank God every day for Brooke's health, I don't know that I fully appreciate the "little" things - which are actually big things - like her being able to see and hear us.


There's nothing quite like the response that you get from a baby who recognizes you. I felt this for the first time with my niece, Alexis, and it's multiplied by about a jillion with Brooke. It makes me not so exasperated that Brooke is at the stage when someone else is holding her and she cries when she hears my voice (because she wants to be with me, not because she's scared of me -haha). It also makes me SO thankful that we live in a time and a place where medical advances like cochlear implants are possible. I'll leave you with a shot of my adorable niece on the beach last week. I'll post about that great trip later.

Seven Months!

Brooke was seven months old yesterday. While thinking about it makes me emotional, I'm not really in the mood for a cheesy post, so I'll try to spare you and instead will give a quick update on our Little Lady.



I think it's safe to offically call her a sitter, but we still have to be strategic about letting her sit on the floor at our house as literally the only carpet in our house is on the landing of our staircase. She's also shown us that she's able to roll both ways, but doesn't really seem to be in any kind of hurry to get anywhere. She's much more content to study from afar the item that we've conveniently placed just out of reach.



She's still quite the cuddler and I think would be content to be in someone's arms ALL the time. And if that person was reading a book to her? Heaven!

Lately, Ozzie has been the most surefire way to get her to laugh (and he can't even say, "Peek-a-boo!"). She hasn't been too picky with the foods we've tried with her, although it broke my heart when she turned down avocado AGAIN (it probably didn't help that Matt was gagging as he fed it to her).



She continues to demonstrate an iron-will (compared to me, at least). We've conquered bottles. Naps have gotten better. Her current battle is to cry when I put her down to play by herself. With our combination of wills, I'll bet by her 10 month post she'll have broken me. :)

She's also very vocal and smiley with us, but seems to need to warm up around strangers. Sophie is still her favorite toy, but she's showing increased interest in more challenging toys like the ring stacker.

She continues to amaze us and we fall more and more in love with her everyday. Words really can't express the blessing that she is in our lives.


(If I had thought ahead more, I'd have cute pictures to go with some of these observations, but I haven't been the best at taking pictures these last couple of weeks. I'm actually never good at taking pictures - I should say that I haven't taken many pictures.)

We've got lots of excitement in the coming weeks. We're headed to Florida for the long weekend and when we get back, Aunt Jamie will be back!!! And I've only got a couple more days of work before I get to spend all my time with The Girl for the summer. I'm feeling some inspiring posts coming up, so get pumped!

*Quick shout out to Uncle Tim, whose birthday was last Sunday, and Uncle Mike, whose birthday is June 1. Your cards are in the mail. ;) *

New Directions

So, I stole the title of this post from William McKinley's glee club (if you're not watching it, you should be), but it's kind of fitting.

Brooke's at that fun age where she's doing all kinds of new things, like sitting in a "big girl" stroller...
She's also getting much better at sitting up on her own. Someday she's going to kill me for posting this picture, but it's the only one I got of her sitting up before our camera battery died. She and I had not just shared a bottle of wine - the sun was in her eyes and it caught her off guard when I called her name. There will be some better sitting up pictures of her in the future, but I decided we could both sacrifice for the sake of the blog.


I swear, she's even learning to pose for the camera. Before, she was oblivious to the camera...


...now, I pull out the camera, and it's ON. I wanted to get a candid pic of her and Matt relaxing the other night, but she was determined to ham it up.



But I got this next one when she wasn't looking. She's also decided to embrace the Gene Keady look. I know that all kids get bald spots, but this has to win some kind of award, right?


Matt's also decided to go with the Michael Bolton look, but that's another post for another day.

On second thought, someone remind me to delete this post before she can read or operate a computer.

Hopping on the Bandwagon

We're pretty big sports fans here in the Alley household. I think Matt would have a constant stream of ESPN in the background if he could, and I was raised in a pretty sports-minded family as well, so I understand and at times even enjoy his mania. There are some teams that I would say have us as pretty die hard fans. Matt's always loved the Bears. I developed a crush on a Kansas basketball player when I was in high school and the allegiance has stuck. Baseball's a little more interesting. I must admit that I've been converted to a White Sox fan, but we both consider the Cardinals our #2. This works out pretty well because we both hate the Cubs and will only have to root against one of the teams if Sox and Cards face each other in the World Series. It's not looking like we're going to have to worry about that this year.

This brings me to my next point. Since we've been together, hockey has not been a go-to sport for us. Sure, we've been to a Hawks game or a Blues game on occasion, but we didn't really pay a ton of attention to the NHL (Matt's going to argue with me on this, but until he takes some ownership of this blog, my opinion is the one that matters). However, now that the Blackhawks are in the playoffs, we (by "we", I mostly mean Matt) are all about it. Last Saturday, we had some people over to watch the game. Brooke had fun hanging out with Uncle Mike and Aunt Jane before the game started.


It turned out to be a brutal game that thankfully Brooke was asleep for, but they redeemed themselves Monday night. We'll see how tonight goes. I'm not ashamed to admit it, I'm a fair-weather fan who's hopping on the bandwagon. Go Hawks!


(There are some legitimate Hawks fans in Matt's family. Here's a picture of Brooke getting her first Hawks jersey for Christmas.)

Six Months

Brooke had her six month check-up last week. She weighed in at a whopping 15 lb, 5 oz (34%), was 25.5 in long (41%) and was bumped up to the 80th percentile in head circumference. Nice. Therapist mommy was a little worried about some of her gross motor milestones, but the doctor basically told me to chill out and let her develop the way she wants to develop (I should disclaim that we didn't see the very nice but somewhat awkward doctor that we saw last time). This doctor referred us to a pediatric opthamologist to look at her blocked tear duct. We've been told that they often resolve themselves, but Brooke's right eye can get awfully goopey, so it'll be nice to get a second opinion this Friday. Because my insurance plan, as it turns out, is pretty awful when you have an infant, we're going to the county health department later this month for her immunizations (saving us several hundred dollars).


I think it's safe to say that this has easily been the best six months of either of our lives. She's getting more and more fun everyday. It's exciting to see her personality take shape. At this point, she's generally easygoing, but when she wants something, she will not hesitate to make her wishes known. Even though her will is probably already stronger than mine, I like that about her. There are times that I wish I was more assertive and opinionated and not so worried about pleasing people. She loves to read books and watch Ozzie and really loves to eat big girl food. Our dinner times are pretty amusing these days as we're surrounded by begging from her and Ozzie. She's very aware of things going on around her and loves using her hands to play with things. She's still sticking everything in her mouth and is favoring her thumb more and more. She's "talking" up a storm and loves sticking out her tongue. We continue to take great delight in her and want to relish each stage of her development.


I've been a little neglectful in taking pictures lately, so I'll leave you with some pictures taken by Grammie from her time over there last week.

This is her checking email...

Eating...

Eating again...Catching up on the celebrity gossip. She gets that from her momma!