Week Forty Two

Still on yucky antibiotics and not happy about it, but you are sleeping better and seem happier in general so we think that they are working.  You started real baby crawling, which I never thought that you would do.  I was getting you ready for your bath and you were naked on the floor of the bathroom and you got fully up on your hands and knees and made a bee line for the hallway.  I yelled for your Dad, who could not understand what all the excitement was about until he saw you.  You still prefer to inchworm, but if your knees are bare you will start to real crawl.

You also discovered how fun it is to feed the dogs this week.  You fed Lakota a graham cracker and laughed like crazy when she ate it.  Lakota now sits at attention near your high chair hoping for handouts.

Your Grandma came for a visit and you had a lot of fun playing with her and she loved helping take care of you.  I never thought that my Mom would be so attentive to a little baby, since she is not very maternal, but she loves you so much!

Week Forty One

As usual, as soon as I have caught up this baby book I end up weeks and weeks behind again.  You are keeping us so busy that between cooking, cleaning, shopping, playing and taking pictures there is no time left in the day to blog.  I have to say that I love it and would not change a thing, other than having your sister here to add to our chaotic life.

This week was the beginning of the UTI, plastic diaper saga.  You went in for your 9 month well visit, and we discovered that your poor sleep the past two nights was not due to teething pain, but a urinary tract infection.  You were in the 8% percentile for weight, which for you was amazing, but you dropped to the 25% percentile for height.  Dr Chang thinks that you may take after your Dad and be shorter than average instead of like me, taller than normal.  It doesn't really matter, we love you no matter how tall you are, but I was hoping that you would be tall like me.  So you started some nasty tasting antibiotics (Bactram) and we waited for culture results, which grew an E coli.

I was trying to work on sleep training some more this week, hoping that we would get closer to you sleeping through the night, but it was a massive fail and I am pretty sure this was the week I just started sleeping on the floor of your room with you.  It's not that I don't love being close with you, but I do sleep better in my own bed!

Margaret also got you a cordless phone this week as a toy.  You are so smart though, you know that it is not the real thing, so although a great idea, you don't play with it as much as we hoped you would.

Week Forty

You are my super big girl this week.  You can balance better and better while standing, and you improvised a baby walker with an upside down laundry basket, so you have taken your first assisted steps.  I know that you will be walking all by yourself soon and I am so proud to watch you discover how your body works.  You turned 9 months old this week and I am trying to take more pictures of you again.  I have had to resort to videos since you are always on the move!

You said your second word "baby" and you know that is means you.  You are so verbal and I am breathlessly awaiting for you to say Momma.

I was officially adopted this week,  babies aren't allowed in the courthouse and it was your nap time, so you could not be there.  So Grandpa is legally your Grandpa now.  I am so happy about this.  It was so important to me.

You slept so well, in your crib, from 7:30 pm to 3 am last night.  It was amazing for me to sleep that long, although I miss having you in my bed.  I love nursing you right before putting you down for the night.  I think of that time as a perfect moment.  I try to drink it the feeling of it, the smell of you after your bath, the warmth of you curled into me nursing.  I want to make a perfect memory of it so I can go back to that perfect time again and again.  I love you so much baby.

Week Thirty Nine

Okay I have been trying to down play how often you say "Dada"  I told myself that it was just meaningless babbling, but I cannot deny your first word any longer.  You looked right and your Dad and said "Dada."  You also now say Daddy as well.  Sometimes you say it to me, so Mark tells me that it means parent to you, but I think that he is just sparing my feelings.  It is nice in the middle of the night when you are crying and you say "Dadda, dadda, Daddy." I just tell Mark you are calling for him and I get a little extra sleep!

Sleep is something that has been in short supply.  You want to practice pulling up to standing all the time, even in the middle of the night.  You don't want to sleep in your crib, in the big family bed you try to crawl to the edge, so I was at a complete loss for what to do.  I actually started sleeping on the floor of your room, so that if you wanted to crawl and practice standing you could, but I could take little cat naps too.  Not the most comfortable, but at least you have a sheep skin rug that is pretty soft for a bed.

We have been walking more, at least once a day we pack you up in your stroller and off we go.  You love it, you hold on and look at everything.  The weather has been perfect and I love the time outside with you.

Week Thirty Eight

Well Bob is back.  You starting talking about him again,  I wish I knew what you meant by Bob...  We started feeding you organic O cereal this week.  I don't think that you like how it tastes, but you love to bite the pieces and crunch them.  You also love to pick up the cereal and try to put it in your mouth.  Unfortunately you aim is not so good and the cereal ends up all over.  It is so cute to watch you eat and try to feed yourself.  You amaze me.

This week was also your sister's 2nd birthday.  It was emotional and hard and so sad.  I wish that she could be here.  I wish that you could know her as more than some pictures and an urn.  I wish that I could have watched her grow, like I get to watch you.  We had a picnic and I made a cake.  Next year I would like to go on a Day trip to the arboretum or up north to the woods.  I hope that you love Grace too.  She was so special and she protects you from afar.

Week Thirty Seven

This week Remi had his first big hip surgery.  We had a mini veterinary hospital set up in the bedroom.  The noise and the fluid pump did not keep you up and you were a good sleeper despite all the chaos.  Poor Remi has to be kept on cage confinement for 2 weeks and it is hard to keep him quiet during your naps.  If you tell him "the baby is sleeping." He actually settles!

You are more and more verbal.  Babbling away in your baby language that no one understands and likely has no meaning.  Every once in a while you end up saying a real word, which is very exciting for us, even if it does not count as your first word.  We have decided that your first word has to be something that you say and know what it means.  You have said "okay" "haiku" and "I love you."

Your physicality is also improving by leaps and bounds.  You are pulling up to squatting and even standing all the time.  I am afraid that you will be walking soon and you will be such a big girl and my little baby will be gone.

Week Thirty Six

So much has happened and no matter how hard I try to dedicate a few minutes every week to blog about you and your adventures I seem to get more and more behind.  I have decided that I am going to try and enjoy you and everything about this first year and then if I have time to write about it.  Perhaps for your second year, which is coming up so fast, I will try and write once a month!

This week teething continued and I thought that your 5th tooth came in, but with a few more weeks under my belt I think that this tooth probably was just starting this week!  It was your left central incisor and it is so big, much bigger than your other teeth.  You decided that you no longer want milk in a bottle.  You Dad had to give you the bottle first, before solids, to make sure that you drank it all.  You still love to nurse, although you get distracted easily.  I guess that I am relieved since I am able to pump less and less, I can only get one session in most days, but sad too.  Sad  that this phase of your babyhood is coming to a close, sad that you are becoming such a big girl.  I want to bottle up the incredible babiness of you and be able to hold on to it forever.