8 months!

Well, I officially stink at keeping up with a blog...oh well! I shouldn't be surprised with my ludite-self!

So, I'm entering Liana in a contest for a cute baby - the photo to be on the cover of a new Dr. Sears book. Well, if Liana isn't just the cutest baby out there (no bias from her mommy!)...


This is the photo I'm thinking of submitting...
That's her tray of toys. That photo was taken October 8th, 2008. She's 7 months old in the pic. She doesn't yet care for solid foods. I've tried all sorts of things and nothing suits her fancy - just mommy's milk. That's good - it's great for her! I wish we had an equivalent for adults - something that was so nutritious and provided immunity to so many sicknesses! If only all mommy's knew to breastfeed. It's a shame that formula companies have so much money.

She's also trying to move - crawl and walk. It seems she'd rather walk, but at the very least move on her own. She scoots quite well and is making progress with rocking. Several folks have said how important it is that she crawl at some point...when she's 9 months or 9 years...she just needs to crawl! I hope for 9 months ;)

Well, our precious little gift is 8 months old and growing fast. I just can't believe how much time has flown by and how big she is. She truly is a joy.

New milestones & tid bits

Well, Liana Joy is 17 weeks old! I almost can't believe it. She's getting huge right before our eyes.

This photo was taken on July 4th. She was 13 weeks old. She's dressed up in her patriotic outfit & her smile is characteristic of her. My friend Cathy commmented today that her smile is full of joy. It really is. We prayed that she would be full of deep belly laughter and joy...that's why she's Liana JOY. I thank God for her. She is amazing and is an incredible gift.



Here are some new milestones and tidbits in no particular order:


Over the past few weeks, she's started to enjoy playing on her back with little toys dangling above her. She also rolled over for the first time on Saturday. She almost did it again today. She almost gets over, but her little arm gets stuck underneath her. I've seen this with other babies, so this must be a common little roadbump. The way she's started scooting, she'll be crawling in no time - ahhh!!! She still loves to stand up. That's been a new thing as of the past few weeks or month. This past week we noticed that she isn't cooing as much as she was a week or two ago. I'm guessing that she's moving on to a new developmental task - involving motor skills. She still giggles quite a bit and smiles so beautifully when she sees a face that she likes. I love watching her face light up when she looks at me or her daddy. It's priceless. She has found her voice! She started with high pitched squeals that I imitated and she repeated back to me - all of which she was quite proud of. I think she surprised herself at first with the loud noise! Well, this past week she has begun to express her anger. She has an angry cry/scream/shout that is easily identifiable as angry/frustrated. I only wish that I knew what she needed all the time so she didn't get frustrated, but I don't, and I suppose it's all part of the process. It seems that she's in an "in between" stage - there are things she wants to do, but can't do them on her own. She likes to be up and moving, but she can't move on her own. She wants to look at things, but she can't hold them by herself. So, she ends up frustrated. I would be frustrated too if I were in her place.




Liana Joy also loves to listen to people sing. She seems to be mesmerized by singing and music - not so much cds or the radio, but the real thing. So, it's really fun to watch her when I'm singing, or when Stephan's playing or singing and she gets to take it all in.





She also started going to bed a bit earlier this past week. She fell asleep tonight at 9 pm! That means I need to get in bed earlier because she's not sleeping until 9: 30 or 10 anymore.





Tonight at dinner we sat her in a little bumbo-type seat that Cathy lent us. She looks adorable sitting up on her own. As she was sitting there she did a triple sneeze and then gave this huge grin at her daddy. It was hilarious - she seemed proud of her "geshnoozen" as Stephan calls them.





Currently her favorite toy is "Mr. Bee" - a little, plush rattle with bright colors, a checkered belly, and crinkly wings. She is also taken by a black and white drawing of a butterfly. It has a lot of pattern to the drawing, so I think she enjoys the different splotches of black and white. She doesn't hold onto toys or books yet for more than a minute or so, however, hair or fingers she will latch onto quite firmly for a good amount of time.





I'm trying to give her a pacifier to give her something to satisfy her sucking needs, but she still doesn't want it. She'll suck on a finger, an arm, a baby carrot (new trick a friend told me about), her fist, but not a paci.




Liana Joy...what a fun little girl. I look forward to seeing who she becomes as the months go on.

Liana Joy is soooo stinkin' cute. She is making more and more noises. She's discovering that she can add significant volume to her oohs and eehs. She likes to practice them while sitting on the potty. At 14 weeks, we've had quite a bit of success with going on the potty - yeah!



We took her to the Oma & Opa's pool on Sunday afternoon where we swam for a little while. Stephan swirled her around in the water and she just smiled so big. Yesterday while we were at the store, I had her standing on a counter and we were dancing. Well, I was dancing and she was being jiggled a little bit ;) Nevertheless, she thought it was quite funny and gave a great giggle. Oh, it captured my heart and I kept wanting to hear more. I can't wait for her to giggle again.



She also had her first official Bible study last week. Rachel, Marcia and I are starting Believing God by Beth Moore. Previously I have not been a fan of hers, but I think that was due to my own arrogance after coming out of the counseling program/seminary. I am excited to see what God will do over the next 10 weeks. I am hopeful that He will do some miracles in my life...I need them. Perhaps the biggest is in healing my soul - that in the depths of me I could trust Him because I know that I am loved and He is good. The Shack talks about how trust can only come in a relationship of love. If you don't truly know that you're loved, there can be no real trust.

I read this quote recently in The Sacred Romance and it captures things well to me:

"Being in partnership with God, though, often feels much more like being Mel Gibson’s sidekick in the movie Lethal Weapon. In his determination to deal with the bad guy, he leaps from seventh-story balconies into swimming pools, surprised that we would have any hesitation in following after him. Like Indiana Jones’s love interests in the movies, we find ourselves caught up in an adventure of heroic proportions with a God who both seduces us with his boldness and energy and repels us with his willingness to place us in mortal danger, suspended over pits of snakes."

So, if I don't know that I know that I know that I am deeply loved, I am left to make conclusions about God that aren't true although my experience screams that they must be. Afterall, what good, loving parent would send their beloved child into known danger or into a painful situation of any kind? Well, God does & did - He sent His beloved to the cross. So, I must conclude that either I don't really know what GOOD & LOVING are, or God is cruel. Perhaps there are some other possible conclusions, but these are the two that I wrestle with. My continual prayer is that He would show me how deeply He loves me and that He would make my view of Him one that reflects who He truly is. And we pray for our daughter that she would always know the goodness of God and His deep, abiding love for her. Amen!

Conversations with a 3 month old

We had dinner with some of Stephan's old friends (and my new friends) on Saturday night. They gave us the best parenting advice: make a collection of quotes/memorable moments of your kids so you can go back and look at it and tell the stories of when so and so said such and such. Well, that's what this is for me. A place to memoralize all of the wonders of childhood and parenthood.



Over the past few days Stephan and I have been having magical conversations with Liana Joy. She'll coo and ooo, and we'll make the sounds back to her. She tries again to make the same noises. She tries to stick out her tongue when we do. When we make eye contact it brings a huge smile to my face. There's a sweet person behind those eyes, a soul that God created. I'm so excited to know her more and more. There's a conversation that's happening. There aren't words as we use them, but amazingly, we don't need them to communicate. I don't know what happens in her mind - maybe it's good feelings, a deep sense of knowing that she's loved, delighted in, and not alone. I hope so. Perhaps it's not her mind that's communicating, but her soul, her spirit, Liana Joy. By the look on her face, I know she knows that she's loved. That's too wonderful for words! I look forward to continuing our conversations, how they will change and grow as each of us changes and grows. I am excited to know her talking voice, her singing voice. Now, I love hearing her little coos and ooos, and know they won't last for long. So, I offer my feeble words in an effort to hold them in my heart and mind forever.





In addition to cooing and ooing, lately she's also found her fist and fingers. Now she has the motor control to keep them in her mouth. Last month, she would get her hand to her mouth, almost by surprise, and then - poof! it was gone. Not anymore! That little fist is under her control and try as she may, she can't quite get the whole thing in her mouth. She'll have to settle for a few fingers ;)



I need to tell - perhaps to my daughter's chagrin - a couple of little stories. Liana Joy has been a sneezer since the first hour she was born - and a triple sneezer at that. She makes this sweet little chirpy noise and then sneezes - usually 3 times. Well, we discovered - after a messy floor - that sometimes when she sneezes she also toots and poops. It makes for an amusing diaper change in the middle of the night when she - being as cute and feminine as a 3 month old can be - gives a mighty sneeze that results in mustard yellow poo being sprayed on the floor 4 feet away. This also happened when we spent a weekend at the beach for Stephan's 40th birthday. I was changing her on the counter and "wepree ahchoo", she sneezed, and sprayed me and the bathroom floor. Auntie Rachel offered to help clean it up. After she started, I told her she could take Liana and I would clean up the poo. She gladly accepted the offer. :)



For the past month or so we've been taking her to sit on the potty right before we put a new diaper on her. I honestly think she likes it. She gets a big smile and 80% of the time does a pee pee on the potty. Sometimes we even catch her doing the 2 (that's April's way of saying pooping). It's very cute.



She's had several nicknames so far: Squeaker is one of Stephan's first nicknames for her. I wasn't sure about it at first, but it's grown on me. We call her squeaker because she makes little squeaky noises. She's starting to grow out of them and into other sounds. We call her pud - short for puddin'. She likes to stretch both of her arms up straight up over her head - that's her wonder woman pose, or perhaps she's signaling a touchdown! I like to call her by her full name - LianaJoy - it just rolls off my tongue nicely.



In the past couple of weeks she has started to look around a lot more. So, when she's eating she gets distracted by all that's going on. At home in the rocking chair, she eats, stops, checks out the ceiling fan, eats some more, checks to make sure the fan is still there, eats some more, checks again, and so it goes. Sometimes she catches my eyes in between her love affair with the fan and stops and smiles really big and beautiful.



So, that's all for today's post. I am going to try to figure out how to put a video of her on here. We'll see how that goes.



Next up will likely be some excerpts and thoughts on The Shack. I just finished it a few minutes ago and am letting it wash over me.

Liana Joy

Well, I decided to create a blog for a variety of reasons. I want a place to write down the things that Liana Joy (the newest and cutest member of our family) does. She's 7 hours old in the photo - that was her first ride in the bucket. Now she fills it up!! It might seem silly to some to keep track of all of the little things, but everyone keeps saying to cherish these moments because they pass all too quickly. And the first time she smiled at me (May 3, 2008) was awesome, certainly worth documenting. Since then, she smiles at me every morning when she wakes up. I say "Bon journo principesa" - she loves it and gives a smile that could light up the night sky. She coos and aaahhs now. I want to record them on video so I don't forget them. The tension of being a mom - savoring the moment and letting go almost at the same time. She's growing so quickly - I want her to, but I miss her being the tiny, little newborn that came out of my womb on March 31st. She's big now...almost 12 lbs. - that's twice her birth weight. And her body stretches out longer than my waist when I'm feeding her. But now she makes eye contact and looks at things and responds. It's beautiful!

I also decided to creat a blog because I like to write...get the mess out of my head. It's a way for me to share myself with the great world out there. Even if no one reads what I write, it's a form of therapy for me. Writing lets me say (at least to God) the things I think about that i don't have answers for or am just toying around with inside. I'm a verbal processor, so writing helps me make sense of life.

So, why the title "Barefoot and Bucket free"? Liana Joy always kicks her booties off...she's the fastest bootie remover this side of the Mississippi. And she doesn't care for the "baby bucket", aka car seat. She wants to be held...smart girl. And she wants to be barefoot, even if that means her feet are cold. Good thing we live in Florida.

There are thoughts I have about who are daughter might be based on these things - speculations. I want to share them. But right now her diapers are hanging on the line and a thunderstorm is on its way, so duty calls. Hee hee...duty...not doodie:) Yep, I'm a mom, who regularly changes doodie filled diapers and has doodie on her mind!