Shuntavi has a fun-filled week

Even though we are very busy, we started to find a parenting rhythm this week.

This week began with Shuntavi's mother's birthday party. She played with her cousins, aunts/uncles, and grandparents. Her grandma Jane (aka Gaga) soothed her with her songs.

Despite the packed schedules and mucho on-call time,

we still found time to play some ultimate frisbee games on our new team.

Shuntavi loves to catch and hold onto the disc,

but really she prefers eating it.

Uncle Josh (aka Uncle Gock) was the game MVP for taking care of Shuntavi most of the time while her parents played together.

What a gift!

Finally, the new childcare equilibrium was unsettled because of family illness and we needed to locate a babysitter ASAP.

We advertised----"Needed: A babysitter with extensive parenting experience, who can come on last notice, treat her with love, feed her a bottle and change a diaper or two. Chainsaw optional."

What a deal!!! Grandpa Julien (aka Pepe) was great babysitter and we got help taking down a tree in the backyard too.

Shuntavi drinks (on her own)

Of course, Shuntavi's drink of choice is milk from the breast.

For two months, Shuntavi has able to take this milk from a bottle without much difficulty, but now she can hold it herself.

check out this video

Recently, she has begun to diversify her beverages.
She tried drinking water from a cup--the cup of wisdom (Tufts).

Shutavi reads and celebrates

Shuntavi has been doing all kinds of new things lately.

She has started to read.

She has started to hug her special doll.

She even went to her auntie Anique's late night b-day celebration in a party dress where she danced with all her aunts.

Shuntavi camps with friends

(Note: This blog entry is backdated to May 27th, but is being published today because Shuntavi's family came down with a belly bug and were unable to publish a blog (not to mention stand up) for several days. Sorry to let Shuntavi blog readers down last week.

Shuntavi and her family set out for a special camping weekend with six other young families at a group campsite at the foot of Mt Cardigan (approx. 3,500 ft). She slept between her parents in her own little sleeping bag.

Shuntavi and her parents took an adventurous hike up the mountain. The shortest route is not necessarily the easiest way. We learned our lesson and we will force Shuntavi to take it easy on her hiking adventures for awhile.

(That block of pictures were then censored with a rating of NC-GP (that's right, very likely to cause grandparents to have nightmares) and were therefore banished to the wasteland of restricted viewing only.)

All's well that ends well--a beautiful view from Shuntavi's first true mountain top.



The explorers made it back to camp for dinner--mac and cheese, and smores. Yum!