Nine About ND

It's been a long time since I've just written about ND, and she's doing SO many amazing things lately. Here nine-month birthday is coming up, and I should probably say 9 things about her then, but I want to do it now while I'm thinking about it:

1. She says Mama, as in "Mamamamamamamama" usually if she's hungry. If she's REALLY upset she'll even say "EEEEma!" I usually refer to myself as Mama, so I'm pretty sure she knows what she's talking about. She also says "Yaaaay!" under the right circumstances. And once, I think she said "key," as in "kitty."

2. She loves animals. She laughs more when up close to an animal than in almost any other circumstance. Her favorites are A. (our cat), goats at petting zoos, and our friend's brand new puppy - a labradoodle - named Pippin.



3. She is starting to crawl. Not like her friend NBwho can thump across a room pretty fast, but she's getting there. (Scroll down on that link and you'll see the two of them together.)

4. She is also cruising a bit. We have this rectangular basket in the living room where I put a lot of her toys. The morning before we left for Portland, she turned it over and used it as a walker, pushing it right up against the bookcase. She started tugging on one of her board books on the second-from-the-bottom-shelf. After about five minutes, she got it down. Suddenly this lightbulb of pure joy lit above her head and she started pulling them off in bunches, as many as she could. She started with a pile of her own books, then did some of the cookbooks and Calvin and Hobbes on the bottom. I just sat and looked on in amused horror.



5. She sometimes pushes my hand away now. I respect that.

6. She loves playing in water but is not yet comfortable with pools.

7. She is eating lots of solid food and especially loves cheerios. She likes waving a spoon around. I'm losing patience with spooning food into her mouth. I much prefer just dumping finger-food onto her tray.

8. She responds to her name now and recognizes my voice. She may play quietly with someone else, but then if she hears me will become upset and want to be with me.

9. I thought about teaching her baby sign language, but I'm agreeing now with a friend of mine that she communicates clearly enough to me that I don't feel a strong need. She also really wants to talk, so I don't know that we need that other step. It would be fun, but I'm just not consistent teaching it to her at all.

And now it's late late late and I should be getting to bed.