Yum-o!

I was starting to work on Lily's 10 month update but I ended up having a lot to say about her eating behaviors, so I thought I'd just write separately about that...

Lily is eating a much wider variety of foods since her 9 month checkup. Her doctor didn't really want her to be too adventurous until after 9 months so she had just been eating mostly fruits and veggies. Now, almost everything is OK (besides the major allergy triggers and choking hazards). We still introduce new foods one at a time and wait a few days in between foods just to be safe though, especially when we're offering a completely new food group. So far Lily likes pretty much everything we've given her. She's not a picky eater at all, although I hear that might change after the 1 year mark, but I can hope that she won't follow in her father's footsteps in this instance.

She's started eating yogurt. I only give her organic whole milk plain yogurt mixed with pureed fruits. She wasn't crazy about it on its own (it's much too tart for me, so I can understand her hesitation) but she likes it mixed with pureed pears, apples, blueberries or a mixture of more than one fruit. It's actually surprising how much sugar is in the yogurts packaged especially for babies. So she's just going to be eating the plain (unsweetened) yogurt with added (unsweeted) fruits. It's quite tasty actually. And much, much less expensive. At some point I'm sure the convenience factor will weigh in and she'll eat a yogurt cup or two but for now I mix my own.

She also loves beans (another item daddy won't touch). Straight from the can and rinsed it's a really easy addition to her dinnertime. Plus they are really fun finger foods for her. She smashes a few but most of them make it into her mouth. One of her favorite meals has been black beans, cubed avocado and shredded cheese--she's a lover of Mexican-inspired meals already, just like her parents. And she could eat it all on her own.

She isn't eating too much meat yet. I have made her some pureed beef which I mixed with sweet potato and she enjoyed that. And she's had both chicken and turkey, but not regularly. I may try making her some mini-meatballs that she could pick up on her own. She loves her sweet potatoes though. She'll never turn those down.

She has also really taken to her sippy cup. We've been giving her a sippy cup of water for a couple of months now but we usually had to help her drink out of it. Recently she's figured out how to drink from it on her own and she's obsessed! We can't get it out until she's done eating otherwise she'll be too transfixed on the sippy cup and drinking to eat any more. She will drink her entire cup of water in less than 5 minutes. And she doesn't even throw it on the ground all that much.

This month we did have to purchase a mat to put down under her highchair. She's not too messy yet, but every once in a while she'll take to handfuls of food and drop them over the side of her highchair. Since her highchair is on a carpeted area we got a mat to put down.

She still breastfeeds regularly. We won't even think about cutting that down until she hits a year unless something comes up. And she'll also drinking 1 bottle of formula at daycare every day.

Dinner and playing with more Chicago relatives

Lily realized she could make a funny noise if she squeezed her hands together after she got some sweet potato puree in them. She thought it was really funny. Excuse her messy face, she really gets into her dinner, especially now that she can eat a lot of things on her own.



Everyone knows that Lily loves her blanket. This was a sarong that I started using as a nursing cover up while we were in Maui since it's more lightweight than a regular blanket and it was really hot in Maui. Ever since then she's been attached to it. After the trip I cut it up into 3 different blankets for her. She always sleeps with one of them. She likes to squeeze it in her hands, shove it in her face and chew on it. She'll often carry it around in her mouth like a puppy. This particular evening we had come home after work and daycare and she was a little tired. I gave her one of the blankets and she was laying on the floor with it. I thought the couch was a better place to lay so I put her up there and she was rolling around with the blanket. That is until she got distracted trying to get to something on the table.

On Valentine's Day we went over to cousin Harriet and Kay's house for a family barbecue. The Zagorin family and Lily great-great aunt and uncle Beverly and Jake were in town from Chicago. They had never met Lily and we actually had never met the two Zagorin boys, Alex and Zack (even though they were 5 and 3). Much of the afternoon was spent with Lily crawling around on the ground after the dogs and Zack crawling around after Lily. The kids were quite fond of each other--the dogs, not so much.
You can kind of see Krissy (the dog) behind Lily.

Zack must be explaining something to Lily. They raced across the floor.

Lily made this face un-prompted after she saw I had the camera.

3/4 of a year!

The official stats:
height: 29 3/4" (97th %tile)
weight: 20 1/4 oz (75th %tile)
head circumference: 45.7 cm

Where does the time go? Lily has reached the 9 month mark already. I can barely remember those newborn days any more (probably partially because I haven't had a full night's sleep since I was pregnant). Every day she's turning more into a little girl and acting less like a baby. She sure has opinions these days. She will let you know if you don't do something the way she wants. The little tantrums are already starting. A surefire way to elicit a tantrum is to take the TV remote away from her. She has also developed a very strong bond to her mommy. Want to hear a screaming baby? Have mommy walk out of a room. Luckily peek-a-boo is her absolute favorite game so popping back into the room periodically and screaming "LILY!" or "BOO!" or anything with your arms up in the air is usually enough to keep the huge crocodile tears away. Just don't be too slow. And peek-a-boo also brings the biggest belly laughs. That and blowing raspberries on her belly. That is also hilarious.

Of course she's still an absolute joy. She has a beautiful smile. She is talking up a storm. At her 9-month checkup her doctor wanted to make sure she had 3 "words"; she must have at least 20 or so. "Mama" and "dada" are common but so it "hi" and "dis" and "baba". None of these "words" have meaning to her yet so we're not foolish enough first-time parents think she's actually calling either one of us. But hopefully that's not too far off. We've been trying to teach her sign language also. I took a class as an undergrad from Linda Acredolo, PhD she created "Baby Signs" or sign language for babies. She encorages moms and babies to make up their own signs for things, but we're using the traditional American Sign Language. So far, it's only me signing to Lily but I hope that eventually she'll pick it up. So far we only regularly do the sign for "milk" to see if she's hungry or not. I think she has picked up on what it means when I do the sign, but she hasn't been able to do it herself yet. The idea behind signing with babies and toddlers is that young kids understand what we are saying to them they just don't have the language ability to talk back yet. Plus kids that sign actually have a larger vocabulary than kids that don't so it doesn't inhibit them from speaking at all. Plus Dr. Acredolo was on Oprah, so it must be good, right? See a baby signing here. But back to Lily...

She is really on the move. When we get home in the evenings I usually set her down in her little play area in the living room and then I walk back over to the entry way to take off my jacket, put her milk away, etc (if you haven't visited our apartment, this is about 10 ft). Now as soon as I start to walk away Lily follows. Then I sometimes head into the bedroom to change into more comfortable pants, I talk to Lily the whole time and again, she follows (if she doesn't get distracted by the bookcase along the way--and again this is another 10 ft, are you seeing a trend here?). But there's something even more fun to follow around the house than mommy--bunny. The rabbit isn't sure what's going on but Lily will follow him wherever he goes. Being a rabbit, he's a little erratic and unpredictable so he's often hopping back and forth across the bedroom with Lily crawling after him. His cage also has perfect grips for her to pull up on. So she love crawling over to his cage and pulling up on the bars so she can stand up and talk to him. And they both shake the door of the cage. The rabbit does know that she could provide pets (or treats?) so he comes up to the front of the cage when she's there and nuzzles her hands with his nose. This is where the baubies and grandmas are shreeking I know, don't worry, he doesn't bite, and he's not covered in his own poo or anything.

She got a fairly bad bug this last month. She had a consistent fever that didn't want to go away. We called the on-call pediatrician the evening after the fever set in just to check in about what we need to keep an eye out for. They aren't concerned unless the fever doesn't go away with Tylenol (which is always did within 45 min or so). But she suggested we take her to the doctor if she still had a fever on the 3rd day. By day 3 the fever we thought the fever had gone away and then that afternoon it went back up again. So we went to the doctor just to be on the safe side and make sure it wasn't anything more than a simple bug. Of course she checked out fine and her lungs were clear and her ears were normal. Plus sitting on the exam table and trying to reach all the instruments and crumpling up the paper across the table is pretty fun. But the doctor also cleared us to travel the next morning. Grandma and Grandpa were relieved.

Lily and I took a trip up to the Grandparents house the last weekend in January. Grandma found a last-minute deal on airfare so she bought a ticket for Lily and mommy. Grandpa didn't know we were coming. As it turns out Aunt Melody, Isabella and Aunt Kellie also came down from Oregon to everyone's surprise. So it was a big get-together without any dads (except for grandpa). It was a quick trip and our flights out of LAX and Redding left at 6 AM (yawn!) but it was fun. Lily did really well on the plane though. I think morning flights suit her. She did a pretty good job of falling back to sleep on all of the flights, which was good for a tired mommy. This marked flights 9-12 for Lily (we had to change planes in SF). She's a well traveled girl! I didn't go on my first flight until I was 8.

Milestones
Wants to stand up all the time.
Stood up alone without holding on (2/3/09).
Can walk if you hold her hands. Likes to practice this.
Cruising all over the place.
Favorite toy- herFischer-Price "iPod". We're not sure about the facination with this, but as soon as it catches her eye, anything else gets tossed to the side.
Other favorites: her musical table (a favorite place to stand and play), her blue ball (a staple for a long time), her little piano, and a teddy bear.
Non-toys that are also fun: empty toilet paper & paper towel rolls, empty plastic bottles (.5 liter water bottles & 2-liter soda bottles are best), plastic bags (not unsupervised of course), helium balloons (Trader Joes you are so smart), and the trash can (unfortunately).
Favorite foods: avocado & sweet potatoes

Watching Cosmo out the window.



Lily and Isabella playing with Cosmo

Lily loves to hang upside down these days.

She kept this puppet on her hand for about 10 minutes. She loves puppets.