Cat!

Ryanne is very close to saying her first word. She loves to look at the cats and point at them. She used to just squeal when she saw them. Well, last week, she looked at me when I said the word cat and tried to form her mouth to it. She got out 'Ca'. Now, it's sometimes 'dat' and sometimes 'ca' and sometimes just 'at', but she always says something like it when she sees one of the cats. She even did the same at Kity's house tonight with her cat. I'm continuously impressed by how smart such a small person can be. Unfortunately, Kity's dogs are also 'dats', but they're small and fuzzy so I can forgive her that. Oh...she even said the word when she heard Kity's cat meow, didn't even see him, but did start looking around for him. Just amazing!

Wasabi

I am apparently a bad mommy. Last night, we went for Japanese and R would NOT keep her fingers out my plate, specifically the big lump of wasabi on the corner of it. Well, I decided to go for it and put a touch of it on the end of my chopstick. She freaked - crumpled up her face and starting spitting and sputtering. I don't think she liked it much...she didn't eat much after that. Luckily, she'd already had a huge meal so I didn't feel too bad. Man, it was funny, though.

Last night I also made a Maya Wrap. Ryanne seems to still want to be held a lot and it's just a pain not being able to do anything else all day because I've only got one hand. She's long been too big for me to carry in the Bjorn so I'm going to try this. It was much cheaper to make than to buy one (about 1/3 the price) and if she hates it, I won't feel as guilty. If, however, she loves it, I have many other fabrics picked out for nicer ones and wintry ones and...

She had her 9 month appointment on 7/30. She was 18lbs 1.1oz (40%), 26 3/4 inches long (25%). Her growth has slowed down, but the doctor assures me that's normal and it's not like she comes from tall genes. The doc was worried about her refusing baby food because of the extra iron it provides, but her hematocrit levels were 'great' so I was told just to keep doing what I'm doing and keep lots of variety coming at her.

R's eating exclusively finger foods now. She does really well on table food. She gets some extra iron from the toddler breakfast foods and Gerber puffs that we feed her. I don't really feel bad about the switch, with one exception...

Ryanne has always been a pretty good sleeper. For the last 3 months, though, she's had a cold or been teething or we've moved or travelled or whatever and her sleep has suffered. Well, the ped told us to work on this so Chrys, wonderful man that he is, has been getting up with her. I had always gotten up with her, but when she wakes up at night for whatever reason, and smells me, she wants milk and goes ballistic until she gets it. Well, the last few nights, whenever she wakes up, she's REALLY gassy. Two nights ago, she didn't wake up at all. This tells me that the night waking is gas, which stinks. If the only reason she wakes up is gas, then I wonder if gas is caused by the finger foods and then I wonder if we're moving too fast...this stuff is hard!

She's taken a few more steps, but still not really walking yet. I don't think we have too much longer, though.

She's also working on words. She tries hardest to mimic 'cat' and we sometimes get 'ca' and this morning I got a 'dat'. She's also pointing and I've started identifying whatever she points at.

Tomorrow morning, we're going to a walkers class at Gymboree. She's a month younger than they recommend, but seemed WAY beyond the crawlers class definition. I guess we'll see.

9 month appointment

Copied from FTM and backdated to fill in historical data.

She was 18lbs 1.1oz (40%) and 26 3/4" (25%). The doc said that since she was making so much developmental progress (mental and physical), she expected to see a slow in her growth rate. She also finally got her 2nd pneumococcal vaccine.

I was advised that, since she's trying to mimic words already (she watches us say 'cat' and pretty regularly gets out 'ca' while looking at the kitties), I shouldn't push so hard on the sign language because that could actually slow down her talking. Since my sister is a deaf mute, I'd actually like Ryanne to have some ASL as her 2nd language so I guess I have some research to do there. Any book/web site advice?

Ryanne did her usual showing off and stood up in the middle of the room just to show the doc she could. No steps, though. We got a couple more the other day when she wanted something on the stool behind me. I asked about shoes, just to get her advice, and she said to try to keep them soft soled for as long as possible. I haven't seen sizes above 9 months with a soft sole, though. What did you ladies with walkers do?

Other than that, it went very well. I had a ton of questions about feeding, etc, since she started spitting out her baby food when her 2nd tooth came in (the doc even said she could see the two top starting to make their way) and we switched to primarily finger foods. Initially, the doctor said she would like me to try to continue baby cereal. In the end, though, her hematocrit levels were 'great' so the doc told me not to drive myself or R crazy with the cereal, but to just keep trying to give her lots of variety on the finger foods.

We were also told to night wean her to protect her teeth. She's been waking between 1 and 2 for a couple of weeks. I thought it might be habit because she spent so much time the last 3 months waking up in the night for something (stuffy nose, teething pain, etc) and the doc agreed, but said to let her CIO. I can't do that so I've told DH he'll have to start getting up more since she just doesn't want me in the middle of the night if she can't nurse. We've used many of the methods in Pantley's No Cry book so I guess I'll have to re-read to give him some tips.

I scheduled an extra appt for end of Sept (11m) so the doc can try to see her (but no 12m shots) before we leave for Japan. She told me that I could get any regular vaccs over there since they are as stringent, if not moreso, on the requirements.

Thanks for checking in on us. Some warm 9 grain bread (one of R's faves) that DH is baking for all of you!

Big girl

Well, we made the move from Midland back to Austin. Whew...that sucked! We ended up not leaving until about 8p on Sunday (7/18) night. Poor RC screamed in the back of the car for the first 2 - 2.5 hours. On Monday, her second tooth had cut through which explains the screaming. Doesn't make me retroactively have liked it anymore, though. Poor Chrys worked his butt off to get us moved - I don't know what I would have done without him and his mad ability to do great things on very little sleep.

While we were packing up and stuff, my sister watched Ryanne for a while. They ended up playing in the front yard. While out there, Ryanne kept deciding to pick stuff up and then she wanted to get a better look so she'd stand up to get her hands back (from a crawl). This was a first - she had been exclusively pulling up until then. Lis said that she would stand up and hold her hands in the air until Lis applauded, then fall down giggling and keep on crawling. She's such a ham. Now, she does it all the time, but luckily has decided to forego the waiting for applause. :)

This past Sunday (7/25), she got good and mad at Chrys and I had just sat myself down on the ottoman next to them. She let go of him and in 2 of her big Paul Bunyan baby steps made her way over to me - no hands! First steps...craziness! Haven't been any more, but watching her around the house, it's only a matter of time.

Also, she's crazy on the stairs. She loves to crawl up them and then get walked down. She kinda walk/falls down...it's funny to see.

Project Blog

A friend of mine is blogging today for the American Cancer Society. She posted this poem on her site and I wanted to have it for RC someday.

The Planned Child
by Sharon Olds

I hated the fact that they had planned me, she had taken
a cardboard out of his shirt from the laundry
as if sliding the backbone up out of his body,
and made a chart of the month and put
her temperature on it, rising and falling,
to know the day to make me -- I would have
liked to have been conceived in the heat,
in haste, by mistake, in love, in sex,
not on cardboard, the little x on the
rising line that did not fall again.

But when a friend was pouring wine
and said that I seem to have been a child who had been wanted,
I took the wine against my lips
as if my mouth were moving along
that valved wall in my mother's body, she was
bearing down, and then breathing from the mask, and then
bearing down, pressing me out into
the world that was not enough for her without me in it,
not the moon, the sun, Orion
cartwheeling across the dark, not
the earth, the sea -- none of it
was enough, for her, without me.