Wow! July?

I keep thinking, "How hard can it be to post here more than once a month?" Well, this just might be out of the realm of possibility. So, here's our June roundup... first of all, as the date grew closer for me to return to work, I was very undecided about what I wanted to do. After a lot of agonizing and praying and waffling, I approached my job about working part-time from home. Luckily, they agreed and were pretty flexible about setting the whole thing up! So, now I'm working Tuesday through Friday from 8-12 from home. I've been working again for a few weeks now, and I think things are going very well. Our friend Emily agreed to watch Violet in the mornings at our apartment, and that is going even better than I had hoped. Violet loves Emily and Emily does great with her. I am able to leave her and run into the office when necessary, but I still don't like to be in a different place than her so I don't do it often. Sometimes I take her with me into work, where everyone oohs and aahs over her. It helps me to keep my day a little more organized, and I am so happy to see Vi when I come out of the bedroom at noon and she reaches out for me!

Violet is certainly no small baby. We moved her into 9 month clothes on her 5-month birthday. But she is a cutie. She rolls everywhere, although we've noticed she only rolls to her right, not her left. She's not an ambi-turner. (Zoolander reference, anyone?) She's definitely a thumb- or finger-sucker, and she is getting close to sitting on her own but doesn't quite have all the balance worked out yet. I also predict it won't be long before she starts dragging herself around with her forearms after toys that are out of reach. The prospect of a mobile baby is very scary to me! She can already roll herself under the coffee table and lay on her back, scratching her fingernails on the underside of it. She loves it for some reason but sometimes I wish she would just stay where I put her.

We've had lots of fun outings in June and even so far in July. Clark's dad came to California for a week to celebrate Father's Day, and we dragged him all over and had a good time. This past Monday, we went to Six Flags with a guy that works in Clark's lab since his little sister was visiting from Turkey and she really wanted to go, but he hates roller coasters so we volunteered to ride them with her if Hasan would watch the baby. It worked out perfectly and Violet was nothing less than an angel the whole 11 hours we were there!

I know there are many things I'm leaving out, but Violet is asleep and I want to actually use this time to be productive. Her sleeping schedule is starting to stabilize and we're ever so slowly inching back her bedtime to a more reasonable hour. She seems to have no problem sleeping 8-10 hours at night most nights, so we're very happy about that. The next big hurdle is our 10 day trip to Delaware for the Ridge family reunion next month. I'm very excited, but nervous about traveling with a baby on a plane and being away from the comforts of home for so long. Advice?

Here, of course, are the goods - many pictures of the baby to coo over. I don't blame you if you skipped over the blah blah blahs above and cut right to the good parts!