Sweet Moments

When I'm laying with you nursing you to sleep... sometimes you hold my hand.  Which in itself makes mom tear up just a bit with how sweet it feels to have my baby hold my hand.  But then sometimes you bring my finger you've got a grip on up to your cheek and actually move my hand to stroke your cheek.  It was something I did when you were much younger and I was trying to calm you during our bedtime routine.

"Dough!"

People say all the time that they wish they knew what was going on inside a baby's head.  I haven't really wished that so much... until now.  You've been pointing a lot lately and now you point at a great variety of things and say, "Dough!"  "Dough!" "Dough!" You are trying to express something (you are often quite excited about!) and direct my attention to these things.  I do truly wish I knew why!  We went on a stroll around the neighborhood yesterday just before bedtime and I think you pointed at a tree, "Dough!"  I said, "Yes Violet... that's a tree!"  For the rest of our walk you pointed at trees.  We stopped to touch the bark of a few trees!

Taking Steps!

Highlight today:  Steps!  You've been pulling up to standing for a few weeks not but, until today, hadn't shown any interest in taking steps.  Today, you did it!  You were standing against the fridge but I needed you to move away from it.  I turned you around and held your hands... you took three or four steps toward me!  We spent some time with our friends Marie and Oskar this afternoon and he is quite an accomplished walker.  Well, he can take a few steps without any support at all.  You watched him very closely like you were really getting some ideas!

Doggie

We have a wonderful neighbor, Abe, who has a dog named Jack.  Abe got Jack as a puppy not that long after you were born and this was one darn cute puppy.  For several months you have been mesmerized by dogs we come across on the street... not to mention Jack!  This afternoon Abe was having friends over in the yard and they brought friends for Jack as well.  We sat out back so you could watch the kids and dogs frolicking.  I have been identifying "doggie" for awhile now and said the word over and over for you to hear while pointing and Jack and friends.  You tried!  You clearly said, several times, a two syllable word beginning with /d/.  This might very well be your first actual word!!

While we were sitting watching the other neighbor, three-year-old Juniper running around with Jack I was overwhelmed by a mom feeling.  You were so eager to get out there and play, run, and chase... but you can't even yet stand by yourself!  I wanted so badly for you to be able to join in the fun you were so excited by.  But at the same time, I am perfectly fine with the wait.  My little girl can remain little a little while longer.    

9 Months and Favorite Food

You're nine months old!  This seemed like such a big milestone all along but also so far away.  And here we are.  And it certainly is a big one!  Crawling (First time on April 16th) and trying to pull yourself up on furniture, our legs, the dishwasher, etc.  And teething!  You're getting your fifth tooth, an upper.  I won't lie:  this was one rough week.  For all of us!  You have lots of snot with this tooth coming and maybe some allergies with the beautiful weather we've been having.  You don't seem sick otherwise.  We also had our first bloody boo boo. Oh it was traumatic, again, for all.  You were pulling yourself up on an ottoman and fell backwards, and giving yourself a fat lip.  Blood all over your lips and teeth.  Yikes.  I suppose there's more of that to come but I hope they're all minor bumps.

 You also seemed to lose interest in solids the last week or so.  I'm told that sometimes happens while teething and that makes sense.  But tonight you ate a great dinner.  Steamed broccoli, sweet potato and some cherry tomatoes.  Those were your very first tomatoes and it is fair to say that I think we've found your favorite food!  You sucked the seeds out and then scraped the pulp out with your teeth all very enthusiastically.  It was wonderful to watch!  Other foods you have enjoyed the last few months:  strawberries, raspberries, pasta, toast with avocado or peanut butter, frozen waffles, Indian spiced gardenburgers, mom's spicy turkey meatballs, oatmeal, yogurt, scrambled eggs, avocado, dried pineapple, dried mango, etc!

Ah, other recent developments: we bought a house! More on that later... 

Sleeping Hard

Your timing is rough little one.  Your usual 40 minute nap (to the second!) is now at almost an hour and a half and of course we're supposed to be somewhere, well, now.  I'm not waking you yet but will need to soon!  It's just so awesome to see your naps extending.  I stretched the time between waking to nap by a bit this morning and maybe that's a good thing.  It was three hours rather than the customary two.  We'll try this again I believe!  

Six Months Old!

You are six months old!  Such a big girl.  You're sitting up!  You roll and roll and roll!  You try to crawl and you're close but quite yet.  The other morning your dad called me to come down to the living room where he stood staring at you.  You were laying on your tummy on the hardwood floor.  "I set her down over THERE," he said, pointing to a spot on the carpet about six feet away.  Roller!

Here are some other highlights from the last few weeks:

Yesterday while I was rocking you to sleep I thought I'd try the pacifier again.  You tolerated it for awhile before you just started playing with it.  This time though you popped it out of your mouth, turned it around, and aimed it directly at mine.  Ha!  "Here mom.  YOU try this thing.  It sucks!"

A few days ago we were sitting in a neighborhood park with a small community garden.  I thought you were just staring off into space again but I realized you were seriously observing about six small finches flying around a bird feeder before you caught sight of a crow fly across the sky above.  It is so fun to watch you, well, watching.  You're noticing so many more things about your environment these days.

We have a board book called In My Nest that we've been reading off and on since you were born.  Sometimes you just get soooo frustrating because all you want to do is chew on the books.  But you're becoming more interested lately.  This book has a little finger puppet of a bird in a nest.  A hole in each page shows the puppet.  After we finished reading it (and you chewed on the bird for a few seconds) you held the book and turned it over to look at the back where my finger was in the puppet.  Then you looked at the front where the bird is.  Then back again  Front, back, front, back.  You are trying to figure it out!  The wheels are turning!

We love taking you to Volunteer Park!  This time you rode down the slide with dad.  So exciting!  And you were closely watching what all the other kids on the playground were up to.  I think you want to run with the pack!  I'm hoping even if we don't live in this neighborhood when you turn 1, we'll return for a birthday party.  There is an awesome wading pool I think you might just love!