Our first battle lost....

We were successful in our efforts not to give a pacifier to Anja. Although Anja does not know a pacifier, she is beginning to experience the wonders of her very own thumb. Despite our best efforts, I think we are going to lose this battle. We are sure it is only the first of many. Let's hope she does not take after one of her parents. As a young child, this parent had to wear socks on their hands to prevent thumbsucking. Apparently, this parent was so used to the socks on the hands, that when told to "put on your socks" the child held out its hands.

Not much else is new. I am sure we will have an interesting blog next week. Anja will be taking her first plane flight to Austin, TX over Labor Day.

We could not resist, here is a cute picture of Pip!

OK, so we were very excited about Anja's recently acquired ability to sleep through the night. However, no one told me that sleeping through the night has its downsides too. Namely, that she is awake all day. The photo above shows one of the nice moments when she is awake. Don't let it fool you, though, our girl has some lungs. I have to laugh. I'll walk up and down the stairs with her to calm her down. Her eyes will slowly close as she starts to relax. Then the second I put her down I hear a sniff and then a loud "Waaaa". Mark and I have different philosophies. Mark doesn't mind listening to her cry. I can't. So, I pick her up and start walking up and down the stairs again. Days like today where we are walking constantly, I think back that maybe it wasn't so bad when she didn't sleep through the night. At least there are two of us home in the evenings....

Sleeping Beauty

This posting was not to highlight the picture above, but to mark an important milestone. I remember seeing people who charted their baby's wake/sleep cycle. I found that facinating, but we didn't have the patience to develop a chart of our own. However, if we had, it would show that for the past three nights Anja has had a real nights sleep. A full seven hours, from 10pm to 5am. The first night we woke and looked at each other in disbelief and said, is it really 5am? The conversation went something like this...."Did you get up with her during the night?" "No" "Did you?" Now we are carefully trying to recreate this successful bedtime routine.

The picture above is from our weekend visit to Quiet Waters Park in Anne Arundel County Maryland. With the dog and the baby we are focusing on local outings for a while. The park was great, with miles of trails and, one of the highlights of our trip, a dog beach. Hence the scruffy look of Pip in this picture.

The other highlight was the snowball stand right outside the entrance to the park. If you are not from Maryland you would not understand the great joy of a snowball in the summer. I say this, because I have learned that this truly is a Maryland thing. If you don't know what a snowball is (not italian ice or those little cones of ice you can get at an amusement park) look at this website-http://www.citypaper.com/bob/story.asp?id=8153. Like the author I thought snowballs were universal, but when we moved to DC and then Virginia I was sad to learn this is not the case.

The Schippers come to town

Little did Anja know that the arrival of her grandma and grandpa would result in such homework. Yes, this is Anja's summer reading list, brought to her courtesy of her grandma. We could tell from the gleam in Anja's eye that she was looking forward to multiple readings of each and every one of her newly acquired books. I think mom and dad will be a little hoarse come September. As with most kids, Anja felt the need to surround herself with her books -- thankfully, her crib was able to support the additional weight. We have not counted them, but we hope (errr...fear) there could be well over 30 books from which we will be reading at all hours of the day and night.

Honestly, we are thrilled with the opportunity to reaquaint ourselves with Dr. Seuss and become aficionados of children's books. As an added bonus, Anja is now the proud owner of a "Speak & Spell" that her dad played with as a child. If you need to ask what the heck a "Speak & Spell" is, then you are too young to understand the joys of such a toy!

The Colorado crew is moving East!

Anja met her Aunt Leslie, Uncle John, cousins. She is tickled pink about having Jessica, Joshua, and Hawkins close enough for weekend visits and the eventual slumber parties. In fact, we are working on a joint trip to celebrate at the Gualey Festival in WV. Now Anja is quite keen on rafting down a class V rapids, but her parents are a tad concerned at the prospect of rushing water and sharp rocks. In other words, Anja is going to have to wait a few more years and attend numerous swimming lessons before she is allowed to attempt the rapids on the Gualey River.