look what we found

On the way to work, Scott found a puppy in the middle of the street. No tags, no missing puppy signs up in the neighborhood. She's rail thin and frightened but she likes being pet. Freckles and Indiana were fairly friendly to her (meaning that they smelled her but didn't growl) so she can be our foster dog assuming that the vet gives her a clean bill of health. Meanwhile I think I've washed my hands fifty times in the last two hours so that I don't transfer whatever illnesses she might have to the dogs or the baby. We'll try to find her a home so we don't cross the line that separates families with two dogs from families with three dogs (I'm assuming that there is such a line--I don't know anybody with three dogs). If we can't find her a permanent home, she stays with us.

The thing I hate the most about Phoenix (more than hostile drivers or the risk of melanoma) is the stray dog situation--people just do not mind their dogs here.

When we tried to feed her dog food she didn't know what to do with it. I don't think she had ever seen kibble before. But she ate some salami out of my hand (I realize that salami isn't the best option for a starving dog, but that's the only meat we had) so at least she has an appetite.

We're calling her Pepper.

it's official

We're officially crawling here. He worked out the kinks last Wednesday and now he's alarmingly fast. Crawling is clearly an opportunity for babies to flirt with death. They must get some kind of adrenaline rush from narrow escapes with death. All Joseph seems to be interested in is electrical outlets, wires, the dog bowl, table lamps with dangly cords, slobbery dog toys, shoes, and the cabinet where we keep (make that kept) the food processor. I don't know if dangerous/gross things are inherently tantalizing or what. So we had a weekend of fast babyproofing.

The picture at the top of the post is from last week, just before he managed to crawl forwards. I was on the floor sorting through my fabric to find god knows what, when he helped himself to a piece, and then dragged it as well as Freckles' precious lion toy into the corner. He was very satisfied with himself until he realized he was stuck. The major difference between crawling backwards and crawling frontwards is that now he can go wherever he wants (toward Indiana's gross orange bone, at the moment).

Should I be worried that he plays with the dogs' nasty toys? Because I'm not (I'm too busy trying to keep him from sucking on electric outlets, etc.). I don't think they'll make him sick, and dog toys aren't really dirtier than the floor, which is where he spends all his time anyway. And the dogs don't seem to mind. Freckles brings Joseph toys, and Indiana has suddenly decided that the baby is not a problem but an opportunity--he'll put up with the tail-grabbing and toy-stealing in exchange for the food-dropping. Indiana is a wise man.

pig noises and other happy sounds

Joseph's new favorite game is being tossed or swung in the air. He squeals and giggles. Also, he's started to do this thing where he is too excited to laugh, so he snorts and breathes quickly through is nose. It's hysterical. Scott and I can't get enough of it.

almost crawling, actually sleeping

Joseph has been working very hard on crawling. Over the past week he has slithered, crawled backwards, and scooched, but he cannot seal the deal on crawling. So sad.

Last week he figured out how to go from his belly to sitting up. Now that he has mastered this move it needs to be executed at all available opportunities. Especially mid-diaper change: he rolls from his back to his belly and then quickly sits up, clearly satisfied with himself. Quite a mess.

Also, weird and wonderful things have been happening in Joseph's crib. Like sleep. You just plop him down in there when he's tired and he goes to sleep. Sometimes he cries a bit, but mainly he makes tiny animal noises and passes out. This is after six and a half months of rocking, nursing, and bouncing him to sleep. Now all of a sudden he's way beyond all that baby stuff.

These two pictures were taken six minutes apart. He was yawning so I put him in the crib. Apparently he was not quite ready to sleep, so he sat up (ta da!) and played...

and a scant six minutes later...

he's unconscious. Without screaming. Nice.

I am going to eat this baby

Seriously. Can you blame me?





Those two pictures are in his little cradle/cosleeper thing, which is getting put away permanently this weekend because 1) he is working on pulling himself up and throwing himself out of it and 2) he's sleeping in his crib now. Of course, almost none of this crib sleeping occurs at night, but we'll settle for what we can get.



I really like how he puts his feet up in his stroller. He's like, "Check it out. I just sit here in the sun and they wheel me around. Crawling is for losers." Still, he has figured out how to commando crawl backwards but this just makes him mad, so we won't dwell on that.

good bye house

Tomorrow we move.



You've been good to us, house.

the wearing of the green

Today I had a helper while I was trying to baste the quilt. He helped by trying to grab the trees and flowers off the fabric. You can see that he's figured out how to get his knees up under himself, so I suppose crawling is on the way. Horrifying. Last week he discovered that he can push himself around on the floors: he lies on his belly and then pushes himself up and smacks the floor until he moves. Sadly for him, he can only go backwards this way, so he can never reach what he's trying to. But he can maneuver clear across the room, which must be pretty thrilling for a baby who just a few weeks ago couldn't even roll over.

In the last week or so he has also started to babble--he's making noises that sound like speech, albeit in some very foreign language. So now he has a whole repertoire of sounds: babbling, squealing, happy shrieking, raspberries, and the usual variety of cries. He makes quacking noises when he's trying to fall asleep. He starts with loud, confrontational-sounding quacks (like one duck if challenging another to a fight, I suppose) and ends with quiet moany quacks just before he falls asleep. Last night he didn't want to fall asleep so he happily quacked, blew raspberries, and bicycled his feet until he passed out. It was pretty much the sweetest thing I ever saw.