It’s hard to believe that Riley will be 7 months old in a few days – well, hard to believe in that it doesn’t seem like that much time has passed since she was born, easier to believe as much as she is developing. I will do my best to summarize some of the recent highlights since my lasts update (I know, it’s been a while again…):

• Riley did well at her 6 month appointment in February, she weights just under 17 pounds and is almost 25″ long as well; she continues to hit the 50% percentile of the growth curves so Mom, Dad and our pediatrician are happy with that;
• Baby Boo is still not agreeable to the whole notion of crawling – the only ‘tummy time’ that she likes is if she is resting on Mom or Dad’s shoulder; what she does seem to like though is standing up – she has good balance (for a baby her age) and likes to be held up where she can see what’s going on and do her little Riley Dance;
• It seems that we have a very talkative wee one as well – Ms. Riley is growing her vocabulary now to include more than screeches, yelps and crying – the repertoire now includes ‘Blah’ ‘Ba’ and possibly ‘Da’ – as much as I want it to be recognition of Dad, for now it’s a very generic term that can cover anything from a blanket, to Mom, to Dad, to the dog or cats – but it’s cute and exciting nonetheless 🙂
• Mom and Dad had a not so fun experience with a flu bug or the Nolo virus that is circulating around our part of NC – both of us were incapacitated within a couple of hours of each other and it took almost a week to get to feeling close to ‘normal’; luckily – Riley was a trooper and didn’t come down with a full version of the sickness, she is such a good, healthy baby (except for her affinity for ear infections)…
• Speaking of ear infections, we took Riley to an ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) specialist and based on the results of some hearing tests combined with the number of ear infections that Riley has experienced, the doctor is recommending that Riley get tubes in her ears; we are both hopeful (that this will put a stop to the ear infections) and a little nervous (since they will have to put Riley under for the surgery – although it is only supposed to take 15 minutes or so); for now the procedure is scheduled for 16 March 07;
• Other than the sickness, Mom and Dad and the critters are all doing well – we’ve had some nice (60 and 70 degree) weather along with a bit of rain – but no snow or ice storms (yet); work is going well for everyone, Mark just finished up teaching his second MBA class and 3 of his student teams received some positive feedback and follow-up with some local investment and development groups!;
• The whole NC crew is proud of Grandpa George on his retirement from White Pigeon Paper Company – it’s amazing that he had been working there since 1964 – way to go Grandpa George, we’re sure that Grandma Carol will have plenty of things to take up your newfound free time now!;
• We have been enjoying learning how to play Guitar Hero II (a fun video game that Beth got Mark for Christmas) – with Beth picking up some mad fake guitar skillz and rock star power from her time in the game;

I’m sure that I have missed some key things, and I will update the post or create a new entry when they come back to mind. We don’t have any new Flickr pictures yet, but here’s a link to some good pictures that Beth has taken of Riley with her cell phone (she shares them with me and her Mom in the morning – talk about a great way to start the day, she’s such a good Mom! 🙂 – click here to check out the pictures, the newest pictures are at the end (on page 4 as of the time of this posting – but check them all out, lots of cuteness and personality in these pages!) We hope that everyone is well and healthy, feel free to leave a comment or send us an email. Until next time –
Mark (aka Dad, Da, Blah, and other assorted noises)