Beatrice Meets a Horse and Makes a Friend

Beatrice has been busy as always, having lots of "firsts". A few weeks ago, we took her out to my Aunt Nancy's land so she could play. Poor Beatrice was sound asleep and we woke her up so that she could see her first horse. As you can see from the pictures, she was a bit terrified.

Beatrice has also made her first friend--Minnie, who is the daughter of Kelly, one of my new friends in Greenville. Minnie is about 3 months older than Bea, so it is always fun when we get them together to get a sneak preview of what Beatrice will soon be up to. We have taken the girls on a couple of walks together, and now that it is getting nice, our whole family has started spending lots of time on a blanket in our front yard. Two weeks ago, we put the girls on the blanket together and tried to get them to interact. Minnie smiled and laughed, and Beatrice managed to stick her tongue out at Minnie a bunch, so we were pretty sure that they liked each other.

stuffed animal puppet show

Recently I (Conor) put on an impromptu puppet show for Beatrice. Things started out pretty good, she was very attentive and interested:

There was a nice bear that came to visit her, and Beatrice was scoping it out:Then the Beatrice decided maybe the bear wasn't such a good buddy after all:
The bear is banned from the next puppet show.

Funny Faces

Beatrice is getting very good at making crazy faces. She is now smiling often and starting to imitate us when we make faces at her. Her best move is sticking out her tongue at us, which is quite cute.

Relay for Life

A few weeks ago, Conor, Beatrice, and I participated in ECU's Relay for Life, which is an all-night walkathon to raise money to fight cancer. Different groups from ECU all had booths and various themes. Conor's geography program picked "Woodstock" as their theme and had a tie-dye party to make outfits. Beatrice was a very lucky girl--the girls in Conor's program tie-dyed a onesie for her so that she could fit in. We Health Psychology PhD students picked "80s Aerobicize" as our theme and all dressed accordingly, in pink spandex and leg warmers to boot.

Beatrice had a blast. She was awake for almost 5 hours while we were there--just wide-eyed and taking in all of the sights and sounds. She made lots of laps on the track, courtesy of Albee, one of my friends, who delighted in pushing her stroller around the track all night.

Happy Easter!

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I just couldn't resist getting a head start on Easter and dressing Beatrice up in her little ducky dress and bonnet yesterday. I have to say at first I though that putting babies into bonnets was a little (no a lot) silly, but once we put it on her, I totally changed my mind! She was so adorable in that big white lacy bonnet.
Happy Easter everyone!

Project Viable's Newest Research Assistant

Here at ECU, all of us Health Psychology PhD students are assigned to research assistantships for 20 hours per week. I work with an awesome research team under a big grant called "Project Viable". Our team consists of my mentor, Dr. Chris Riley-Tillman, and three other grad students, Lana, Shannon, and Jessica. Well a few weeks ago, Team Viable threw Beatrice a little baby shower at one of our weekly research meetings. Not only did they give us some great baby gifts, but best of all, Shannon had made customized baby bibs for Beatrice, since she is the newest member of the research team. So of course we had to have a photo shoot. I think my favorites are the "Too Cute 2 Be Analyzed" and the "I Love DBRs" bibs. (DBR stands for Direct Behavior Ratings--that is the tool that we research through our grant.)
So far Beatrice has been to two of our weekly meetings and was very intrigued by the whole process. She is well on her way to being a pint-sized academic.

Pretty Pics

Conor took Beatrice to a tie-dye party yesterday, and one of our friends, Carrie, took these amazing pictures of her. The party was in preparation for Friday's Relay for Life event (a walkathon to raise money for cancer). Tons of groups on campus are participating and everyone is encouraged to come up with a theme and dress up in crazy costumes for it. Both of our grad programs are going to be out there walking--we Health Psychology girls are doing an 80's Aerobics theme for our group, and Conor's GeoClub is doing a Woodstock theme, hence the tie-dying. Beatrice got a onsie tie-dyed so she will fit right in. Of course she also has a pair of striped leg warmers so maybe she can wear those too.