Our Little Angel

Here's an update on Aria, since she is asleep and I can write.

At nine and a half months, she is the terror of our house. Her crawl has been upgraded to "lightning speed," and occasionally I actually lose her and have to go hunting through the house. She still sleeps wrapped up for the most part, because it makes it much easier for me to transfer her into her crib while she sleeps. Yesterday I left her on my bed instead of taking the time to move her, and she woke up without making a peep and destroyed my room. I heard her start crying and figured she had finally awoken. When I opened the door the room told the story. Her blanket was unraveled and empty, the nail clippers and an unrolled roll of toilet paper next to it. I found her crying in my bathroom. Somehow she had gotten off the bed to go looking for me, and when she couldn't find me it upset her. My suspicion for how she got down was head first. She has learned how to crawl up on our couch and coffee table, and that is her solution for getting back down.

While she is fast at crawling, she is not quiet fast enough in her mind. She tries to catch up to the cat, squealing with delight as she closes in, and then the cat gets up and leaves. She will do this several times until she gets frustrated and upset. Cuddles doesn't like the attention, and will try to bat at her or bite her gently to deter her if I am not in the room. Then I come and rebuke her and she runs off.

Our daughter's has some new tricks, including sticking out her tongue. She learned that last Sunday. She eats cherrios now. For meals I am trying to teach her to eat her vegetables. I figure it's never too early. She likes green beans and spinach more than apricots or barley. She still likes bananas too. Mostly she is interested in what we are eating though, probably because it smells (and tastes) much better than what we give her. If you sit down with food she is magically at your side. This morning I heard her rustling. I didn't go check right away because she is always messing with something and I was eating my breakfast cereal. When I checked on her, I found her with a pretzel in her mouth, two in one hand and one in the other, with the open bag in front of her which I had not put away when we got home last night. She never ceases to amaze me. She has also learned to clap as well as bang her hands on a table.

Last week, after having a runny nose for a few days, she got an eye infection in both eyes and an ear infection on the right. We took her into the doctor and now we have to force feed her amoxacilan morning and night. Talk about a bright pink disaster! It is hit and miss; sometimes she sucks it up like candy, sometimes she spews it all over everything. Then I have to give her eye drops four times a day. I didn't know a kid could fight so hard. She puts up a herculean effort, and I have to pin down her arms, legs, and head, and then try to open her eye and get it in. There is a lot of screaming involved. Our neighbors probably think we are abusing her with all the noises coming from our apartment. At least she is doing much better.

Once and a while our little angel gets tired. She then proceeds to follow us around the house crying in a whiny sort of way, until we put her down for a nap. That is the only time she is very cuddly. The rest of the time it is go, go, go. She has gotten to the phase where she is starting to dump baskets of toys and pull things off of shelves. As long as she is playing and not just dumping, and it is occupying her for a little while, I let her. We have some Disney movies on a low shelf that get dumped about 3 or 4 times a day. That is what she is into right now (she woke up a few minutes ago). I rotate the toys in her toy bin in an effort to keep her occupied. I give her a pile of Cheerios to eat if I need to run to the bathroom, otherwise she follows me crying.

The rolling, swiveling chairs in our house have been giving her problems when she tries to use them to stand. They swivel and then she hits her head on the legs with the wheels. In the past few days though, she has gotten more stable and learned to hold on to them without falling. I am very proud of her, and it means less crying. She is surely a ball of energy. Uho...it's quiet. Gotta go.