Thursday, July 17, 2008

little lightbulbs

so far, most of bryn's big milestones have been related to motor skills (head control, hand use, rolling, sitting, scooting). we've seen some cognitive skills emerge (recognizing us, smiling, laughing, recognizing her own name), but nothing as impressive as this week. on tuesday, bryn was playing with a basket that contained a few toys. the toys were all at the bottom of the basket, and she kept tipping the basket towards her, then letting go and trying to grab the toys. a sisyphean effort, of course, and really kind of amusing. but, after a couple minutes of this, i watched her tip the basket with one hand, hold it in place, and then reach over and grab a toy with the other hand! it was amazing!

also amazing, but more frustrating, is that bryn has started to both understand and ignore admonishments. when playing in the family room, all objects and areas off the carpeted area are off limits, and we have been starting to (try to) teach bryn this. it starts with sternly saying her name, which gets her to turn her head and look at us, then give us a big aren't-i-just-the-cutest-thing smile. sometimes, after we repeat this a few times, bryn will stop and scoot towards something else. other times, it escalates to "unh unh", then "don't", and finally "no" as she inches closer, and closer, and finally touches whatever it is that she shouldn't be touching. this morning, in a particularly sassy mood, none of the above had any effect, except to make her move faster in anticipation of being nabbed by mom... wonder where she gets her stubborn streak from?

Friday, July 11, 2008

congratulations all around

we're very excited that bryn has a brand new first cousin - her first one, in fact! adam's brother, aaron, had a beautiful baby girl - sierra jade - a little over a month ago. we got to meet her at the end of june, and she and her parents all look great. they have also moved to seattle, where aaron has started his residency at the uw. check out their blog for more details, a few pictures and (hopefully - hint, hint!) updates.

next, my little sis is engaged! scott popped the question on june 26, and teresa said yes! he clued us, my parents and several of teresa's friends in early, so we made plans to celebrate their engagement at the masciello's annual fourth of july bash on long island.


we had a great time and are thrilled to be welcoming scott into the family. (btw, this makes scott and teresa the cheniellos) i can't wait to start helping with the wedding plans, especially since bryn has, of course, been designated flower girl!

congratulations to our sibs - we love you and are so excited to have you join our world of old married people with kids!

scooter

it's been an eventful few weeks for the bunchens... bryn started eating her first solid food - rice cereal. she doesn't seem to have strong feelings about it either way and will tolerate about two tablespoons, leaving another two tablespoons or so on herself or her highchair. you can watch the video here (but probably only her grandparents will actually make it through the whole thing). her second new trick is raising both arms up above her head when she wants to be picked up. she'll only do this in the jumperoo (something kind of like a walker, except it bounces instead of rolling) and highchair, so i don't know if it's an issue with balance or an issue with generalization. in any case, i can't resist it, even if she does it in the middle of dinner. finally, and most exciting, bryn has started "scooting" (also known as belly-crawling)!


this started around the end of june, and now bryn can get across a room in about 10 seconds - if properly motivated. putting this together with the pushing up on straight arms means that bryn's perception has really gone 3-D. she now goes for toys up on shelves and tried to crawl off our bed yesterday for something on the floor. her sitting is also much improved now, so she really likes to play independently and go from toy to toy on her own. it's pretty neat to watch - two months ago we never could have imagined her doing any of these things, and now she practically feels like a teenager.

a few other little things: we also felt bryn's first tooth this week, although it is not actually visible to the naked eye as of yet. her yelling has slowed down so that she usually only does it when unhappy about something. she still chatters a lot, and now makes b, d, g, c/k and m sounds. the other day it sounded like she said "o-ba-ma"... we'll see if she can get that perfected before november.