Mountain Mama

This was a big week for Baby Ben.  He turned 6 months old on Thursday!  On Tuesday, we gave him his first taste of baby rice cereal!  He made the requisite faces and of course smeared it on his face and hands.  He didn’t actually swallow any for the first couple nights but I think the last 2 nights he has gotten some down!  He still makes “the face” when he first tastes it, so I’m hoping to get a good picture of that this weekend.  By the 2nd night, he was opening his mouth and leaning into the spoon, so he’s definitely getting the hang of it!  By the 3rd night, he was grabbing the spoon and hanging on tight.

In other news, he’s definitely crawling (coordinating arms and legs) and starting to “bear walk” (hands and feet only touching the floor).

This has been quite a week at school.  Two words: All County.  If you know what I mean, you KNOW what I freaking mean.  If you don’t know what I mean, don’t waste another thought on it.  I just keep telling myself: it’s good for the kids, it’s good for the kids…PLEASE let it be good for the kids…  

One more word (or is it two words?): Yearbook.  Somewhere along the line, I got put on the yearbook committee, along with 2 other teachers.  And given zero time to work on it during school hours.  It’s ridiculous.  Something’s going to have to change for next year.  My mom said, “well don’t volunteer for it next year.”  Umm, I never volunteered in the first place.  I’m serious.  This isn’t a volunteer situation.  At the beginning of the year, the principal assigns various “committees,” such as the Social Committee, to send flowers when you are sick or have a baby (how nice), the Character Ed committee, to promote the character education program with a prize drawn once a month for kids displaying the character trait of the month (yes, yes, how sweet), and the Yearbook committee, to PUBLISH A BOOK.  With 3 people on it, one of which is only at that school 3 days a week.  And only one of us with much computer experience.  I’d go into more details but I’m too tired from getting 4 hours of sleep every night this week.  The good news is, as of 3:25 today, the yearbook is done except one last proofread.  The bad news: my students are more acquainted with Peter and the Wolf and Wynton Marsalis than I ever hoped they’d be.

TGIF!

I found this in my web travels yesterday:

Dancing Bears

As I was watching it, Tim said he had already seen it, which prompted me to say, “you don’t know me at all, do you?” because he failed to send me the link, or even mention it.  

Bears are definitely my favorite wild animal.  I’ve been lucky enough to see several of them in the wild, both in West Virginia and Montana.  My dad tells me that he knows the lead scientist on the bear filming project (not the one who put the video to music…).

When is it considered technically “crawling?”  When can I brag to the other mothers?  ”Oh, little Johnny is still scooting?  How sweet.  I remember those days.  Of course, Ben is crawling now.”  Not that I would ever initiate such a conversation.

He’s up on all fours.  There’s space between his belly and the ground.  He propels himself forward, going here and there (slowly).  He just doesn’t coordinate his arms with his legs yet.  Sometimes his arms pull him and sometimes his legs push him.  Always there is a break between movements.

He “leapfrogs” by pushing himself forward in one fell swoop, then resting for a few minutes.  

He “inchworms” by putting his head down and his butt up high and pushing himself forward that way.

He does a full roll to move from side to side.

He can twist himself around (like the hand on a clock) pretty easily.

There is no point anymore to putting a blanket down between him and our dirty floor.  He moves right off of it.

So I ask you, dear readers, does it sound like crawling to you?

I found this on wvupressbox.com – but it’s actually a You Tube video (from the Duke game):

Tweak!