Peek-a-boo with daddy...

Yesterday, Molly was having a lot fun getting surprised by daddy. Jeremy was just simply rolling towards & then away from Molly. Kind of like a game of peek-a-boo. Each time he'd turn towards Molly, she'd get a little surprised and then would start giggling away.

Today, Jeremy was playing peek-a-boo with Molly while she was hanging out on the bed. We couldn't help but wonder if Molly was starting to play peek-a-boo back, similar to how Jeremy was playing with her yesterday. You be the judge! Either way, it was pretty darn cute. Enjoy!

Rolling is fun!

As I've mentioned before, Molly's been able to roll for quite some time now. However, she hasn't been particularly fond of spending time on her back or belly, so she didn't roll very often and definitely would not roll on command. And when she'd roll it was always from her back to her front (apparently the harder of two rolls) & not the other way around. Well finally today she discovered how much fun it could be to barrel roll! And in true Molly form, practice makes perfect... She literally continued to roll over and over again for 30 minutes! Needless to say, she's napping away as I'm typing this. Rolling is hard work! Here's a she is perfecting her technique.

Turning pages...

Molly really loves to read books! Every night she reads a bedtime story with mom. But probably Molly's favorite activity is reading books with daddy. She can usually sit through about 3 books before she's reading to move onto something else. Some of her bedtime favorites are "Goodnight Moon" and"Hush Little Baby". Her daytime favorites include "My Nose, My Toes", some of the touch & feel books, and "Doggies". What's been fun lately is watching Molly anticipate & help dad ready but turning the pages for him! Here's a little video of Molly and probably her most favorite book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear".

Blowing raspberries...

Probably the most common word we hear people use to describe Molly is "observant" or something similar like "aware", "nosey", "alert", etc. Must be a consequence of having scientists for parents! Well Molly's been very well aware of the fact that we are in a new town, a new home and a new school. It's taken her a bit of time to adjust and get into a new routine, but she's been warming up to the fact that we're now "Buckeyes" (although mom will forever be a "Fighting Illini")!

There have been lots of new little things that Molly's been doing since the move... While she's been able to roll for several months now, she's started to do it frequently now. Although for a couple of days it meant that she would roll over in her sleep & wake up crying! Also, Molly's got a growing list of new foods that she's tried including butternut & acorn squash, sweet potatoes, avocado, green beans, peas, carrots, apples & pears and is now up to 3 meals a day. She's enjoys shaking and banging things together to make noise. My favorite though is blowing raspberries with Molly! It's pretty fun watching her imitate us. Here's a little glimpse...

Pre-Xmas gift from MomMom & PopPop Brooks

Molly got to practice her unwrapping skills on a pre-Christmas gift from MomMom & PopPop Brooks. I think she got the hang of it! Behind the paper was "The Night Before Christmas" read by none other than MomMom & PopPop! What a wonderful gift... Thank you!

"Baran butz"....

Molly's been enjoying a little game Grandma Irene has been teaching her... baran butz (pronounced like "baddan boots")! In Polish, baran means "lamb" and "butz" means "bump" like when you bump heads. Again, I always seem to miss the times when she does it the best, but I think you'll get the picture here.

A sad goodbye...

It was with a very sad heart that we had to say goodbye to Molly's wonderful teachers, Emily, Katrina & Jessyca. We will miss them dearly and thank them for the love and great care that they gave Molly! They will forever hold a special place in our hearts. Here is Molly with Emily & Katrina. Unfortunately, mom forgot to pull out the camera when we said "good bye" to Jessyca that morning.

Green beans... Not Molly's favorite!

Molly tried green beans yesterday for the first time. Yesterday's facial expressions were priceless, but of course, we didn't get it on film. Today we were prepared! Her initial expression wasn't as good as yesterday, but still pretty funny.

All about chewing!

These past 2 weeks it's all been about chewing on whatever makes Molly's gums feel better...

Chewing on her rattle...

Chewing on a teething ring...

 

 

Chewing on her links...

Probably one of the funniest is Molly chewing on and repeatedly yanking a spoon out of her mouth. Not sure how this makes her gums feel better but it seems to help! Here's a little video of it...

6 months & figuring things out...

Hard to believe that our little baldy is 6 months old! It's been really fun watching Molly figure little things out & then become so focused on practicing them over and over again. Her two latest two accomplishments include making one of the toys on her exercauser spin round and round and pulling down her zebra toy hanging from her car seat. Daddy is particularly excited about Molly figuring out the zebra toy. It was one of his favorite toys that he bought for Molly!

Sweet potato high!

I'm not sure if it was the sweet potatoes or what, but Molly was super excited after dinner tonight! Thought I'd let her "tell" you all about it...

I have a voice!!

Molly has really discovered her voice lately! Hard to catch the best moments on camera, but here's a glimpse of Molly saying "good morning" to daddy.

Tracking Molly's Development at School...

Molly's wonderful teachers, Ms. Emily, Katrina & Jessyca put together a poster of Molly's development at school. It was great to learn about some of the developmental milestones that they're helping Molly to reach! Here are some pictures of the poster. A little hard to read, but hopefully you can see some of it. If you click on each of the pictures, it should enlarge the view.

Here's the full poster. Below are each of the sections.

Fine Motor Skills

Social Development. Landon is a day older than Molly. The other day I had fun watching them each try to take away each others rattle as they were playing together!

Large Motor Skills

Emotional Development

Cognitive Development: As you can see, Molly didn't enjoy the sensation of the oobleck (corn starch & water)! She did, however, enjoy playing with a pop-up toy with Jaden.

Molly's first big people food!

Sort of - this is actually day 2 of rice cereal. She's a bit slobbery as expected, but she's getting the hang of it.

Exersaucer'ing with Grandma Irene!

Molly had fun trying out her new exersaucer (Well new to Molly! Thanks, Jack!) with Grandma Irene!

Hiking at Allerton Park...

Two weekends ago we went on a short hike out at Allerton Park to see the fall colors and enjoy the last of the warm fall days. Molly enjoyed the hike & even stayed awake for half of it! Here are a few pictures of Molly & daddy!

Talented friends & family...

 Molly's received some beautiful handmade gifts from some of our friends and family! Here are a few that we've gotten pictures of Molly with so far. We can't help but want to show off their talent!

The trifecta of handmade gifts... At the very top is a handmade burp cloth from Rachel, colorful lovie from Aunt Karen & a crocheted blanket from Helen S.

Handmade quilt from our wonderful friend, Val!

Handmade sassy bag from our friend down under, Emma!

Rockin' & Rollin'!!

For the last week or so Molly has been frequently rolling onto her side at night in her crib. So we've been working with her during the day trying to help her get used to the motion. Well this evening as we were playing with her on her playmat, she rolled over all by herself, quite unexpectedly actually! I thought it'd be a while until she did it again, but this little girl knows the value behind the phrase "practice makes perfect" and rolled a few more times. In the first video she flashes a cute little smile afterwards. Clearly she was quite proud of herself, as were we! The second video is the full roll from start to finish; proof that we didn't help her! Please ignore my singing of the 80's classic "Who's Johnny" by El Debarge or "Where's Molly", as I like to sing it. Amazing how in the blink of an eye she's gone partially mobile!

Bumbo & Blocks!

For the last 2 weeks, Molly has really been enjoying sitting in her bumbo chair and playing with either her "links" or her new favorite... her colorful blocks from Aunt Meg, Uncle Chris & Cousin Hunter!

4 months old & working on her laugh!

We always seem to be a couple of minutes too late with catching Molly's little giggles on film, but here's a glimpse of some of her cuteness!

Practicing her soccer skills!

Molly's looking forward to learning some mean soccer skills from PopPop! In the meantime, she's been practicing with her new ball...

Georgia O'Keeffe in the making!

This was Molly's first week at daycare at the University of Illinois', Child Development Lab. She had a great time "coloring with markers" with her classmate Jaden (1 year old)! It was these little moments that made it get a little easier dropping her off everyday!

The trio of nappers...

Molly's gradually getting into a daytime napping routine. Sometimes in her crib, most days in her chair, but last weekend in daddy's arms. Neko decided to join in nap time as well!

Two great weekends with grandparents!!

Molly's had a wonderful past two weekends with her grandparents! She had her first visit to Chicago to see Grandma Irene & Grandpa Joe. Molly also got to see the Japanese maple tree that grandma & grandpa are going to plant in the yard in honor of Molly.



Molly was particularly excited to meet Aunt Karen & is looking forward to meeting baby Jack next time!



Molly also enjoyed grandma's homemade blueberry pancakes before heading to the Old Town School of Folk Music festival.



The following weekend MomMom & PopPop Brooks came to visit!

We enjoyed walks around Meadowbrook Park and U-Illinois' campus before the perpetual heat set in.



We also went to the U of I's conservatory to see a rare corpse flower in bloom! The plant is 10 years old and it was blooming for the first time. If you got close enough you could smell the "rotting corpse odor" emanating from the flower!

Molly's been enjoying her playmat, compliments of baby Jack! She particularly loves kicking at Ms. Owl.

Shakin' her rattle!

We've been having fun working with Molly getting her to follow and grasp her rattles. Here's some footage of Molly shakin' her rattle and kickin' along to some music by Boca do Rio. If you're a Seinfeld fan, her kicking reminds me of when we called Molly "Elaine" from Seinfeld because of how much she'd erratically kick away while she was in the womb! Also, feel free to ignore my annoying high voice encouraging Molly along!

tummy time #1

We noticed from day one that Molly was pretty good about lifting her head, especially when being burped over our shoulders. Several of the nurses commented about how babies seem to be stronger these days and basically come out of the womb with better head control than they remember.

So - we decided to try "real" tummy time down on the floor - just for a few minutes. Molly did pretty well!!

closing in on one month...

and Molly has kept us busy with the normal newborn trifecta of eating, sleeping and dirtying her diaper. She has had a few milestones since the last update - and since her first tornado sirens...

Let's see, she had her first full bath, and she's starting to scream slightly less during those (she doesn't like to have her clothes off), she had her first bottle of mom's milk (and her first in general since the day we got home from the hospital), and she had her first meal out - brunch today with our friends from Chicago Julie and Darren and their kids Nora and Donovan. We tried our first dinner on the front porch last night since the weather has gone from being almost-record-breaking hot to very pleasant. But, dinner on the front porch was interrupted by a fussy baby. We're taking baby steps as we figure out what things work as we adjust to our new lives...

Here are some more recent pictures...

Oh - and we can't forget how good Neko has been - we were kind of expecting the worst since she was used to getting all the attention - but she's been content looking suspiciously at Molly from a distance and chirping at birds and squirrels out the window...

seeing molly seeing the world

Just a short clip of Molly when she's alert (which isn't too often at one week).

tornado sirens don't bother me

- As long as my belly is full, and I have a clean bum, I'll sleep through anything, including two tornado warning sirens, and heavy rain falling on the raincoat that mom put over my head as we were running to the basement...

It did make us wonder what it would have been like if these storms had come through a week earlier. At that time, Molly was 1 hour and 15 minutes old and Lauren may have been getting stitched up still! We were on the 10th floor - at least we would have had a good view!

Welcoming Molly Irene Brooks: Born 5/18/2011

Hi all,

This is a new blog that Lauren and I are starting to help those of you who don't live near us keep track of the comings and goings of Molly. Of course, since she is almost exactly (as I write this) 5 hours shy of being a week old, her comings and goings consist of the normal newborn activities like eating, sleeping, pooping, peeing, and, occasionally, looking around to see what's out there in the world - or at least in our apartment.

But, in the weeks, months, and years to come, that list of activities and comings & goings will grow, and this is where you can check in from time to time to see what's what with Molly Irene Brooks.

Take care,

Jeremy & Lauren