Eleanor - Seven, eight, nine months

Seven months...and pretty much one more month (August 26, 2017)

Eight months...and twenty-two days (September 22, 2017)

Nine months...and then some...

Well, then. I’m a little behind over here. So we are going to cram three months of updates into one!

Ellie, you are nine months old. In so many ways, it feels like you are still brand new. Maybe it’s a second-kid thing, but I have found myself far less anxious about rushing you into milestones and rushing you into growing up. Maybe it’s because I realize use how fast time goes, and I don’t want to miss a moment. Either way, I cannot believe that you are already nine months old, and I am amazed at how many things you know how do to!

You are quite the eater, little lady. You take down giant bowls of rice cereal or oatmeal at mealtimes. You eat fistfuls of puffs. You chomp on Cheerios (but just throw them around if we put too many on your tray at once - the temptation is too great!). You eat pouches. Just in the last few days, you’ve become really interested in trying to suck right from the pouch instead of eating spoonfuls from it. You are a fiercely independent eater. Sometimes, you’ll start screaming at dinner, and we don’t know why, but it turns out that you are upset about us feeding you, because you would rather be feeding yourself. So once we take a break from spoon-feeding you and give you some puffs or Cheerios, you perk right back up.

I can’t even list the foods that you’ve tried thus far, because you’ve tried so many things! In baby-food form, you’ve tried everything from peas to carrots to green beans to cauliflower to broccoli to sweet potatoes to squash to avocados to corn. You’ve eaten baby food apples, pears, peaches, bananas, prunes, strawberries, and mango. You eat Cheerios and puffs and rice crackers. You’ve tried bites of bread and noodles, raspberries, cheese, potatoes, scrambled eggs, rice, and ice cream.

You sprung two teeth pretty much overnight the first week in August, both on the bottom. We’re still waiting for any top teeth to show up! This means that you love the idea of chewing, but you aren’t terribly effective at it. But you like practicing. And sometimes, you get a little too excited while nursing and chomp down, which makes mama very very sad! You are less interested in nursing at this age than your brother was. You nurse at bedtime, and sometimes it helps you fall asleep (but not always). You eat once or twice overnight and into the morning. And that’s about it. You seem pretty content to fill your belly with lots and lots of different things.

You are a lady on the move, Eleanor! Mid-July, you figured out how to get yourself from laying down up to sitting, all by yourself. By the beginning of August, you were belly-crawling like a champ, using one arm and one leg to scoot forward along the ground. And then, near the beginning of September, you figured out how to get up on your hands and knees...and you figured out just how fast you could be! In the last couple weeks, you’ve been doing more and more pulling up to standing, which makes you pretty darn proud. You love dancing to music - you sit and rock back and forth whenever you hear something that sounds like music.

You have mastered the art of clapping, and you are great at doing “So big!” when you are in the mood. You can wave to us when we wave to you, usually two-handed. You giggle like crazy when tickled. Your right-hand index and middle fingers are usually in your mouth. If not your fingers, than literally anything else that you can find to shove in there. Dirty Cheerios from the floor, Duplos, toy cars, cat fur, cat food, toys, books, blankets, magnetic letters from the dishwasher...we are constantly digging things out of your mouth. You are surprisingly good-natured about it, thank goodness.

You’ve been quite the traveler these last months! You’ve been to Minneapolis a bunch of times to visit Aunt Beth and Uncle Nick and cousin Teddy - sometimes because mama or daddy has had a conference, sometimes just for fun. You went to Chicago with mama and Sam to meet your brand new baby cousin Max in early July. You flew to Atlanta with mama for a conference. You flew to New Jersey on our family vacation to Grammy and Pop’s house, the beach, and your Aunt Ruth’s wedding. You went to the Minnesota State Fair! You are a good traveler - you usually fall asleep in the car. You were a lap baby on all of your flights this summer and weren’t too squirmy, yay!

You started full days at daycare in August, and you seem to enjoy it. You are always sad when I drop you off, and you usually cry when I pick you up because you can’t crawl over to me fast enough. But when I’m out of sight, you are definitely happy there. You love the toys, and you eat lots and lots of foods, and at least once or twice a week you have a major diaper blowout. They manage to get you down for two naps during the day, but those naps are usually pretty short. You are starting to recognize your teachers and interact with them in specific ways, which is neat to see. You refused to smile for your school pictures, but you did manage to take a sweet picture with Sam.

Daycare doesn’t wear you out as much as I would have expected, especially since you don’t take long naps there. You are still a pretty hit-or-miss sleeper. Most nights, we can get you to fall asleep around 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. But some nights, you just refuse. Sometimes, daddy can take you downstairs while I finish bedtime with Sam, and you are happy to play on the floor in your pjs. But sometimes you are just angry, and we don’t know why. Regardless of bedtime, you usually sleep until about 1:30 a.m. or so, and then wake up to eat. And then you are usually awake again sometime between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. to eat again. These days, you are awake and ready to be up for the day sometime around 6:30 a.m., which isn’t too bad. A couple weeks ago, you slept pretty much all night two nights in a row, which was crazy great. You’ll figure out how to become a good sleeper soon, I know you will.

Your favorite things these days: chasing Sam around the house and messing with all of Sam’s toys, putting stuff in your mouth, taking your socks off as soon as we put them on, snuggling with Mama in the baby carrier on cool evening walks, talking to us, saying “Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!” or “Da-da-da-da-da!”, trying new foods, and splashing in the bath (usually in the tub with Sam).

You are definitely growing, even though you’re still a tiny thing. You look adorable in hats and hooded sweaters. You make a funny dinosaur sound when you are so happy that you can’t smile any bigger. Your eyes are still big and blue. Your hair is still ridiculous, with a long tail down the back and a patch of long hair up top. You are so capable and so curious. I love watching you explore and grow in understanding. But I also wish I could hit the “pause” button. I can’t believe that we are three quarters of the way to your first birthday! We love you so much, sweet girl. You charm the pants off of us.