In the afternoon, we dressed Anna in her Addie’s Santa outfit (which my long-time readers may remember from last year) and headed over to my parents’ house, where we spent the rest of the day with them and my brother and his family.
We had our first Christmas morning with Anna at home.
Look—someone filled Anna’s stocking! (This was actually my first stocking when I was a baby!)
… for another month-birthday update. Anna is 9 months old today! She wanted to wear her big-girl jeans and sweater to show everyone how grown up she is; no little baby rompers today! She’s all but officially crawling; she’s still tummy-crawling wherever she pleases, but I’ve seen her take a “step” or two (I don’t know what you call it for crawling) up on her hands and knees. She’s going to figure it out any minute now and really take off. And she’s already pulling up on her knees! Good gracious, she’s about to turn the house upside-down, isn’t she? She’s having a grand time exploring her surroundings.
This month, Anna gave me the privilege of wishing her a happy birthday right at 1:19 A.M., when she was born. Poor thing woke up crying her eyes out around 1:00; I guess she had a bad dream? I found her sitting up in her crib with her face sopping wet with tears, so I picked her up and she immediately melted into my arms and calmed down. Ahh, some things just give you the warm fuzzies, even in the middle of the night. I rocked her back to sleep, and since it was so close, I stayed there until 1:19 and then whispered “happy birthday,” which caused her to startle a little bit but not really wake up.
This is one of those “I haven’t blogged in a week so I should write something” posts.
Let’s see… Anna can push herself from lying down up into a sitting position by herself now. Consequently, we lowered her crib mattress a couple of notches—she’ll be pulling up before we know it. She can do the soldier belly-crawl wherever she wants to go, and she can get up on her hands and knees and kind of go backwards, but she doesn’t really know what’s happening. It’s kind of funny—she looks at me with this mildly distressed look as if to say, “Help! That’s not where I wanted to go…”
Our other baby, Sasha, is still doing well (David wrote an update here). She appears very healthy, lymph nodes are still down, and she has no evidence of any more tumors right now!
We’re almost done with our Christmas shopping. Before we went, David wasn’t all that excited about getting Anna presents. He said (and he’s right) that she won’t know what’s going on, she’ll just play with the paper, etc. But then we browsed through the toys, and he changed his tune—he wanted to get her everything! We restrained ourselves, though, to two toys, a couple of warm sleepers in the next size up, and a few little stocking stuffers.
Anna now gets an OOY—Ornament of the Year. She helped us… er, watched us… hang it up last night.
Anna is quite pleased with herself that she finally got a book off of Mommy and Daddy’s (mostly Daddy’s) bookshelf. Her choice? The Far Side Gallery 3. I’m not quite sure what I think about that.
In other news… Anna has gained a whole pound since her last doctor visit! Yea! That brings her up to 14 lb. 12 oz. Must be all those Gerber fruit puffs—the only solid food she will voluntarily put in her mouth so far. I’m afraid she’s going to be like her Mama—living on carbs.
Oh, and I have to brag on my brave girl who didn’t even make a peep when she got her flu shot today!
I’ve been trying to document Anna’s “milestones” on my blog, and most of them are pretty straightforward—the first time she had a bottle, the first time she rolled over, etc. But sitting kind of snuck up on me. A few weeks ago, if I put her in a sitting position, she would stay there a second or two and then topple over. So that didn’t count, in my opinion. Then she could stay a few seconds, as long as she didn’t try to move at all. Then she could sit a few seconds and even reach for something, but she still toppled over pretty soon. And so forth. But now, all of a sudden, she can sit. For a really long time. So we’ll just say it happened sometime around 8 months.
Anna is 8 months old today! She was a very busy girl, but she was kind enough to let me take some photos:
Anna and I went to Target today, and I decided that an almost-8-month-old was old enough to not be hauled everywhere in her baby carrier. I’ve hesitated to put her in the seat part of the cart because she still can’t sit up on her own for more than a few seconds. But I have one of those shopping cart seat covers that has a strap on it, so I thought I’d give it a try.
I got her settled and strapped in, and there she was—this teeny little thing about the size of a 4-month-old, engulfed by this huge fabric seat cover, looking up at me very seriously and wondering what was going on. She looked so big and so little at the same time. I wish I had a picture. Maybe next time.
She did fine, by the way; she didn’t flop around too much. This is going to make shopping a lot easier. That is, until she figures out how to drop her toys over the edge of the cart.
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