Life with 7 month old Alia Mercedes

O and I are having a blast being parents. My favorite parts are the snuggling, her laughing, watching her learn new things (like how to rip the glasses off of my face faster than I can deal with quite frankly), and seeing how much our families love her and enjoy her. I honestly like her company, just chilling together feels really nice. I talk to her all the time and she just stares at me. She isn't particularly babbly or laughy or physical for her age. I sometimes think that maybe she is behind because she is so mellow and chill that maybe its bad that she isn't learning things fast enough but that lasts for a nano second because I know she is just going at her own pace and like I always say its not like she is going to be the only kid in College who can't crawl.

For Easter this year we just hung out in the back yard, no traveling to families house. I did put her in a super cute bunny romper though. Her face looks so different in this photo, she is developing so fast. She loves to be outside, and its good for her to touch and lay in the grass so we go out there and she just chills out. 

Her sweet smile and giggle melt me. She is so happy.

O took this picture of us just chilling again in the back yard. We make a point to spend Saturdays together as a family doing no work at all, just enjoying the weather, and each other. 

I took this photo this morning when we were laying around in bed together. I let her sit up with me sitting indian style so that if she falls over I can just prop her right back up. Sometimes she just wants to cuddle and hold her favorite toy stuffed rat.

I don't know how she can hold her head up with those cheeks!! 

We have a nanny that can take her five days a week, and she can hang out with her little friends there who she loves to see and who love to see her. This past week I kept her with me four out of the five days because I missed her too much. Sometimes when I have work to do that isn't painting, for example if I have to run a lot of errands or have meetings I just take her with me so we can spend time together on an adventure. I try to throw in lunch with my aunt, or mom or a friend in there too.

She is so easy going, just loves observing and listening and doesn't complain. I am feeding her all kinds of yummy things like apples, bananas, avocados, chicken, roasted carrots and squash, eggs and pork too. She is learning how to hold and use a sippy cup and she learned recently that if we put her down on the ground she can just roll her sweet cubby little body around to get where she wants to go: namely to my art supplies, or the dogs. She is just fascinated with them and even sort of understands petting them, although it turns into "let me see if I can pull this ear off and eat it" sometimes so I don't let her do that.

I really try to have as much mental space as possible when I paint, so she has to be napping, or engrossed in something if I am feeling very confident about a painting. Mostly though I head to the studio to work when she is at the nanny. I can already see that I am going to enjoy having a studio at home so much. We are going to build in the backyard and I hope that when we do that I can spend time with her in there and teach her how to create. Of course O wants her to be a musician and I can already see him teaching her to compose electronic music at a very young age. He is so proud of her and adores her. The feeling is mutual, she grins and kicks her chubby legs as soon as she sees him and reaches out for him. I am so grateful that she has such a loving, doting father in her life.

Basically we are very contented, and very happy and loving every second of having Alia in our lives.