Crawling: stage one

Gwendolyn often pitches herself forward from a sitting position to go after toys that are just beyond her reach. Sometimes the momentum carries her face first into the carpet (don't worry -- her landings are soft). She usually wriggles her way into her "tummy time" position without much concern and happily goes about her playing.

Soon, she'll find herself landing on hands and knees, and the urge to crawl will kick in. We'd better get cracking on baby-proofing the house...

General Cuteness

Okay, we'll admit it: this is a completely gratuitous blog entry whose sole purpose is to give us an excuse to upload these cute photos.

Stay tuned for a video of Gwendolyn's newest party trick. Coming soon to a blog near you!

Mama's got a brand new baby carrier

The For Sale or Trade forums on thebabywearer.com are a wonderful source for pre-loved carriers of all types, including the Babyhawk Mei Tai Mama and Gwendolyn are modelling here. The whole site is great, actually -- everything you ever wanted to know about babywearing and then some.

Luckily for Felicity, Gwendolyn loves being worn. That means we don't need to bring the stroller on short jaunts and/or to small shops. We haven't been brave enough to try back carries. Yet.

Potatoes, apples and pears -- oh my!

Gwendolyn is rapidly expanding her repertoire of solid foods. Witness this photo of her digging into a nice juicy pear -- with Mom's help, of course. Tonight's well-received menu featured green beans and a wee portion of banana for dessert.

While not a lot gets down into the her tummy, we can tell that Gwendolyn's senses -- touch, taste and smell -- are really getting a workout.

A lovely side effect of Gwendolyn joining us for the dinner meal is that we now sit together as a family and really enjoy the food and each other's company.

Pants too stiff?

"Excuse me, but can I please talk to the person who does the laundry around here? I think they put too much starch in these jeans. I keep falling over backwards because I can't bend my legs, for crying out loud!"

The (mis)adventures of Mr. Whoozit

On a recent visit to Patrick and Josephine's home, Gwendolyn's beloved Mr. Whoozit was mistakenly left behind. He quickly got in with the wrong crowd (a couple of ne'er do well dolls), with predictable results...

Party on, Mr. W!

Papa John and Gwendolyn revisited

You may recall a posting a few weeks back, with a photo of Gwendolyn and her Papa John looking like they'd just been caught doing some mischief. Here's a much better photo (a self-portrait, no less) of the two of them during PJ's last visit. Looks like they really enjoy each other's company...

First broccoli, now carrots

Gwendolyn now looks like an old pro with the solid food thing; witness her expertise with carrot sticks. She rubs them on her gums, likely to soothe the discomfort of teething.

And just for fun, Dad has posted an "artsy" photo of Gwendolyn and her carrots. Coooooool...

Who knew broccoli could be so funny?

Gwendolyn + broccoli = priceless.

BTW, this evening marked the first time Gwendolyn has put food into her mouth on her own. And if you're wondering, that's a strand of spaghetti in her right hand and the camera strap in her left...

Here come the chompers...

Mom and Dad have both made visual confirmation of a tiny tooth beginning to emerge from Gwendolyn's bottom gum. It certainly explains her extra-prodigious drooling and incessant chewing on objects like the nubby ball (nicknamed "Sputnik") pictured here.

A stroll in the gardens

It was a lovely afternoon today, so the Ronaghans headed to Vandusen Gardens to see what was in bloom...

Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz...

As Big Bird said: "It's the most incredible word I've ever seen!" It's also the perfect title for a posting about alphabet blocks.

Gwendolyn's Dad has been on the hunt for a set of "old fashioned" alphabet blocks for some time now. He finally found a lovely set, made in the U.S. by a company called Lindenwood. "Uncle Goose" blocks are made of solid wood, painted with non-toxic inks and feature beautifully embossed letters on two sides. They are more expensive than the many other block sets out there, but Big K. is very pleased with their quality and recommends them highly. He thinks they are the the kind of blocks your child might hand down to their own children one day.

Lindenwood makes block sets in many different languages: French, Swedish, Italian, Arabic and Russian, to name just a few. There's even a set of Braille blocks, and for those funky kids out there, the aptly named Groovie Blocks. Cool...

While Gwendolyn is a little too young to use the blocks to build towers and form words (her Dad is busy doing that on her behalf), she definitley enjoys holding, looking at and chewing them.

Hand to mouth -- well, almost...

We've noticed Gwendolyn being much more interested in -- and adept at -- putting things in her mouth. It's probably the result of teething, as we can feel a couple of hard little bumps pushing up on her bottom gum.

Most of the time, the hand to mouth thing works and Gwendolyn chews and sucks happily on whatever it is she has at her disposal: block, plastic ring, slipper, teething fish... This time, though, it looks like the signals got a bit crossed up.

Even if she had been successful, we don't think she would have been able to put much of that big blue ring in her mouth...

Cute in stripes

Gwendolyn was recently the lucky recipient of some "pre-loved" baby clothing from friends Patrick and Josephine. Here she is dressed in a particularly cute striped sleeper, with impish face to match.

Gwendolyn's great Canada Day adventure

The Ronaghan family strolled to Granville Island this afternoon to enjoy some of the Canada Day festivities. Here are a few photos of our wee adventure.

OH, CANADA!

Gwendolyn, patriotically dressed in her red and white jumper, takes a few moments to do some Canadian flag waving. Happy Canada Day, everyone!