Yikes - where have we been?
Boy, we have really dropped the ball lately! No posts for four months. Bad parents, bad!
Well, in all fairness, we were moving across the country and buying a house and stuff. But no excuses anymore! We need to get back to documenting the life of this little lady who makes our lives so wonderfully full and rich.
Ironically, as I typed that sentence, she let out a stream of "VAHRAETHTNFNSOHFLAJEBSKGFJHKSJHRDGKJHFDSKJ!!!", which translates to, "More cantaloupe, NOW!"
Yep, you read that right - cantaloupe. Though we're still eating Stage 2 and 3 purees, she's ever-so-gradually moving into the Big Girl Solid Food World. So far she will eat little baby puffs of all kinds, as well as cantaloupe pieces and tiny peas. Peas! I don't think she realizes they are the same thing that she regularly turned her nose up at when eating pureed foods.
Along with the solids, she has also started feeding herself. She loves picking up the peas and small pieces of melon and putting them in her mouth. Some wind up on her lap and the floor (okay, a lot of them), but she gets better every day. And when it comes to peas and cantaloupe, what she drops, our cat Bodhi eats. (Yes, we have a weird cat.)
On her nine month birthday, Zoe decided to make a huge leap forward in the development department. She went from barely turning over from her front to her back and sitting up to CRAWLING, pulling up/standing up in the crib, rolling from back to front and front to back and sideways and all sorts of ways and so on - all in one night. She started sleeping on her face, which had Mommy all freaked out for a night or so.
She's gotten really adept at pulling up on virtually every piece of furniture in the house, though we have had some terrible spills...just yesterday she managed to do some sort of freakish backflip that landed her square on the back of the head on our wood laminate floor. The sound was so loud *I* got tears in my eyes. But those moments are getting more and more infrequent - thank goodness. She has stood up from a sitting position all by herself at least four times, so we know that walking is close at hand! Her legs are longer, and skinnier. She is looking more and more like a little person and less like my little infant.
With developments in body come developments in personality. Zoe is a curious and contemplative child who has to study people seriously before letting her sunny nature show through. She's not scared of them, just intent on figuring them out. She will turn a toy over and over to figure out how it works. If it makes a noise or plays a song, she will search for the source of the sound. She knows that when we hold up a doll and make it "talk" that it's actually us - she will push the doll aside and give us a look of "Did you really think you could fool me with that?" She's a researcher; a scientist. I love watching her explore.
She loves books, cups, blocks, and a plastic orange that fits in the palm of her hand. She will stop what she's doing to watch singing and/or dancing on the TV. She's started "dancing" to music she likes.
We go check the mail together every day. We stop by the wind chime and make it sound ("Gently...GENTLY!!") before walking to the mailbox and peeking inside. We visit the tree and feel the leaves and the trunk and search for cicadas. We sit on the front porch and watch for cars or people. This is an important ritual of our day, and she gets so excited when I pick her up and unlock the front door that she squeals and shakes all over.
We are also figuring out the word "No". She knows what it means. Sometimes she'll obey and other times (okay, MOST times) she pushes her boundaries to see what will happen. Admittedly, it's hard to keep a straight face when I say "NO" and she gives me a huge grin as though we're playing a game.
This is a fun and precious time in our lives as we explore the world with our daughter. She is a joy and a treasure. We can't believe we've already had her for over ten months; the time has flown by. I don't know how we ever lived without her!
Well, in all fairness, we were moving across the country and buying a house and stuff. But no excuses anymore! We need to get back to documenting the life of this little lady who makes our lives so wonderfully full and rich.
Ironically, as I typed that sentence, she let out a stream of "VAHRAETHTNFNSOHFLAJEBSKGFJHKSJHRDGKJHFDSKJ!!!", which translates to, "More cantaloupe, NOW!"
Yep, you read that right - cantaloupe. Though we're still eating Stage 2 and 3 purees, she's ever-so-gradually moving into the Big Girl Solid Food World. So far she will eat little baby puffs of all kinds, as well as cantaloupe pieces and tiny peas. Peas! I don't think she realizes they are the same thing that she regularly turned her nose up at when eating pureed foods.
Along with the solids, she has also started feeding herself. She loves picking up the peas and small pieces of melon and putting them in her mouth. Some wind up on her lap and the floor (okay, a lot of them), but she gets better every day. And when it comes to peas and cantaloupe, what she drops, our cat Bodhi eats. (Yes, we have a weird cat.)
On her nine month birthday, Zoe decided to make a huge leap forward in the development department. She went from barely turning over from her front to her back and sitting up to CRAWLING, pulling up/standing up in the crib, rolling from back to front and front to back and sideways and all sorts of ways and so on - all in one night. She started sleeping on her face, which had Mommy all freaked out for a night or so.
She's gotten really adept at pulling up on virtually every piece of furniture in the house, though we have had some terrible spills...just yesterday she managed to do some sort of freakish backflip that landed her square on the back of the head on our wood laminate floor. The sound was so loud *I* got tears in my eyes. But those moments are getting more and more infrequent - thank goodness. She has stood up from a sitting position all by herself at least four times, so we know that walking is close at hand! Her legs are longer, and skinnier. She is looking more and more like a little person and less like my little infant.
With developments in body come developments in personality. Zoe is a curious and contemplative child who has to study people seriously before letting her sunny nature show through. She's not scared of them, just intent on figuring them out. She will turn a toy over and over to figure out how it works. If it makes a noise or plays a song, she will search for the source of the sound. She knows that when we hold up a doll and make it "talk" that it's actually us - she will push the doll aside and give us a look of "Did you really think you could fool me with that?" She's a researcher; a scientist. I love watching her explore.
She loves books, cups, blocks, and a plastic orange that fits in the palm of her hand. She will stop what she's doing to watch singing and/or dancing on the TV. She's started "dancing" to music she likes.
We go check the mail together every day. We stop by the wind chime and make it sound ("Gently...GENTLY!!") before walking to the mailbox and peeking inside. We visit the tree and feel the leaves and the trunk and search for cicadas. We sit on the front porch and watch for cars or people. This is an important ritual of our day, and she gets so excited when I pick her up and unlock the front door that she squeals and shakes all over.
We are also figuring out the word "No". She knows what it means. Sometimes she'll obey and other times (okay, MOST times) she pushes her boundaries to see what will happen. Admittedly, it's hard to keep a straight face when I say "NO" and she gives me a huge grin as though we're playing a game.
This is a fun and precious time in our lives as we explore the world with our daughter. She is a joy and a treasure. We can't believe we've already had her for over ten months; the time has flown by. I don't know how we ever lived without her!
Thanks for the wonderful update! I was justing thinking the other day that I miss the posts here with all the pictures. My favorite in this post is the one with the yellow romper - her face is adorable in that one!
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