Callia Lee Riden

Although she has been scooting around the floor and rolling over and stuff, today was the first day Callia busted out with a full-blown crawl and traveled across the room like she had places to go. If you blink, she'll have moved 10 feet and be trying to put her finger in an electrical socket.. so I guess the fun has just begun!

Callia got to spend Saturday night and most of Sunday with Aunt Jessie at her new house.

Callia has so many clothes.. thank God for grandmothers. Today, I dressed her up in a onesy and a denim thing that looks like overalls with a skirt bottom & she was stylin'. With her crawling around, though.. the skirt kept hiking up on her. The girls at daycare gave me junk about it on her sheet of daily notes: "Callia looked so cute today! But she was tickled constantly because she was showing so much leg!"

Laura had the day off, so she came in and had lunch with me and a few friends at work, then we went to play with our little snuggle machine for a bit. Any time work starts sucking, I'll just walk over to the daycare and play with her.. that makes the day so much better.

A good friend came to the house to baby-sit so Laura and I could go out tonight. We went to the Bar Car for the hilarious comedy & had a really fun time.

Saturday night, Callia's Great Grandma Mandy (my mom's mom from North Dakota) flew in to Nashville to visit. My parents drove over from their house and they all spent the night Saturday and Sunday nights. I'll upload the photos soon.

Callia loves electronics. Her toys mean nothing once she sees my cellphone or a remote control. When she sees the camera come out, she lights up and squeals with delight.. crawling toward it and mugging it up. In my office in the basement, I have an old Apple ][e on the floor. When we were in there last week, she was all about trying to type. She also keeps trying to play with my laptop, so I set up an old Mac in her room so she can play on it & we can play music for her on it. She's a little technology genius already.

Monday evening, Callia and I got home and were playing on the floor in the living room. She was really energetic and active.. she was crawling all over the place and standing up and laughing and playing hard. After a few minutes, she crawled over to Laura's stereo on the floor and was pushing buttons. "How cute," I thought.. but now I think she may have known what she was doing.

Somehow, she got a Frank Sinatra cd to play.. and once it started she crawled back to where I was laying down and touched my face for a while. After "I've Got The World On A String" played, another track started. I guess she didn't like it, 'cause she crawled back to the stereo and hit the skip button to send it to the next song and she crawled back to me.

She went back a third time and turned the volume up. Then, she left the stereo alone and didn't go back to it.. she just played with me.

Around 6 p.m., I fed her. Afterwards, we were getting ready to go take a bath, but she didn't seem ready to go yet, so I held her and we danced to Sinatra for a song.. then Mommy came home!

Callia was already so excited and having such a great day.. but her big smile pretty much turned into a cheer when she saw her Mommy.

Vanderbilt offered to send me to a web developer's conference in San Francisco, so I took 'em up on it. They paid for the flight, hotel, rental car, conference, and my meals.. so I almost HAD to go. I hung out with some friends out there and tried to get as much stage time as possible. I had a lot of fun, but it was really tough to be away from home for so long.

I flew out on Tuesday the 17th, and by Thursday night I was more than ready to come home to my Ladies. I'd call home and Laura would put the phone up to Callia's ear.. she'd get excited and giggle & I'd want to crawl thru the phone and go home. Friday was tough.. but Saturday was just miserable. I woke up early enough to get the free breakfast from the hotel, then packed my stuff, checked out, returned the car and made my way to the terminal at the airport. I guess I was anxious to get home 'cause I had a good three hours until they started boarding for my flight.

I called home, hoping to talk to my baby.. but Laura was at work and Callia was asleep. Aunt Jessie had spent the night and was on Baby Duty until Laura got back home.. I told her how much I missed my little girl.. that I'd seen young families all day and all I could think about was my little sweetie. I must've been an emotional wreck 'cause Jessie said I about made her cry.

Finally, I arrived in Nashville & Laura and Callia greeted me at the luggage pick-up area: it was the greatest sight I can imagine.