Ali-gator

Ali-gator is Jane's nickname for Alice.  She calls her that all the time.  I usually use Ali-kins, but other variations include Ali-cat, Ali-saurus, Ali-monster, Ali-Ali-oxen free, and Grabby-grabberton.

At 6 months old, our little Ali-gator is scooting all over the place.  She gets up on her hands and knees all the time, rocks back and forth, and then face-plants, but no real crawling yet.

She's close to sitting, but doesn't quite have the balance yet, or perhaps the patience.  As soon as we sit her up, she dives after something she wants.  She finally has enough control to sit in a high chair, though and that is a huge milestone to me.  Now if we eat out, we're not struggling with a baby crawling, squirming and grabbing everything as we try and eat.  Phew!

She eats three meals a day in addition to nursing and is finally starting to outgrow her 0-3 month clothing. She just had a lower front tooth break through.  We had a few rough nights with that, but we seem to be back on track.  She usually wakes up twice a night.

A few weeks back she suddenly decided to boycott bottles.  I've tried so many times since then with no success.  It used to be that I was the only one she would take a bottle from, and now she's just done.  It makes getting a babysitter much harder.

She's a little screamer now.  It usually happens when she's happy, but still wants to be picked up or when the next bite food isn't getting there fast enough.  She just screeches loudly all the time now.

The War Memorial in Indianapolis

In remembrance of those how died in 9/11, they fill the courtyard in front of the War Memorial in downtown Indy with American flags.  The whole mall of memorials is beautiful and we had been meaning to check it out, so this seemed a fitting time.  The War Memorial itself is a huge building/monument with a small, but interesting War Museum in the basement.  We really like our city here, and it's fun to keep exploring new areas.

The City Museum - St. Louis

The City Museum in St. Louis was one of the highlights of the whole trip.  This place is nothing short of mind-blowing. It's a labyrinth of stairs, slides, tunnels, bridges, and secret passages.  Anything and everything is meant to be climbed on and explored.  Over and over again, I would emerge from some narrow passage to find another sweaty, panting parent and we would give each other that wide-eyed, this-place-is-nuts kind of look.  I wonder how often they deal with lost children.  Our kids are a little small utilize this playground to it's full potential, but they were excited about it nonetheless.  They could have stayed in one little corner the whole time, but Chris and I wanted to see more.  As it was, we only touched on a small section of it.

This is a terrible picture, but it's the only one I have that shows the twisting blue rebar tube that leads from one floor to the next.  We sat here just before we left and I looked at that and thought, I wonder how often people go in that one?  It looks miserable.  While we sat there we saw three adults attempt it.  The would squeeze in and shuffle around the first bend until they were 100% committed and then you could read the regret all over their body language.  It was very entertaining to watch.

Kansas City (Continued)

Our second day in Kansas City was more relaxing.  We went to church in the morning and then had lunch at a great Pizza place.  We had that whole wing of the restaurant practically to ourselves, and it was nice to just sit and visit without having to rush off anywhere.  After lunch we visited the WWI museum.  It's ranked 5th of best museums in the country, and it had a great view of Kansas City.

 The entrance to the museum has a glass bridge over a garden of poppies.  I think it was Jane and Peter's favorite part.  The museum definitely wasn't geared toward kids, but they did just fine.  Peter managed to take a nap in the stroller, so that made a big difference.