Favorite sport

Carmela loves to swing. We have proof:

Hot rod

Ela got to go to KidQuest again today; today was a different experience than she had last time because she's gotten so much better at crawling. She crawled up two steps today, crawled toward other kids' toys, and crawled after the bouncy balls she likes. She also got to check out a rocking car, and seemed to like it. Unfortunately, she didn't have much fun this time. She's either sick or teething again, so she was pretty fussy, poor thing. After parking her slick new car, Ela spent the afternoon gnawing on a frozen bagel, a cold wash cloth, a frozen teething ring, and a Nüby teething ring. She also screamed at Mom for wiping her nose, which she definitely does not like. Here's to a long, long night ....

Nine months!

Miss Carmela is 9 months old. She normally opens the door on a new month on the 30th, but since February only has 28 days, we figure she should be 9 months more or less now.

We've had a pretty amazing month. Carmela is crawling everywhere, and really loves to chase the kitties. We don't think she'll ever catch Belle, but every now and then she gets her hands on Belle's tail, and that makes her laugh her head off, especially when Belle flicks her tail around. Ela's working hard on her fine motor skills, and loves to pick at things. She'll be crawling full steam toward something (usually Mom's plant or Daddy's legs) and suddenly, she'll stop short, tuck her leg under her, and pivot into a sitting position so she can become engrossed in a piece of lint, or a tree spinner that got tracked in by a cat, or some other delightful tiny thing. Ela also loves pulling up on just about everything, but especially on the couch and the TV table. The other day she pulled up on a dining chair and it almost came down on top of her. Luckily Daddy caught her before she ended up on her back tangled up in chair legs. All in all, Ela hasn't taken too many serious tumbles. Every now and again she'll lose her balance and plop onto her butt, and rarer still she'll get high-ended on something that she's crawling over and tip forward, bonking her forehead. A couple of times she's lost her footing on the slippery linoleum in the kitchen and bonked her head, but nothing serious, thank goodness. Life is full of lost footing and bumped heads; fortunately, there are plenty of hugs and kisses here to help shake off the ones that hurt a bit.

Believe it or not, Ela has outgrown Jumperoo. It makes Mama a little sad to have to pack it up — it was so much fun to watch a littler Carmela jump and jump and jump in it. She just loved it — but now she loves the swings at the park, and standing up all by herself, and chasing her kitties, so there are other things that are fun to watch her enjoy. She still likes her lion finger puppet, but lately she's shown less interest generally in her toys. Ela's way more interested in getting the hang of crawling and in exploring every nook and cranny that she can find. Her sense of unbridled curiosity and her joy in discovery have been fun to watch.

Ela's working on her fine motor skills lately. She likes to poke at things with her pointer finger, and she loves exploring textures, first with her pointer finger, then with her whole hand. Sometimes Mom lets her play in the kitchen with a little bowl of water and a little bowl of oatmeal — the oatmeal is fun to squish around and smear on the floor (and it wipes up easily). Ela gets some peas in her booster tray every now and then, and she likes to push them around with her pointer finger. She'll eat one if Mom puts it in her mouth, but she's not quite ready for finger foods yet, and generally makes a yuck face and sometimes gags.

Ela still likes her milk the best, but she has a few favorite foods. She recently tried bananas and blueberries (from a jar), and really enjoyed it; she also enjoys her old standbys: Squash and corn, sweet potatoes and apples, and peas. She likes pears and prunes the best out of all the fruits, but will tolerate apples and apricots. She's generally a great eater, and recently has been eating a jar-and-a-half or so of food at a sitting. Mom's ready to start making her some food, though, because she doesn't get much variety from the little jars, and they're kind of expensive.

Ela is beginning to show a little bit of separation anxiety, and she canned her first babysitter recently. Mom and Dad went to a wedding; when Mom called to check in, Ela had been crying fairly inconsolably for an hour. Mom and Dad came home to relieve the poor babysitter. Ela fussed a little, ate a bunch of food, had some milk, and then slept like a little angel for the rest of the night. Every now and then she'll get some anxiety when a new face comes into her world, and she'll start to cry and reach for Mama or Daddy for security. It's a phase and a natural part of child development; hopefully, it's a good sign that she's securely attached to Mom and Dad, and that she'll grow into a trusting, confident little girl.

Finally, Ela has started either waving bye-bye or signing "milk" (unfortunately, they're very similar). We've been signing "milk" to her since she was about 4 months old; we've also recently started signing "eat" and "all done." (We were going to sign "up," but she already knows how to raise her arms to be picked up, so we figured if she has her own sign for it and we know what she means, why mess with it?) This is a wonderful development in her ability to communicate, and hopefully we'll avoid lots of anger and frustration down the road. Also, it's really cute.

This was a busy and fun month, full of playing, outside time, exploring, and observing. Ela got to swing on the swings, go for jogs in the park, check out a concert, and attend a neighborhood cooking event at our local community center (she was so good, and it was lots of fun!). She remains a happy, tolerant (if sometimes impatient) baby, and loves to tell us all about it. What lucky parents we are to have our little girl!

Carnivale!

Ela went to her first Purim carnival last weekend. It was amazing! Ela was going to be Queen Esther, but Mom didn't have time to make her costume, so she just went as a baby. It was a pretty convincing costume. Nana and Grandpa came with us; that was great! We hadn't seen them in awhile. First we said hi to Rabbi Nussbaum, who was sitting outside with Yona and baby Mia. Then we stopped at the hamentaschen table and Nana got us all several different flavors, and Mom said hi to a friend from temple. Her son, Asher, 4, told us about how long he was going to have to be in school to become a doctor (his Purim costume), but assured us that he wasn't a doctor yet because he's only had one year of school. (For the record, he'll have to be in school 20 years, which he counted all by himself, except for numbers 15 and 19, which, honestly, aren't really very important numbers anyway.)

After bagging our hamentaschen, we went into the ball room for a few minutes — a racquetball court filled with kids and rubber balls of different sizes — but it was deafening, and some of the bigger kids were kicking the balls pretty hard, so we left. We took a spin around the main carnival area and watched all the kids bouncing around (thanks to lots of hamentaschen and cotton candy), leading weary parents from booth to booth. It was a little overwhelming, actually. After checking everything out, we decided to set out for home. Ela won't be big enough to do the carnival stuff for a couple of years, but she sure enjoyed looking around, and we sure enjoyed the hamentaschen.