Callia Lee Riden

Callia hung out with Grandpa Riden, and had her first sleepover away from Mommy and Daddy with Katheryn. Here's the photos.

Callia is five months old! We've got some new pictures up (here) of her playing with Mom, Dad, Guido and her friends at daycare. Any fool can plainly see how incredibly cute she is, but what a lot of people don't realize is that she's also a super genius. Here's some proof:

I noticed something this morning.. and she's probably been doing this for a while, but this morning it struck me that when I change her diaper she helps me. When I unzipped her outfit, she pulled her legs up out of the legs of the sleeper so I could slip them off easier. Once I got it off, she laid her legs down so I could get to the daiper tape. When I was pulling the diaper off, she lifted her butt up for me. I wiped her off, and touched her legs when I needed to pick them up to get the back side of her little booty.. and she flipped her legs up for me. When I was done cleaning up, she laid them back down. I got a new diaper, and she lifted up her butt for me so I could slip it under.

It was cool. At every stage of the process she knew what I needed her to do and she helped me out. I guess she has done it for a while, but I just then realized it. That really made me smile.

I had her trained to grab her bottle and hold it on her own. Whenever I'd feed her, I'd put each of her hands on her bottle for her. She wouldn't always keep them there, but sometimes she'd hold it for a while. Every once in a while, she'd just grab it from me like she didn't have time to mess around with it.. it was really funny. She hasn't been doing it on her own so much lately, so I guess I have to get her back into the habit.

Every day, the girls at the daycare fill out a "what happened today" sheet: tally marks on dirty diapers, when / what she ate, when she slept.. and there's a place for them to write in. They always have good things to say about Callia.. they really do love her. Today, the girl (forget her name) wrote this:

"She ate up her cereal and enjoyed it. Spent a lot of time smiling today. Had a great time outside enjoying the weather. We went for a buggy ride and she had fun watching the leaves fall. She had a great day!"