New things, again

Cora is growing and changing so much and it seems it all happened within a weekend. I already wrote about how she rolls around front to back, back to front easily, and scooches to the corner in her crib - the beginnings of mobility. She has also started sitting for fairly long amounts of time with some support. On Monday (June 18) she started eating rice cereal (her first experience with solid foods) and seems to have mastered the art of getting food off the spoon, keeping it mostly in her mouth and swallowing! She opens her mouth really wide when the spoon comes near - but she really opens her mouth when anything comes near it. Today it seemed she was singing while eating (I remember my sister Deb doing that in her highchair when she was younger). I decided she's too young to teach not to talk with food in her mouth. Ha ha ha. Also I think she's just about ready to cut her first tooth. I felt a peculiar bump on her gums a few days ago, then it went away. But this morning it was back...She doesn't seem to be fussy, though. Maybe she'll go through the teething business with out fussing! Ha!!!
Oh, for the record and for those who I talked to concerning Cora's naps: A little history first. For the last two months or so Cora would rarely nap longer than 45 minutes. It drove me nuts because she couldn't stay awake hardly long enough to eat well and every two hours she would get sleepy, rubbing her eyes, etc., but would only sleep 30-45 minutes. Sometimes she'd wake up really cranky, other times happy. Well, now that she's able to roll on her tummy and get into the corner she has been sleeping 1 1/2 to 2 hours for her morning nap. The afternoon naps are still short, but this is a huge improvement. She's still sleeping like a champ at night (for which we are very thankful) but we're so happy to have this new development. I hope it lasts for a while! I honestly had been praying for weeks that her naps would improve in length (so she could take two long naps instead of 4 short naps) partly because I believed it would be better for her but also for my own sanity. (How do you plan anything around 5 eating times and 4 naps that are spread apart by an hour each?) I'm so thankful for this new change and hope that it sticks around for a while!

Brad is in Los Angeles with four high school students and another leader for a SERVE project with Cross Point Church in Chino. They drove most the day Friday to Las Vegas with stops at Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, and a few other places. I'm sure they did a geocache or two along the way also. They walked the strip in Las Vegas Friday evening before crashing for the night at the CRC church there. He made a few crazy connections, as Brad seems to be able to do wherever he goes. The pastor the church is Steve (and wife, Frankie) Wunderink who were the leaders on my first SERVE trip to the Dominican Republic in '96. The youth pastor's husband is their nephew, Matt Wunderink, who knows Brad's brother, Ryan, from Calvin. Matt apparently thinks Ryan is awesome, so Matt and Brad hit it off well. Small world. I think the students gave Brad a few quizzical, suspicious looks. Just wait till they find out how many connections he has to the church and area they're SERVEing at...Ha ha ha.