Nora at 9 (and a half) months or after the fourth trimester

(Ooopps, wrote most of this at 9 and 1/2 months then headed to NH and forgot all about it…she is crawling now, but I will still post the original update!)

All in all though 9 months has been a time of change for Nora, and all this excitement change is a little overwhelming!  In the last week she has gotten FOUR new teeth—which is really way too much for one week!  She has so many new skills—motor, verbal, general understanding—it is just TOO exciting sometimes.  I should have been prepared for this though; it was very similar with Joseph, but I still felt taken of guard.  She’s still mostly happy and smiley, especially when we are out and about, but sometimes at home she has gotten real crabby, she has been waking more at night sometimes, and has even fought her nap a couple of times (which she never did before).  Boo!

Personality: She’s a smiler!  She likes action and people!  One person described her lately saying, “her first reflex is just to smile at everyone!” And she does have such a wonderful smile.  She still fits in with what we want to do pretty well—I can’t believe it sometimes.  She sat through Joseph’s entire spring concert, dancing and smiling away (we had even taken two cars so Brad could leave with he if necessary), today she sat through an hour of Joseph and his classmates reading aloud their writing.  I haul her everywhere, for all sorts of different things!  Yesterday she came with me to visit the school where I will be working next year and charmed all the kiddos and teachers (hmmmm, is it wrong to use her charms?). 

Physical: At her 9 month appointment she was around 22 pounds.  So still a big girl.  I just can’t believe how TINY so many other babies are!  She is going to go to childcare one or two days a week next year with a little girl who is 5 months older, but probably half her size! She was 92nd percentils for height, 94th for head circumference, and 95th for weight.  Giggle.  Big, big baby, but still on the charts!

Her skin is so much better.  Cerevae seems to do the trick.  Plus maybe the fact that we aren’t using wood heat and the cat is outside most of the time.  She also had a diaper area issue I didn’t mention on here before because it seemed a little personal (labial adhesion) but after 3 weeks of medicine it is all better now.  This is a huge relief (even though they assured me it would be easily resolved and is just a result of her sensitive skin, I was worried).

Still sparse on the hair—it is very hard to imagine her with long hair.  Wonder if it will ever happen?  Probably I’ll just chop it off anyways because I can’t really imagine dealing with long, curly, little-girl hair every day.  Yikes.  Just talking about it scares me!  What she has so far is quite red—I dought it will stay that way (Joseph’s hair was red to begin with), but it would be very cool if it did.  Eyes are maybe grey?  An interesting unique color, though I am guessing they will keep changing.  Red hair and grey eyes?? Who knows?

I was sure she would be crawling by now, but nope!  She is pulling up on EVERYTHING now.  ALL THE TIME.  The newness of standing is starting to ware off, but for awhile there it was as if standing was all there really was too life.  Everything revolved around working on this skill.  It is amazing how much she has learned in such a shore period of time, it was maybe three weeks ago that I first came into find her standing in her crib and I was shocked!  Now she moves her feet and hands while standing, is starting to cruise, and knows how to squat and sit herself back down gently.  She has even let go with both hands on accident a couple of times and not fallen over. 

Even though she is not doing a real-tummy-off-the-floor crawl she is definitely not containable any more.  She scoots on her butt or army crawls where she wants, which is usually to wherever something she can pull up on is.  It was a good three months of sitting in one place and playing…ahhh how I miss those days already!

“Talking:” It seriously seems like she talks even though I know she is still too young.  She says “Mama” and “Dada” and “Brugh, Brugh” at totally appropriate times.  It feels like we are conversing sometimes, so she is getting close!

Eating habits: Still loves to eat, though is getting some more pronounced preferences/eccentricities.  For example, for some reason this month she decided she was over her old favorite, and super-convenient puffs?  Of course I had stockpiled a couple cans too and now she wont touch them. She just wipes them all right off her tray.  Her favorites are beans, bananas (which she isn’t really supposed to have because of her constipation issues), and avocados, plus pretty much anything in a pouch. She loves to suck them down!  We are not giving her diary again at the Dr.’s recommendation. 

She still nurses pretty often, though usually very briefly.

Sleep: Oh how I miss sleep.  Wish she could just be an amazing sleeper, without me having to work on it, but still not that lucky.  She wakes between 2 and 4 times a night.  Usually 2, which is OK, 4 is not good!  I still mean to do more sleep training, but haven’t.  Broken record.

She still loves her morning nap around 9, sometimes she fights her afternoon nap lately.  If she doesn’t fall asleep while nursing for that one she will just keep popping up like an tired, crabby Jack-in-the-box. 

Cute/Funny Habits:  She likes to have blankets on top of her head.  This drives me crazy!  She puts her little lovey right over her face when falling asleep by herself.  Still tucks her head under my arm when cuddling and plays with he ears when tired.

Nicknames: Noranator, Norastein, Babystein, Norabelle, Stinkerbelle, Noni Smiggles, Squeakers

Likes: Her brother, music, dancing, clapping, standing, eating, trying our food, water bottles, cords, tickles

Dislikes: getting dressed, having toys/items taken away, being tired, being reprimanded (she bit me once while nursing this month and I scolded her a bit harshly—since it HURT—and it was the saddest thing in the world, she looked at me with huge eyes, her bottom lip quivered, and you could just see the sadness well up in her...)