Mia was sitting in her high chair, waiting for her next spoonful of lovely baby food, when I took this photo. Doesn’t this picture make you want to pinch her chubby cheeks?

This photo was taken on March 24, 2011, using a Canon 7D and the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8.

We are trying to encourage Mia to crawl. Part of how we’re doing this is by placing the desired item just outside her reach. In this case, we’re using my iPhone to play Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning.” Over and over again, Mia kept trying to push herself off the far wall, inching oh-so-close to the iPhone. Unfortunately, she grew tired and didn’t reach her goal. She’ll continue to try until she reaches it. And then we’ll be in serious trouble.

Mia and Her TiVo Remote

Mia discovered our DIRECTV remote while sitting on our bed. She would stare at the remote, running her fingers through the numbers and other buttons, but not press any of them. Then, of course, she would try to stick the remote in her mouth, because that’s what babies do. It’s always difficult to pry the remote from her hands once she has a hold of it,

While doing some cleaning around the house, Farrah found a remote I bought for our TiVo unit - a unit we no longer use. Wow, this would be perfect for Mia! This could be her remote, and we can have our remote back. If she has the TiVo remote by itself, she’ll play with it without end. But if you put both remotes in front of her, she’ll opt for the working DIRECTV remote. My guess is she knows that one works, it does things, whereas the TiVo remote is only there to distract her. Smart girl.

This photo was taken on the morning of March 16, 2011.

It’s amazing how babies can be occupied by their own reflections. Farrah placed Mia in front of the hallway mirror. Mia was able to occupy herself for a good ten minutes. She laughed, clapped her hands, and leaned forward to touch her reflection. his photo was taken on March 5, 2011, using the Canon S95.

Mia and Kaleb

I have a ton of photos that want to get out of Aperture and published on the site. Unfortunately, my time is not cooperating. I posted a few photos from “An Afternoon with Family”. Hopefully, this will start a flood of new photos posted to the site. I’m optimistic that it will.

Two videos of the kids playing together, and later hugging. Awwww!

and

These videos were taken on February 19, 2011.

Yesterday, Mia turned eight months old! Wow, it’s amazing how time moves so quickly. She’s not crawling yet, but she successfully flopped onto her belly from this sitting position.

We think she’s starting to teethe. There appears to be a little something in her front lower jaw. She seems OK with what is going on, only becoming fussy every once in a while. Also, she’s been amazing in sleeping through the night. This makes mommy and daddy very happy in the morning.

Happy eight months Mia!

This photo was taken on the morning of March 2, 2011.

Lately, Mia has been able to sleep through the night. Unfortunately, she had a rough night sleeping last night. She woke up crying around 1:40am. This alone wouldn’t be so bad. But then she woke up crying twice more, once at 2:40-ish and then at 4:20-ish.

Each time she wakes up you go through the checklist: Is she hungry? Does her diaper need changing? Is she cold? None of these seemed to be the case last night. I think it came down to her not wanting to be alone, perhaps a night terror attack. Mia was only comforted by having her back and head rubbed while we stood next to her crib.

I’m sure she’ll have a few rough nights in the future. I imagine a time when she’s older when she finds the dark corner in her room scary, or an unfamiliar noise outside will startle her awake. She’ll scream or cry, come running into our room and ask if she can sleep in our bed. We’ll say OK, but only for a little while. She’ll fall asleep in between Farrah and I. We’ll pick up her little self and place her back into her own bed. We’ll rub her back and her head, making sure she’s comfortably asleep.

I know there will be a time when she will no longer come running to our room. But I can imagine a time when she still will, and I smile. I smile because she’s our little girl who’s coming to mommy and daddy for reassurance that everything is OK. And it is OK, even in the middle of the night.

I smile because she’s our little girl.

Wow, Mia has already caught The Batman bug. Fighting crime at such a young age. For now, she’ll do as daddy does and be part of The Batman Family. I see her more in the role of The Huntress - Batman’s daughter in older comic books - rather than Batgirl. But she always has a choice. I have a feeling when she grows up she’ll be more of a Wonder Woman fan, like her cousin Kayla was when she was growing up. Did you hear they’re bringing back Wonder Woman to television? If that turns out to be a hit, I can see Mia in front of the TV watching the show.

This photo of Mia and mommy is from a previous set of pictures. Unfortunately, we’ve been under the weather, off-and-on the last couple of weeks. Taking any good pictures has been difficult. Hopefully, we’ll have some opportunity this week to take some newer photos.

This photo was originally taken on January 23, 2011.

Mia is still learning to crawl. She’s comfortable being on her belly on the floor. She can pivot left or right and can move ever so slowly backward. But she hasn’t grasped the skill of forward movement yet.  When that time comes, I’m sure she’ll be taking off, crawling to every conceivable corner of the house.

We have wanted to take Mia to the Monterey Bay Aquarium but hadn’t found a good weekend to do it. Fortunately, we had the last weekend of January free of any commitments. We were also very fortunate to obtain two guest passes from my sister’s co-worker who has an aquarium membership.

Asking for directions.

Since it was Mia’s first time there we tried to visit all the exhibits that she might find of interest. The first exhibit we saw was the seahorses. I’m not sure if Mia could actually make out the seahorses with her own eyes, but there were large monitors that gave a close-up view of how they looked. I’m sure she could make them out from those images.

Looking glass.

We later went into the interactive area. Farrah placed Mia on what seemed like a water bed-type pad. She really enjoys it swaying back and forth.

Bounce house like.

After our trip, we headed north to Santa Cruz to have dinner with the Trabers. Luckily, the weather on the way up to Monterey was cooperative. The drive to Santa Cruz was met with light drizzle. Luckily, there were no incidents to speak of. We spent an hour or so at the house, then headed to Riva’s for a nice seafood dinner.

All in all a good day.

Mia and the Jellyfish.

These photos were taken on January 29, 2011.