Lorelei is 9 Months old!

It looks like I'm making posts every TWO to THREE months now... sorry about that!  Sometimes life gets busy.  Anyway, our little Sweet Pea is 9 months old (for another two weeks)!  I can't believe how much she's grown in this short time.

Here are some vital statistics:

Lorelei is 17 pounds now (based on our bathroom scale) and 27 inches long.  She is wearing mostly size 6-9 month or size 9 month clothes, but she's right in the middle.  Some 6 month clothes still fit but are snug and some 9 month clothes fit but are loose.  The 6 - 12 month old clothes are very long and loose. :)  She's definitely starting to fill out though with rounder cheeks, a poochier belly and chubbier thighs. :)  She just moved up to wearing size 3 diapers last week because we had a few leaks.

Lorelei has SIX teeth!  Four on top and 2 on bottom Edited: Seven teeth! Edited: EIGHT TEETH!   4 on top and 4 on bottom!  and she uses with great effectiveness!   Anything she gets a hold of goes right in those chompers, including stray fingers!

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She still doesn't have much hair, and the fuzz that she does have is still a very, very light brown, but not quite blonde.  Her eyes have remained a very dark blue, almost gray.

Her favorite activities are BATHS, throwing things, pulling off socks, pulling people's hair (and eating it if we're not careful!), smudging my glasses, watching the wind blow the leaves, and being held upside down!  She likes being read to, especially if you let her turn the pages.  She also loves it when Andrew pops up and and startles her. :) She giggles really loud then. Her favorite book seems to be Gekos Surf and seems to really look at those pictures the most.  She also likes Silly Sally.  Lorelei is ticklish!  Especially under her arms, on her neck and the bottoms of her feet.  She giggles if you give her noisy kisses on her neck, especially Daddy because he's whiskery!

Although she's not crawling yet and can't get to a sitting position on her own, she can sit without assistance for several minutes unless she gets too excited and then she topples over.  However, she's gotten better at controlling the topple with her arms and twisting to end up on her front sometimes. She moves around mostly in circles when she's on her tummy but can wriggle forward a bit by putting her head down and scrunching her legs up behind her so her little toushey is in the air and then flattening out.  It's not what you might call efficient or elegant, and she gets REALLY frustrated if it doesn't get her close enough to the toy or person she wants, but she'll get there. :)  This past week Lorelei started getting onto hands and knees and rocking back and forth. Crawling isn't far away now!

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  She's gotten very good at rolling from back to front to back, which presents some challenges during diapering and nursing.  I've learned how to breastfeed a barrel rolling infant! :)  She seems to think that 3am is the best time for this sort of dancing feeding. :)

Lorelei is eating, eating EATING!  She still gets mostly breast milk and formula, but now has an extensive repertoire of solid foods including: oatmeal with apple sauce, oatmeal with peaches, oatmeal with pears, plain peaches and pears, slivers of apple, sweet potato fingers, CHEERIOS squash cubes, cooked carrots, well cooked pieces of green bean, small chunks of potato, sweet potato fingers, CHEERIOS, spinach pyramids (cooked, chopped spinach squeezed into a pyramid shape for easier picking up), CHEERIOS, occasionally small bits of chicken, sweet potato fingers, CHEERIOS, small pieces of whole wheat toast, cooked broccoli, cooked peas, grape peices... I think that's it. Oh I gave her a tiny taste of cooked fish tonight and she seemed to like that too!  She's very interested in what's on our plates and especially what's in our glasses.  We've started introducing a sippy cup with a few ounces of water in it now and then.  She doesn't take more than 3 or 4 sips, and isn't very interested in it, but really she doesn't need it until later, so now it's just a fun practice now and then.

She's enjoying being out and about.  Lately, Lorelei has been to the mall several times, to the grocery store, to the Cream Cheese Festival, to the car mechanics & the DMV, and around the neighborhood.  She likes riding in the car and going in her stroller as long as you KEEP MOVING!  The other day she and Andrew were running errands and stopped by my office so Lorelei could have lunch. :)  I enjoyed it very much and my coworkers liked seeing Lorelei again.  She is still very shy around new people, but has been meeting the neighbors and seeing people on outings more often.  She still tucks her lower lip in and regards admirers very seriously.  You can tell how comfortable she is by her lip and hands.  If her lower lip is out and her hands are down and relaxed, she's comfortable.  If her lip is tucked in and her hands are up in fists, she's very uncomfortable... anything in between she's deciding. :)  I've decided that she has some characteristics of a "slow to warm up" temperament, which means she's generally reactive to new situations, emotional, but settles in if given enough time to adjust.

She still doesn't seem to have a favorite toy, but she gets very excited when she plays with her music player especially when she accidentally presses the button to turn it on or change the little song.  She still doesn't quite grasp how to do it, but she's recognized that the music comes out the back and I think she understands that can change the way it sounds by flipping it over from front to back. :)  She loves anything that rattles  jingles, or crinkles and currently likes to toss things up in the air. :)

She is still a very cuddly child, wanting to be held or carried most of the time, although she's also happy if you sit near her when she's playing on her blanket.  She's expanding her sound vocabulary daily!  Her most recognized sounds are: A-Da-Da-da, Di-da, Maa-ma-ma, Vvvvv, Efffffff, and several variations of Eh.  She seems to use this most to get our attention "EH!" or to be interrogative "Ah?" or to make a point "Eh."  It's very cute.  She likes to have her sounds repeated back to her.  Lorelei has perfected both raspberries and "broom-broom" noises and makes them with great enthusiasm (another popular 3am activity).

Lorelei has also started clapping, but we haven't gotten it on video yet. She makes tiny little clapping sounds that are just so cute!  The picture just above is of another one of her new tricks.  She had a cold last month and had a very stuffy nose so she did lots of sniffing. Now if you make sniffy noises she copies you and makes that scrunchy face! :-)

Otherwise, things have been going pretty well.  We're enjoying Fall and the change of seasons.  Although I'll shortly be complaining of the cold, the cool weather has been a nice change after the heat of August. This is the first semester since Lorelei was born that I have been back to work full time and I'm still trying to adjust.  I often find it difficult to get out the door as early as I did before and I don't get a lot of work done in the evenings or weekends when I'm spending time with Lorelei and Andrew, but I'm learning to be more efficient at work so I have more free time at home.  I'm up for tenure this year and am on several active committees so things are pretty busy at work.

This past Friday, I attended a one day conference in Albany and Andrew had his first night alone with Lorelei on Thursday night. None of us slept too well, but Andrew and Lorelei did just fine. I still woke up twice and got up to pump at 4am. It was an odd experience.  She still wakes up once or twice for feeding or a cuddle during the night, but we've established a nice bedtime routine now... dinner, play time, bath, pjs, story, nursing until she's asleep and then try to slip her in bed.  Usually it works and she'll sleep until about 1 am and then until about 4am and then 6... some nights it doesn't work.  However, with co-sleeping we still all get a good amount of sleep during the night.

We had been feeding Lorelei in her Bumbo seat (the blue molded foam thing) but she'd gotten so good at popping the tray off that we were very glad when her new high chair arrived quickly in the mail.   She seems to like it very much.  She looks soooo little in it compared to the Bumbo, and I think we need to put a hand towel under her to boost her up a bit.

That's about it from here. This afternoon we're off to a friends house so Andrew can look at their misbehaving computer and then we'll head to another friend's house for a pumpkin carving party; Lorelei's first! It should be a fun afternoon!

 Thanks for Reading!