Crazy Hair

Reese's hair is growing at an alarming rate. She definitely didn't get this trait from me--apparently I was nearly bald until I was 2. With its increased length, she occasionally sports some pretty silly looks. Yesterday, she reminded me of a cockatiel. Even after combing her hair and trying to smooth it with some water it wouldn't budge. I gave up trying to "fix" it and took a picture instead.

Book Worm

While Reese has two cloth books to enjoy (and chew on), lately she is obsessed with "real" books. When playing in her bedroom, she immediately crawls over to her bookshelf, pulls herself up to standing, and proceeds to pull all of her board books (the only ones I placed on a shelf within reach) onto the floor. For many babies at this stage, this may be the end of the game. (Goodness knows Reese enjoys a good game of "throw-things-on-the-floor-and-watch-mommy-and-daddy-pick-them-up.") Once the books are on the floor, however, Reese will sit down and page through them. Sometimes the books are upside down or backwards, and sometimes she turns handfuls of pages at a time, but it's cute and exciting to watch.

9 Month Check Up and Observations

Today was Reese's 9-month check up. I was worried that today's visit was going to be rough even though no shots were required. As usual, though, Reese completely surprised me. She sat completely still and quite for her entire check up--including a peek in her ears and mouth. (She almost never lets me get my fingers in her mouth to check things out!) While she didn't have to endure any shots this visit, they did draw blood to check her lead and iron levels. They pricked her finger and then had to squeeze it repeatedly to fill a small vial with blood. She was VERY upset during this process. Luckily, they covered her fingers with band aides when they were finished and the band aides have kept her happy and interested ever since.

The doctor says everything looks good. He anticipates that her two top teeth will be breaking through the gums within the next week, and the two on either side are going to be in shortly after. Reese's weight is a little low (lower than even I expected), but she's still growing and hitting all of her developmental milestones so there's no need to worry. Her weight puts her in the 18th percentile, her length is in the 40th, and her head circumference is also in the 40th percentile. The doctor and I discussed her eating habits and he said that she's just probably burning a lot of calories with all of her movin' around. (She eats over 2cups of solid foods a day and takes between 16-24oz of formula a day, plus 2-4oz of water and juice.) I keep reminding myself that I didn't make it to 20lbs until after my first birthday, so she's probably just going to be petite.

Other notes of interest lately:

* Reese is going through a "mommy" phase. She's very clingy and wants me to hold her or to be within arms reach constantly. It's been tough on Kevin because in the evenings when he gets home and he tries to hold her, she often cries and pushes away. Luckily, the anxiety isn't constant. She's still doing fine at the day care at the gym, and after spending a long weekend with daddy, she was responding to him much better. She also seems to do well if there's a lot going on--lots of people or new things to distract her. She really turns on the tears when she gets upset about this and then miraculously and instantly recovers if I hold her or pick her up.

* Reese is responding to the phrase, "put your arms up." If she's sitting on the floor or in a chair and I want to pick her up I say, "Reese, put your arms up." and she will lift both arms in the air (hold 'em-up-style) for me to lift her. Conversely, when she wants to be picked up, she will crawl over to my feet, sit down, and lift both arms in the air.

* Reese continues to point to many things. She can now (more than half of the time) correctly point to mama, dada, dog, and cat if asked, "Reese, where's ______?" She seems especially interested and most consistent in pointing to the cat. (Which is strange since the cat is MIA the second Reese gets too loud or starts crawling after her.)

Time With Mama and Dada

This weekend, we caught some fun moments on film. On Sunday morning, Reese "read" the paper with daddy at the kitchen table. She especially like the colorful ads. Reese has also started giving "kisses" to mommy and daddy. She reaches up, grabs our faces, and then plants an open-mouthed slobbery kiss on our cheeks.

Memorial Day Visit

This weekend the Bailey family made a trip up to Austin on Sunday to catch up and visit with Reese. Reese showed off many of her new "tricks" and had a great time with her relatives.

Bday Buddies

On Saturday we went to lake LBJ to be part of Abbey's third birthday. Reese was the youngest of quite a few kiddos at the party and she got the chance to play with Carson, Abbey's brother, who is three months older than her. While Reese and Carson have "met" and "played" before, this was the first time they were completely cognisant of the other's presence. Their meeting started a little rough--with Carson climbing on Reese and then hitting her in the head. (Chesley says Carson has learned how to defend himself as a little brother already.) Reese soon recovered though, and dealt some blows of her own as they were standing together by the couch.

Bubbles

Reese occasionally gets to spend time in the toddler room at the gym's daycare center. (Since she can motor around by herself, they asked my permission to put her with the 1-3 year olds if she happens to be the only infant at the time. Since Reese loves watching and playing with the older kids, I said sure.) One day when I went to pick her up, they were having "bubble time" in the infant room. While Reese couldn't chase the bubbles around the room, she loved watching them. Using this experience as inspiration, I bought a small container of bubbles at HEB and we tried them out in the back yard. The video below captures Reese's reaction. You'll notice Annie sneaking around in the background--it was her first bubble experience too and she did lots of sniffing and licking when the bubbles landed and popped. The hardest part of enjoying bubbles with Reese was that she wanted to climb into my lap and grab the bubble mix. It says it's non-toxic, but...

Finger Fun

This week Reese also began waving and pointing. She's still a little shy and unsure about waving to strangers, but if Mommy or Daddy wave at her, she'll wave back.

Watching her point at objects is exciting. This week I took her to day care at the gym on Tuesday morning. Over night the staff had hung a summer themed banner above the check-in desk. (It's like a grass skirt with flowers dispersed throughout.) When we walked in, Reese looked up at the banner and then began pointing at it. Since then, she's been pointing up a storm at things that interest her, or things that she wants. This was especially true when she saw my Mother's Day flowers. Due to lighting (and some leakage issues) we had to move the bouquet around several times before it found a "home." When Reese noticed the new location, she would tilt her head and examine it (confused about the move?) and then point at it. I know that pointing is rude in the long term, but as her only form of communication right now I think it's pretty neat. I'm going to try to catch pictures soon if possible.

Funny Faces

This week Reese has been making funny faces. She began with a "fish face" on Monday. She sucked her cheeks in and puckered her lips as if kissing, then she let them go in order to make a sound. It was the highlight of her day to make such a silly noise at will.
On Thursday Reese began sticking her tongue out. At first I was panicked--I was certain her tongue was swelling in response to some kind of crazy allergic reaction. Once I realized that Reese hadn't eaten anything new I calmed down and watched her stick her tongue out at me and others for the rest of the day. I will try to get pictures of these funny faces as soon as I can.

On a side note, I added pictures to both the "Reese and Annie" slide show as well as the "Eating is Fun" slide show to the right.

In Action

Here's Reese pulling up on some of our furniture in the living room.

Get Up, Stand Up

Reese continues to be a busy body around the house. She is constantly on the move. Luckily, she has learned to avoid the dog/cat areas as well as the fireplace. (It only took a few serious tantrums before she got the hint I was serious when i said "no.") Nowadays, Reese is most content when standing up. I've seen her abandon her inch-worm crawling numerous times for the "real thing" (on hands and knees), but she doesn't get much practice since she would prefer to be vertical. This a fun but scary new chapter for her (and me). Her favorite areas to stand in are: her crib, her playpen, holding onto the couch, holding on to the coffee table, and holding onto some baskets in the living room. Once Reese gets vertical, she begins exploring. Anything within arms reach is fair game. She has even ventured a few steps while holding on in order to get something really desirable (like my cell phone or the TV remote). Reese's only problem is that she has yet to figure out how to get down from standing. She gets up in a flash, but once she's lost interest or gets tired, she begins crying and doesn't understand how to get down. (Ehren has coined it the "stuck in a tree" phenomenon. From my own childhood tree experiences, I think this is a perfect analogy.) I'm trying to give her some time to figure things out independently, but she often needs rescuing or a physical prompt to get her started on the way down. She's also been pretty brave about letting go once standing. She seldom looses her balance when she does this, but it does give me a scare. If she's not standing, she's climbing on something or someone. Once Reese gets a hold of the couch, her next move is to try to pull herself up onto the couch. The same rings true of the baskets in the living room. If it's not furniture, she's usually scaling me. Whether sitting or lying down near her, i have become the perfect obstacle course. My clothing takes a lot of abuse in the processes, but Reese enjoys scaling "Mount Mommy." (She's had less success scaling "Mount Annie." Annie takes a lot of abuse, but she currently draws the line at being crawled on and over.)