Postcard from the Chlo-ster

I LOVE it when Daddy does my hair!!!

I'm chillin' with Grandma. Can you believe I'm so cool? Walkin' walkin' walkin'! It's my favorite pasttime!

(Or is it "pastime?" Come on, do you really expect me to spell at only almost eight months?? P.S. from Chloe's Mama: Blogger and my computer have been getting along strangely lately, so I'm not usually able to respond to any comments right now - but I'm reading and appreciating every one! :)

Speaking Too Soon

Chloe's always been a good sleeper. By that I mean that as a newborn, she was almost impossible to rouse, even to eat, and that she was sleeping through the night at a ridiculously early age. Perhaps we did something right to encourage that, but this just seems to be the disposition she was born with. Which is why the last month or so has left me completely at loose ends. As far as I could tell, Chloe was doing her level best to sleep as little as possible during the day. Her morning nap was down to half an hour. Gakkk! Never having had to actually soothe her to sleep, I've been at a complete loss as to how to get her to sleep. Well, having revisited a sleep book and done a lot of asking around, I got a room-darkening shade for her and we decided to put her down for her morning nap a half-and-hour or hour later than usual. So this morning I put her down at 9:30 rather than 9:00, and boy, was she TIRED. Drum roll please... It is now 10:41 and she is still asleep! And I am in heaven. Just thought I'd share the joy of one good day.

Apple Picking

Last weekend we went to Crane's Apple Orchard for a little bit of apple-picking fun. The place was a madhouse! Make a note of it - this is a business that could use some competition! A nice family photo...

"Mmmmm... apples!" Chloe loves apples, but her teeth - she has FOUR now - allow her to scrape off chunkier bits than she really likes to have in her mouth. Texture, yuck! Wonder where she got that from...

"Hi, Daddy!" The pumpkin house was pretty fun.

Chloe: PUMPKINSPUMPKINSPUMPKINS!!!! I LOVE PUMPKINS! AND WALKING! AND SUNSHINE! AND...!

Seth: This girl's weird. Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit this weekend - more pics to come!

The Importance of Punctuation

Headline of an announcement for a ladies' lunchoen in the bulletin of the church we went to on Sunday:

Meet our Pastor's Wives!

That would be pastor-apostrophe-"s," singular, as in one pastor, and "wives," plural. Do you think they meant to write "s"-apostrophe? And on a scale of one to ten, how big a nerd am I to think that this is absolutely hilarious?? :)

After Long Silence...

...I sheepishly return to greet my gentle readers! Assuming I still have some. I never intended to take a holiday from the blog, but here we are six weeks later! So for those of you who are still out there, thanks for checking in. :)

I can't possibly blog at length about everything that's happened in the last six weeks, but here are some highlights.

• We went to Hawaii. It was awesome. The place we stayed on Oahu was loud and busy and if we were to do it again we only would've stayed a day - just long enough to see Pearl Harbor, which is what we went there for to begin with. Maui was just perfect. So, so relaxing. We were nowhere near ready to leave when the time came.

• Mike and I took our first overnight trip away from Chloe last weekend and spent about twenty-four hours in Saugatuck. It was weird to be away from her, great to have a break, and good for Mike and I to get that time together, but we did miss her. :) It's pretty different to have a whole conversation together beginning to end without a baby present.

• Chloe is crawling! She's not so quick yet, but she's able to toodle around to where she wants to go. We're still learning that w have to put things up when we're done with them.
• She's also teething, and not really sleeping so much. Her upper right front tooth just cut through yesterday! Pretty exciting stuff. She unfortunately seems to be having a much rougher time getting these teeth than the last two, and has been incredibly grouchy in the last few days, as well as waking up at night screaming - something she never does. I'm pretty tired. :)

• Along those lines, she just woke up early from her afternoon nap (akkkkkk...), so it looks like this list is going to have to be even shorter than I'd intended! As far as adjustment goes, suffice it to say that as good as it is to be back, it's WEIRD. Familiar things are still familiar, but their very familiarity makes them seem unspeakably foreign right now. We're settling in and rebuilding our life here, but it really is going to take some time.

The Unhappy One is demanding some attention, so I guess that's it for now! I promise it won't be another six weeks before I post again. :)