Our curly haired, snugly little lovebug keeps growing and changing every day. At her nine month well baby visit (only a month late, mooooommmmm...) she weighed in at 18.5 pounds and was 28 inches long (or is she tall now that she can stand?). She was hesitant at the doctor's office and the pediatrician said she was "displaying an appropriate amount of stranger anxiety" for a baby her age. Yes, she is still a baby, although she seems grown-up in so many ways. She is healthy as a clam and apparently we are doing okay as parents.
Lucy celebrated her first Halloween last weekend with her cousins, aunt and uncle. We carved pumpkins together and la pollita pequena ate enough pumpkin goop to experience her first bout of choking followed by me scooping her throat clear and then projectile vomiting on Aunt Clickl's floor. Sometimes it seems like I should let her do and sometimes it seems like I should put the reins on, as in "don't eat stringy, uncooked pumpkin until you puke." She was only momentarily traumatized and then we are decided playing in the goop with a spoon and fingers was a better idea than ingesting it. Mom reliability rating down 4 points. We had a really fun day and even went trick-or-treating. I thought Lucy may be a bit hesitant about walking up to random houses, but she enjoys facing out in her new Ergo 360 carrier (highly recommend...we should have spent the money on this bad boy much sooner). She waved at everyone and even blew some people kisses. Not to mention the fact that she was absolutely darling in her fuzzy little outfit.
Jim and I caught a rare and amazing moment together on Sunday when we were recovering from Halloween. Lucy was standing and holding onto her small human sized bookshelf (that I made out of a dish rack that we found in the dumpster) when she suddenly let go to rip a toiler paper roll off of the wall (which was there so that she could put fuzzy balls through the tubes). She stood trying to remove the taped on roll from her arm for about 5 seconds. Jim and I both happened to be there and gawked at each other in surprise. Lulabee still has no idea that if she moves her feet she can do this thing called "walking," but it was pretty exciting to catch her in this moment.
This week at school she has been the darling of classroom, of course, I think she is always the darlingof every room she is in. When I went to pick her up yesterday the babies were outside and crawling through a cloth tube. I was holding her on one side of the tube and her birthday buddy, Guy, came barreling through. Just as he got to us, she leaned in, mouth wiiiiddddeee open and planted a big, wet kiss right on his face. It was so absolutely precious. Guy reached up and smacked her to show his appreciation and this clearly hurt her feelings, but babies show their love in weird, aggressive ways sometimes. Then, as we were leaving, she blew her first three real kisses to her teachers. Usually she gets her hand to her mouth and then waits for me to send the kiss off, but yesterday she put her up, made a kissing sound and sent it off without the need for help or prompting. She is so loving and it warms my heart.
She/we have had a string of about 4 great weeks in a row. I decided to be less ambitious (ugh) and tone our schedule down a bit. Between riding bike to and from school and meeting a new climbing buddy, I am getting more exercise and more time with Lucy. She is getting a good morning nap in the bike cart and is ready to play the day away once we get to her classroom. She really likes to ride in the bike cart and crawls over to it when I ask if she is ready to ride. I think it gives her some mandatory quiet time without feeling like she is being forced to rest. She has conquered the ramp and stairs at school and bates the other babies to join her, which is so very much a mix of Jim's social outgoingness and my desire to be charge :-). It is also just who share is, but it is more fun to say we made her that way. She is busy at school lately that she only fusses for about 30 seconds after I say bye then she is off to make new discoveries and rediscover old ones.
We are headed to Joshua Tree National Park for New Years with a bunch of friends who are flying out from New York. I have decided, as there is no electricity where we are camping, that I am going to pack up the breast pump on December 26. We are going to leave on December 27 and I will happily spend our time there nursing my girl. The pump and I have a good relationship and I am grateful that we are going strong at 10.5 months, but I will not be sad to clean out the tubes, sterilize the flanges and pack that thing up in a box. I may even have a glass of wine since she will be eating food as a primary source of nutrition and having milk as a secondary by then. As all things in parenthood, this is subject to change, but I love a deadline, an end goal and I am happy to have one for this, too.
