Lauren Crawls

Lauren turned 10 months old on Thursday, and she is on the move. She has been crawling for a little while now, but in the past couple days it has moved from crawling on occasion to crawling everywhere. I had the flu yesterday and was the videographer here, so I apologize for the bad camera angle, but I was on the couch and I wasn't moving. You'll see at the end of the video that she pulls herself up on the couch. She isn't "cruising" yet (walking from piece of furniture to piece of furniture while holding on), but I'm sure it's not far behind.

Lauren Eats a Pear

So Lauren's new favorite thing is to eat straight from the pear. I'm pretty sure this is not recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, but we do it anyway. We save it for dessert, and then she goes nuts. She usually eats an entire pear at one sitting. Girl loves some fruit. Also one of Lauren's favorites: clapping for herself. You'll see both on this video.

Lauren's 9 Month Checkup

So Lauren is now almost 10 months old, but here is her 9 month update. First of all, she's awesome. I mean really really fun. She motorboats, she waves hi and bye, she signs "finished" and "more," she claps, she crawls, she squeals, she hides, she plays peekaboo...this kid does it all. OK, she doesn't do it all. But for a 9 month old she does it all, in my opinion.

First, the stats. In addition to having 7 ear infections in under 10 months (yay Lauren!), at her 9 month checkup she was 17 lbs., 6 oz. (25th percentile), 27 3/4" (65th percentile) and her head circumference was 44.8 cm (75th percentile). So, both her height and weight have gone down. Her height just a bit (75th percentile last time) and her weight is way down (65th percentile last time, I think?). She is a long skinny thing, although she still looks like she is wearing rubber bands on her wrists and she has the juiciest thighs you've ever seen. Seriously. Like people come up to us in the grocery store and comment on them juicy. So I have no idea how huge they'd be if she was in even the 50th percentile.

She continues to nurse and eat baby food, but since finger foods were introduced she's way more into those. At her 9 month checkup her pediatrician said that we can start to introduce whole milk into her diet, although we haven't done that yet. For finger foods she eats cooked carrots and broccoli (currently in disfavor), sweet potatoes and green beans, eggs, pears, bananas, avocados, Cheerios, and grapes, to name a few. She likes to shovel the food in fistfuls at a time. She is drinking water out of a sippy cup, although she's not so great at tipping it up herself so we're still helping her with that.

She's also crawling with her butt off the ground! I think I mentioned that in an earlier post. We have yet to capture that on video, but I'll post it when we do. Now, some photos from the last month or so for your viewing pleasure.

Sacked out after a morning of shopping with Aunt Arie in Lawrence.

Hanging with Dad after lunch at the Happy Gillis Cafe and Hangout (let's be honest, the hands down best place in Kansas City to grab a sandwich, soup, brownie, yogurt...).

General Cheerio-eating adorableness.

Helping Mom with errands and doing one of her favorite activities: looking in the mirror.

Checking out flowers at Costco.

At the beginning of January we came home from work on a Friday evening to find that we were without heat. Luckily we have a friend who works at a hotel downtown so she got us a room and we had a staycation while we waited for it to be repaired (thanks Katie!).
These photos are from the hotel.

So there it is, Lauren @ 9 months. Every single day, Sean and I say to each other at least 10 times (I'm not kidding) how lucky we are that this little baby has joined our world. She is an absolute endless source of joy. I know it's cliche, but I love her more than I ever knew I was capable of loving. It's really easy.

What a Difference 8 Months Makes

Some of you may remember this photo of Lauren taken at 8 weeks in a spa robe that Aunt Arie made for her. We thought she was so cute back then!

Now, 8 months later, I have to say she is getting much cuter with age. Oh, and also much bigger apparently, because this robe can barely contain her.

She can still throw a major temper tantrum, so that's awesome.

And then, two seconds later, like nothing happened. Drama Queen.

To The Nelson

What to do on yet another freezing day in Kansas City in February? Today we chose The Nelson. Tomorrow it's supposed to break 40, so we're thinking the zoo. It's pretty bad when 40 feels balmy enough to take your child outside. Serious cabin fever here in Kansas City. I know we're not alone.

Lauren was a fan of the water feature in this sculpture.

But she was a bigger fan of crawling around on the floor in the museum.

This is a new installation at The Nelson. It took much hard work, according to the artists. We call it Lauren Rebecca Power, started in 2008, finished in 2009, and installed in 2010. The fact that the piece of art is installed backwards is representative of this particular piece of art's propensity for massive blowouts, which blowouts have won much acclaim worldwide.

Pro Tip

For those of you technologically challenged: if you want to see a larger size of a picture I've posted, just click on the photo and a larger size will pop up. Hit your back button to get you back to the original post.

A Picture to Tide You Over

Lauren and I went to a play date on Friday for downtown moms while they were moving my office at work, and one of the other moms posted this photo on Facebook, so I thought I would share since our home computer is still down for the count. We had quite a weekend; Sean and I had the stomach flu and Lauren's ears became so infected that it caused the doctor (when Sean took her in on Saturday) to exclaim "her eardrum's going to burst!" Not sure if it did or not, we haven't seen any fluid, but poor Lauren has been in a lot of pain. Aunt Arie was called in for backup. She called it "Arie's Day of Giving" (she'd been volunteering in Ottawa, KS when I made the frantic call for help).

The problem/beautiful thing about Lauren is that she's not a complainer. Unfortunately, that means she sometimes doesn't start complaining until her eardrum is about to burst vs. when she first gets the infection. But she's on antibiotics now and we're crossing our fingers that they'll work (sometimes they don't). This is ear infection number 7 or 8 for her...I've lost track. When other parents say that their kid has a "double" ear infection like it's some kind of big deal I'm like really? Is there anything but a double ear infection? Lauren likes to go all the way. No single ear infections for her.

Also: she crawled with her butt up this weekend! Like the real crawl that you think of when someone says their baby is crawling, vs. what Lauren was doing, which Sean liked to explain this way: "Imagine you were in a car accident and broke both of your legs. But you have to get away from the car because it's on fire and might explode. That's how Lauren crawls." But no more! Now she crawls like a big girl! OK, OK, she still car accident crawls sometimes. But she's getting there.