10 months

Not too many new things to update you on - Rose is mostly just continuing to master her current skills. She now has one bottom tooth coming in to join her two top teeth. Grandma gave Rose her first "hair cut" when we were visiting. Just a snip off the front as she had a few strands of hair that went as far down as her eyebrows.

She still loves to hold our hands and walk/run around but now if we decide we're too tired to go anymore she'll shout her protest and kick her feet and tug our hands.

If she hears me laughing she'll start laughing too. Which of course makes me laugh even more.

She has learned to "climb" off of things - sort of. She'll get on her tummy and start scooting off the edge - sometimes sideways sometimes face first. She'll do it off her bed (we've converted her crib to the toddler bed) and she tries to do it off our bed occasionally but hasn't been able to complete her objective with that one as Mommy keeps restraining her. 

Her personality is coming out more now that she can express herself with kicking, crying, squeals and waving. She is so much fun!

Fun at the Bookstore

Rose and I went on a fun little excursion today. We left the house and went to this used book store with the intention of using a bogo coupon to get 2 new books for Rose. This is what I came home with: 2 for Rose, 2 for Bryce's classroom library, and 1 for me. 

I only paid $3.25 for all of them and they're all in great condition, so I think I did pretty good. Especially considering that brand new off amazon I would have spent closer to $30. 

I sure do love to get good deals on books. 

Found a Doctor

Yesterday Rose had her 9 month doctors appointment - our first one with a doctor here in Kingman. I've been pretty worried about it as the two pediatrician's here in town were not taking new patients so I had to find a family doctor. I tried getting recommendations from other mom's in the ward but they either already were patients of the pediatricians or they took their kids to a clinic where there were only nurses on staff - no dr's. So I had to just google and find a family clinic and hope for the best.

I wasn't too impressed at first - at least with the staff. Instead of taking us back to a room so I could undress Rose and then go get her weighed, they took me to a nook in the hallway where I had to put the diaper bag on the floor, and undress my wriggling baby on my lap. Then they wanted me to stand her up so they could hold a measuring tape up and get her length. Uh... that seemed stupid to me so I asked if they had any tables to lay her down on to measure her. The nurse said they did in the room, and we could go there to measure her but then she'd have to come back out here to the computer to enter in the information (as if that is such a big deal). I told her we should do that. On the way to the room I asked if they deal with very many kids in this office and she said no. Sigh - not a good sign.

Thankfully, I did not have to wait very long for the doctor to come in. Right away I felt at ease. The doctor was very friendly and Rose smiled and jabbered at him. He spent 20 minutes just talking with me, asking lots of questions about Rose, offering advice for what to expect the next few months. Then he checked her out. He was so good with her, showing her his stethoscope and whistling to her to distract her.

Rose needed to get her hemoglobin levels checked and they did do that in their office, but he said that he didn't think his staff was confident enough (as they don't have a lot of babies in there) and he suggested I take her to the lab at the hospital. I really appreciated that he was honest about his staff's inexperience so that Rose would get the best care, even if he had to send us somewhere else. Then he gave us a follow up call when the lab results came back to confirm that her hemoglobin levels were good. I did not expect him to call - maybe his staff but not him, so that was another point for him.

All in all I am very happy to have found a doctor that Rose and I are both comfortable with. It's a very big relief as I was not happy with our doctor in St George and I was worried about finding a good one here.