Learning to Crawl

These are all really cute photos of Daphne practicing her crawling.

Beer Baby

Mama drinks root beer, baby gets the bottle!

Pace Endorsement

She has started her product endorsement days a little early. Pace is good to chew on when you are teething (at least the bottle).

See, even babies know what the good salsa is.

Flaff Loves You

The baby and the dog are getting more and more interested in each other. Here is my photo proof. He is so good with her too, he lets her pat him and drool on him and pull his hair. They will be good friends in no time.

Just Another Photo

I always have reasons to take photos of Daphne. She is always doing something cute. However, I can't remember for the life of me why I took this photo of her. I like it though. I think she was waking up from a nap or something,

Note the pillow on her head!

Jail Baby

Daphne was hanging on to the edge of her crib the other day like she was in jail wanting to get out. Here is the naked jail baby. Too cute.

Sleeping While I Work

She makes her money by sleeping on my lap while I work.

I have evidence.

Milk Donation

I was asked by another mother to help out. She has a baby that she adopted, and she wants nothing more than to give it breastmilk. I decided to help out, because I could. I'm at a point in my life where I CAN do this, and I would want the same thing if I was in her position. I dropped off another bunch to her on Tuesday.

I've now donated 140 ounces!

Editing Photos

This is what she was doing while I was frantically editing photos today.

Helping with College

I was working on a college assignment today. She was on the floor, and I was sure she was asleep, but I found this instead.

Sleeping

I don't have any photos of her sleeping, so when I got up before her yesterday, I took this photo of her. I think it is darling.

She sleeps like an angel.

After Bath Time

We took a bath today and this her hanging with her dad while I got dressed. She got to hang out naked all wrapped up in a towel!

Just Super Cute

I like this photo.

Standing

She has started to stand on her own. Don't believe me. I have evidence.

Daphne and Mom

Jared took this lovely photo of the two of us. It's cute.

College in the Middle

And this is just a reminder that I've been doing college in the middle of all this.

This is what I wrote recently for my college class while holding a baby, talking on the phone and trying to catch up on my emails. I hope that it made some sense, but I hope more that I get full credit so that I can graduate soon.

By all admissions, ethics is not really a subject that we would call objective. It is subjective to everyone who studies it. Each person has his own sets of beliefs and experiences. People with the same or similar experiences have different beliefs. Take the Iraq war for example. There are definitely two sides to the story.

Though not all Muslims agree that this is true, there is such a thing as a jihad in the Islamic religion that purports that the unbelievers should be coverted or destroyed. It is believed that the most holy thing that can happen to one is to die while doing this.

It is totally unacceptable in our society to go around with a bomb strapped to oneself, but the media at least would have us believe that this is a common cultural occurrence over in Iraq.

This is an important topic for an ethics class because we are looking at so many different cultures and civilizations. The young child trained for the jihad is trained from the start of life that all non-Muslim people are bad. His enthusiasm for this idea becomes so great that he takes his life for it. His local ethics class would say that he is right. The local ethics teacher in our world would have all manner of problems with that. Ethics depends on the situation and the information in the situation. It’s the only subject that I know that changes with each person’s viewpoint and is still correct in its own way.

If the communication lines of the world were all bottled up and we didn’t have telephones or airplanes, ethical relativism would never be as important of a topic as it is now. As we go and dabble in the worlds of other cultures, we are forced to see what it is that they do differently. Many times, that different thing does not agree with what we do.

I’m not saying at all that I condone the things that other cultures do that agree with me. That just shows my local viewpoint of ethics. My viewpoint is that each person has a set of basic human rights that all people should respect. I also agree that there is a basic moral code that ALL people on Earth can agree with. However, to start, I have to be able to understand the cultures of the world around me before I can make a judgment as a student of ethics. And that’s why I study ethics in this class.

Hi Grandma

And just because I have no photos of this.

Grandma came to visit, and here it is--documented on film of course.

Another New Skill

This is Daphne when she revealed to me at her first park playdate that she can sit up unassisted now. Who would have guessed. She just decided to do it when I was sitting there chatting. And the best part is that I got it on camera!

Rubber Ducky, You're the One

You make bath time so much fun (and not too hot). This is the duck I got for her to measure the temperature of the bath water. She loves to kick him and splash on him during bath time.

I have to admit that this was a staged bath time, but it was fun to photograph her and her ducky.

Mom See Me Smile

I posted this photo because I couldn't resist.

Reading...Yep at 4 Months

We've been reading to her so that she gets the idea that there are things to learn and that the best way to learn those things is through figuring out what those things on that page says.

Here is her daddy working with her on my personal favorite, "Green Eggs and Ham."

Daphne Meets Nano--and Attends a Rodeo

There are very few people that Daphne had left to meet, and this one was an important one. Grandpa Bob came up for a nice visit over the 4th of July. Despite the extreme heat, we had a ton of fun.

On the 3rd, we went to the local museum for the Spruce Goose. That plane is massive, and I loved seeing it. Even if the man was crazy, it just shows what that amount of determination can do. The other planes are very cool too, and we spent a good deal of time walking around looking at all the cool things they have.

The afternoon of the 4th, we went to the Saint Paul Rodeo, and I can't say that I had done anything more fun in a long time. I realized how much I like the rodeo. We got to go out as a family, and despite the heat, it was amazing. Daphne loved the bull riding, and she sat intently through the saddle bronc stuff as well. She sure likes to observe the world around her, and this little miss caught on the rodeo really fast.

I was a little nervous that she wouldn't like it, but she sat there through the whole three hours watching and being generally happy even in the extreme heat.

Jared and I talked for days about how much fun we had at the rodeo. Figuring out the whole parenting thing has been a little much, and we forgot that there are events out there that are a lot of fun.

We really enjoyed it.

Here are some photos of Daphne meeting Nano. Note the jeans and shirt in preparation for the rodeo in the last photo!!!!

Swimming

I have one photo that my mom took of me when I was 4 months old. She notes on the back cover that I was "swimming." This is what Daphne does before she gets into this particular position. I really enjoy the fact that she is learning to use her arms. She is working very hard on getting the entire crawling thing down. She either has her back end up or her front now. She crawled across the bed slowly last night, and Jared reports that she was working on it in her sleep last night.

It's all beginning.... the mobile baby land.

How One Woman Changes the World

Shortly before I graduated from high school, I was talking to one of the counselors there. I told her that I was just terrified about the prospects of me going out into the world because it looked like I wasn't going to be able to make all the big, huge changes that I thought I was going to have to make to be a worthwhile person. She told me that the point wasn't that I go change the world, but that I am a productive, informed person who does a good job in my own field. If I do that and encourage others to do that, THAT'S how you change the world.

This datum made sense to me, and went a long way in me feeling like if I wanted to be a dairy farmer or policeman that they were equally valid paths, as long as I did my part to set an example.

However, as time goes on, you hear about other people and how they build a company and are a millionaire before age 21. Or how someone builds hundreds of schools all over the world and is personally responsible for the literacy of millions. At those times, I feel inadequate as a person who is merely being a photographer. My intentions in my profession are very honorable, just not directly changing the lives of millions.

And then, as I was going to get my daughter up from her nap this afternoon, I realized something.

I was affecting a change in this world in a big way. I am a loving and a caring mom. I spend time every day to teach my daughter how to read even though she is only 4 months old. I have taken the measures to ensure that she isn't getting vaccines that are full of poison that do way more harm than good. I feed her when she wants. I comfort her tears. I take the time to explain to her whatever object she happens to be the most interested in at the time.

Many moms put their children in daycare. Though I can understand the need for that, it is hard to imagine the direct result that this has on the life of that child.

My bond and my decisions with my little girl are, in this very moment changing the world. I may not be working with millions to affect great change, but I am working with one, on an intense basis, so that she may go out and create her own change.

This doesn't make me feel small at all. The love that you give to a child is the best love of all, because if you have been diligent in sticking to their needs, they appreciate it.

So I am changing the world, in a big way, and I'm doing it one smile at a time.

To Vaccinate or NOT

I've decided that I am not going to vaccinate my daughter. We were never vaccinated, and I can only thank my grandma a hundred times for that. After I made this decision, I watched this video, which only made me more sure of my decision. It is a little long, but it is totally worth it

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8610554679207090010

I called to get an appointment to set her up with a Pediatrician in case she would need to have care at any time in her future. The one that I wanted to take her to was booked out many weeks in advance, and they tried to make me set up an appointment with another doctor to keep her on track with her vaccinations. I merely said, "We are choosing not to vaccinate our daughter." The woman was taken aback at my decision.

In my favorite words of the day, "That's why I'm the mama."

Reading the Paper?

We got the Sunday paper this week, and I'm sure it was a fluke since we don't subscribe. Here is Daphne making use of the paper. She was reading it really well. This is the paper after mom and dad got through with it (note the drool).

She is really interested in reading, and anything with words on it is really cool!

I like the unique angle on these.

This was the only good part about today. She was really grumpy today, I think it was because of teeth. No more of that please.

Cute, Happy, naked Baby

She just gets more and more cute everyday. Here were are during one of our little play times. She likes being naked, and she has the cutest smile.

Cuz Datz How I Sleep Mom

Here is a funny position she fell asleep in when she was with her dad. It was hilarious and definitely worth a photo.

Tummy Time

Daphne is starting to like being on her tummy a lot more these days. Here are some funny candids I have of her.