One step at a time...

Yesterday, December 22nd, Sage took her first independent steps. She walked from the couch to her grandma Alice, and the whole room erupted in cheers and applause! Then she repeated the feat two more times that evening. Mommy and Daddy are so very proud. Here's a picture Grandma took yesterday to commemorate the occasion.

Doesn't she look like a big girl? Just a few more steps and she'll really be a toddler.

I know that in my excitement about her learning to crawl some months ago, I hinted that walking wasn't a very big deal because she could get around just fine by crawling anyway, but I may have to change my perspective at this point. There's something about walking upright that makes a child seem more like a person to others... and to themselves. Sage is obviously quite proud of herself, and seems to be thrilled to move more like her parents (and grandparents, and aunts and uncle, etc). She's been very interested recently in comparing her body to our bodies, imitating, our movements, and having us copy hers (like chewing on her toys for example. She loves that!). This is certainly a new stage in her little life--one characterized by a new awareness of herself as a person, and culminating in her learning to walk.

I also want to add that Sage's second word is "Dada." :-)

Christmas Tree Hunting

Here is a sweet picture of Sage and mommy from this past weekend when we all went Christmas tree hunting with dada, my parents, my sisters and uncle Erik, who was visiting from Minnesota. If you look close enough you can see snow in my hair, because yes, it was actually snowing. It made for quite a nice holiday experience.

Almost 10 months and...

Sage's first word is officially Mama. How sweet of her to do that. She's also signing "more" at mealtime when she wants another bite. I'm so proud! On the level of motor skills, she's working on putting the rings back on the post on her little fisher price ring stacking toy. Here she is with the toy. Look how grown up she is sitting up on her knees! She almost looks ike a little toddler!

She has also put another round-shaped toy on the post of the ring toy, which was even more exciting! I take that to mean she's sorting toys by shape, and making inferences about them based on their similarities. What a smart little baby we have!

Oh, I also must point out that her hair is finally long enough to have her first case of bed-head. This is how she woke up this morning:

She's so cute!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Sage's first Thanksgiving was wonderful. Grandma Jan, Grandpa Darrell and Uncle Erik came down from Minnesota, and Sage was lucky enough to spand the holiday with her parents, her aunts, her uncle, both sets of grandparents, and her great-grandma Betty! Here are a couple of action pics as well as a big family portrait.





Since Jan, Darrell and Erik were down from Wednesday night till Sunday morning, we were able to spend a lot of very special time with them, and Sage got reacquainted with them all. Thank you all three for making the trip down! We hope we'll see you again before long.

1st Annual Holiday Cabin Trip

I'm a little behind in my posting, but I wanted to share some pictures from the weekend before last when Sage went to a cabin in Red River gorge with her mommy, Grandma Alice, Grandaddy Al, Aunt Rachael and Aunt Emma. Daddy had to stay home and do school work. Poor Daddy! We decided we should make this a new tradition. Hopefully next year Daddy can come too!

Fridge 'o Photos

I just wanted to share today's project. We put big pictures of Sage's close family tree on the fridge, so we can talk about everyone, and remind her of her loving relatives. She really likes it! She seems especially interested in Grandaddy Al's picture. She touches it, and really studies it more than the others.

Whew, 3 posts in one day! That's a record!!

Edited to add: For the edification of all who don't know the whole family, starting top row from left: Emma White, Rachael White, Erik Jodock; Bottom row: Al White, Alice White, Hazel Jodock, Sage Jodock, Aren Jodock, Janice Jodock, Darrell Jodock.

Reminisce with me!

It seemed sad not to include any early pictures of sage, so I figured I'd go back in time a little, and reflect on how she's grown. Here's a picture of mommy and daddy the day I was pretty sure I was pregnant. Only Aren and I knew at this point. Can you tell we have a secret? I look a little tired. Huh, I wonder why...
By the time I took this one, it was pretty clear to everyone. :-) Just a couple weeks prior to this, I was at Christmas Country Dance School. I felt a little obvious, and got pretty tired out, but I was glad I went. People there were certain Sage was going to come early after all that dancing. :-) Here I am at 37 weeks prego:

Here's a sweet one of Sage at one day old. She's lying in daddy's hand. Look how big his hand seems compared to her tiny head. Her little arms are lost in the "huge" newborn-sized outfit! She was only 3 days early, but was a petite 6lbs, 3oz. Grandma went out and bought us a few little preemie outfits that she wore for the first couple weeks.

I love this one of her cuddled up to her mommy. Even this young, she already looks like herself! My favorite thing to do in these early weeks was to rub my nose in her hair and breathe in her sweet scent. It was so calming, and filled me with the warmth of mommyhood. Actually, I still do this!

This one is one of my all time favorites. She's so sweet and peaceful in dreamland. I took this picture when I was staying in Berea with my parents for the weekend. Daddy had to go to Chicago for a work training, and it was just too early to be home by myself. It was wonderful to have my parents close enough that I could do this!

It's hard to imagine how much she's changed in only a few months! Now she's nine months old, and she has such a personality. She has already learned to be silly, and to do things just to make me laugh. We had quite the giggle party today at lunch time! I really am enjoying each stage, but I can understand why people say it just keeps getting better and better!

Big Weekend

Sage started off the weekend with her first stomach bug. Yuck! She threw up lots and had a really tough time on Friday. Fortunately she was over it within 12 hours. Then Saturday evening we went to a game night, and Sage got to play with her little friends, James, Lily, Alex and Bryce. Gosh, I hope she wasn't contagious still!!! She also managed to get a really mean diaper rash, which we are still recovering from. So Sage is going old-school cloth diapering today: prefolds and pins! Her nice fitteds are in the wash, and I don't want to put covers on her because I want her little bottom to breathe. Plus this way we can tell right away if she pees. This was Grandma Alice's suggestion. Last night mommy and daddy let her crawl around diaper free! That was a pretty messy solution, though. I have to say, prefolds are awfully darn cute on my little baby!

Perfection

Grandma Alice took this picture of the most beautiful little baby in the world. She just exudes perfection. Don't you think?



We spent Saturday evening in Berea, and were thoroughly entertained By Sage. She played some lovely pieces on the piano:


And applauded herself after each (short) piece:


She also danced for us! Here she is dancing Ring Around the Rosie with mommy:


"We all fall down!"

And she dazzled us all with her sweet smiles, and lovely disposition:


Thank you Grandma for the beautiful photography!

Halloween

Sage went trick-or-treating last night, though she didn't carry a little pumpkin, or anything. We figured that would just be silly, since she wasn't going to eat any candy. She did get one piece from a family who seemed intent on giving her some, and she chewed on the wrapper all the way home. We went along with our friends Bill and Jen and their son, Tyler, who was collecting candy dressed as Spider Man. Here is a picture of Sage in her Halloween costume:


Oh wait, that's a real diamondbank terrapin. Here's Sage:


I spent an inordinate amount of time making her costume--especially since very few people actually saw it, and it was dark. I made the shell so that it could either go on the mei tai carrier or directly on her body. Here's a close-up of the shell in better light:

It's made of three layers of fleece painted with fabric paint. I'm hoping she can use it for dress-up when she gets older. I spent way too much time on it for it to be a one-use-wonder. It was a fun night, though! I wish I'd gotten a picture of Sage and Tyler together. Ah well, there's always next year, right Bill and Jen? ;-)

Video crazy!

Ok, so we got such rave reviews after our last video, I figured i'd add another one. I can't figure out how to turn it, so you will have to turn your heads. Sage just got her first little pair of soft-soled shoes, so here we are trying theme out. That's Grieg playing in the background. :-) Our baby is so cultured. He he

Spaghetti Time!

Well, I think now we've discovered the funnest thing since swinging: spaghetti! Don't worry, it's brown, because it's whole wheat. :-) I didn't feed Sage old spaghetti. She had it the first time last night, but we decided to have it again for lunch today so mommy could get some pictures. It's awfully yummy and fun at the same time! I threw in a little cheese for protein, though really solids are still mostly for fun at this stage. I think more of it ended up in her lap than in her mouth this afternoon, though last night, she actually ate most of what was on her tray, I think!

Oh, and you get the bonus of being able to see her two top teeth in these pictures! Aren't they cute??

One other food-related update: Sage did the cutest thing ever yesterday afternoon. We were enjoying lunch at the Coop with our friend Emily and her daughter Lily, when Sage turned around and offered me a bite of her little piece of French roll. Then it turned into a fun game and she alternated between taking bites and giving me bites. How sweet that my girl is already learning to share!

And now for a few updates:
My previously self-declared breastmilk snob has now decided food is pretty fun (as long as she feeds herself). Those of you who have been following the blog may be a bit confused. Yes, I did post months ago that she loved bananna, and I also posted at some point not long after that she had tried sweet potatoes. However, at some point after that, she decided solids were for the birds, and only breastmilk would do for her. This lasted a month or two. She did enjoy a slice of apple in her little mesh feeder, but nothing else. Well, now she has become a little gourmand. She adores nibbling on good french bread (inferior bread will not do) with some particularly tasty string cheese. Apples are still a favorite (but none of the mushy pureed stuff), as well as good quality crackers. Here she is enjoying a particularly yummy meal of baguette, string cheese and grated apple:

In other news, Last weekend Sage attended her second orchestra concert (at 8 months of age!). We went to see the McLains perform with the Oak Ridge Symphony. Sage slept through almost the entire concert snuggled in mommy's sling, and Mommy was able to enjoy the music. Daddy, sadly was not able to go because he had to study for a test. :-( Poor daddy!

Just cause I can...

Well, since blogger has a new video option, I figured, why not put in a video of my girl crawling . It seemed like Sage's far away Grandma, grandpa and uncle... as well as other family and friends might enjoy seeing how grown up she is. So without further ado, here's our adorable baby girl crawling to mama:

Levi Jackson Fun!

Mommy and Sage spent last weekend at Levi Jackson for a dance weekend. It was a lot of fun despite a few hang-ups: we got somewhat less sleep than usual (Sage and mommy shared a sleeping bag on a dusty mattress), and mommy managed to leave Sage's baby carriers at home, so it was off to Walmart to buy a swath of fabric. Good thing we've been working on using wraps as baby carriers recently!! 4.5 yards of flannel ripped in half lengthwise worked great all weekend! It was especially supportive and cozy for dancing!


Sage got to spend lots of quality time with her grandparents!

She absolutely loves to swing with Grandma.


And Aunt Rachael always gets the best smiles. :-D


Levi Jackson has a new playground this year with awesome baby swings that go pretty high. The higher the better for this little daredevil! She is definitely her father's daughter. :-)


But the best part of the weekend is that we got to see out wonderful friends Katy and Samuel!! We hiked down to the duck pond and both the baby and the big boy got a ride!


Thanks to Grandma Alice for taking (most of) these great pictures!

More gratuitous cuteness

Sage got a little hand-me-down baby bathrobe from a friend, and daddy thought it was so cute after her bath a couple days ago, he wanted a picture of it. So here she is, looking quite adorable, I must say.

Since I'm posting, I thought I'd add that her crawling has gotten much smoother and quicker since last weekend. She no longer does the cute leg tuck thing, which helps her move much more efficiently. I have found a new heart-meltingly sweet, repeatable moment, which is holding my arms out to her and watching her crawl to me with a huge, radiant smile on her face. There's just nothing better than that.

Sadly though, she's been having a rough few days, because her top right front tooth is trying to come in, and it's hurting her pretty badly. She wouldn't even let me put her down while I took a shower today, so we showered together, after which we looked smashing in our matching pink bathrobes. :-)

Did you say crawling??

Ok, so these are pretty much just gratuitous cuteness pics to go along with the statement that SAGE IS CRAWLING!! She wasn't actually crawling in the pictures (they are from yesterday afternoon, and she didn't crawl until last night pretty much at bedtime) but she was thinking about it pretty hard here. So far, she isn't crawling very vast. She does this cute thing, where she tucks her right leg under her as if she's sitting indian style, and it prevents her from crawling in a very efficient manner. But she can get where she needs to go... which is pretty much wherever her ball has rolled. Anyway, mommy and daddy couldn't be more proud. If you think about it, crawling is perhaps an even more important step than walking, because it is the start of locomotion. Walking is just an increase in efficiency.