SHE's speaking Sierra-ese

SHE visits the Eat Real fest

SHE's reading along

SHE's out

SHE's ke-ai

Combat crawl

So we had her 9 month checkup today with Dr. Fong and he said, is she crawling? I said, she crawls on her elbows.
Dr. Fong: oh doing a nice combat crawl like this
josh: actually she crawls with one hand on one side and her elbow on the other side.
Dr. Fong: oh like this!

hahaha... sierra does the combat crawl.

Sierra is 28" (60th percentile)
19lb, 15oz (i.e., 20 lbs if she had eaten breakfast) (70th percentile)
head size is 80th percentile.

SHE is 20 lbs and 28" of all girl

Rolling off the bathroom counter

Last Friday afternoon 8/20, mudder and I had the scare of our lives with Sierra. We had just finished rinsing her butt (which we often do post-poo) in the bathroom sink and mudder said I could go back to work. I walked away and then heard a thump and then mudder howling "clover!..." It was such a feeling of extreme shock that will forever remain imprinted in my mind. Thankfully within minutes she was smiling and happy again. Mudder said that she thinks that in the flash instant that she saw it that she did not fall on her head, so hopefully that was the case.

Sierra is often trying hard to pull up these days. She grabs on to one of us (she prefers grabbing on to people) and pulls up.

Last Thurs evening 8/19, she started shaking her head when she didn't want more food. Now she seems to be shaking her head for fun at random.

SHE's HOT

SHE's home

SHE's dining

SHE created a new tunnel

SHE's visiting Gran Gran

If you're happy and you know it...

Last night, Winnie was feeding her dinner and she was clapping her hands with Winnie. Winnie was saying "pai pai shou" (clap hands in chinese) and she was clapping. It was adorable.

She was clapping today too.

Also, last weekend, she started being able to pick up cheerios (trader joes o's) & puffed rice cereal and put them in her mouth on her own! (we started her on the joes o's and puffed rice cereal about 2 wks before that - neither of them have oats) Now you can't stop her - if you sprinkle cereal on her high chair tray she just goes after it one after another! Also works great for keeping her happy in the car - feeding her one after another. the puffed rice is trickier for her bc it's so small, so she has figured out sticking it to her fingers and then licking it off. :)

This week, she started on wheat (organic banana baby cereal puffs), avocado, plums. Seems to be doing well with everything so far, knock on wood.

SHE's a precious bean bag

SHE's calling you

SHE's waving like she's in a parade

SHE has 2 big front teeth

SHE's reading along

SHE's reading along II

SHE's a bookworm

SHE's happy to see daddy

SHE's 9 months old and has a king sized bed

SHE's waving

Happy 9 month birthday, Miss S!

We survived Sierra's first plane flights to Seattle. We mostly kept her entertained with toys. She pooped both ways (she tends to poop when you're holding her standing up and you do a lot of this on the plane). She got fussy midway up to SEA bc it was her naptime, so I nursed her and she fell asleep. Then when we started to descend, she cried a bit and pulled on her ear due to ear pressure so I stuck her on my breast and she sucked and stopped crying and fell asleep (sucking is supposed to help with this). I did the same on the way back home and she didn't even cry - she slept through the breastfeeding descent all the way to the gate and it wasn't until Josh grabbed our suitcases that she stirred awake.

Sierra loves to sleep in daddy's arms and on his shoulder. When she fusses at night, she stomps her legs against the bed, Josh picks her up, and she melts into his arms. She has been his sleeping buddy since birth and is utterly blissful in his arms.

Last weekend, Grandpa was playing on the floor with Sierra. He said "Can you put the ball in this cup?" and she did! She also waved goodbye to him at the airport. Sierra has taken to waving lately. Like today she waved at the cats after dinner. I'm not sure she knows what it means yet though.

When Sierra likes eating something, she emphatically goes "mmm, mmM, MMMM!" and clenches her fists to show how strongly she is enjoying it. It's cute and funny.

Sierra loves saying uh, oh with gran gran especially (so she says it with a chinese accent (oh, oh!)). When she drops or throws something (like a toy) on the floor, she says "uh, oh". Sometimes the smarty gets ahead of herself and she says "uh, oh" and *then* drops it on the floor. :)

Sierra now has 3 oilily coveralls with a kitten print. We got 1 hand me down from Alison, and it was so soft, stretchy, and comfortable that I found 2 more on eBay in the next size up and ordered them. oilily is this european children's brand that seems to have closed its US stores. Josh hates the snap buttons, which are kind of hard to snap since they are on the small side.

Sierra hasn't been gagging lately. Gran gran postulates that the gagging a couple weeks ago had more to do with her stomach virus, and not something she does when she doesn't like a food.

Today she had homemade chicken soup with carrots, celery, and potato that gran gran made and ground. She seemed to like it enough. Fruit is still her favorite though and she gets this after every meal and eats it with relish!

SHE's a market special

SHE's goodnight!

SHE's the middle cousin of 5 born within 11 months

SHE's laughing at grandma and grandpa's

Baby naming in Seattle

This weekend we are going to Seattle (first plane trip) to visit Josh's family. They are hosting a Jewish baby naming.

Eating chicken

Gran gran tried making chicken broth without ginger in it this time, with just some green onion and carrot. This time she ate it! We even used the new kidco food mill to grind a bit of chicken with rice (scooping out the carrot) together and she ate that too. She's not the hugest fan, but is OK with it.

We're pretty happy to get some protein in her since we're always concerned about my breast milk supply and also being so dependent on me (since she can't have formula)!

SHE loves her gran gran

SHE says "feed me"

Events lately

We haven't done a whole bunch lately in terms of walks. Let me think. We walked a bit around San Carlos a few weekends ago. Last weekend, we walked at Arastradero (it was hot and dry and yellow, not the best season). We went to SJ state to watch the SJ symphony outdoor concert. Josh took her on a walk on the trail to palo alto that starts by the sweet shop in los altos a few weekends ago (when I had caught sierra's diarrhea). Last Sunday we walked her to clark's for burgers and she was fussy the whole time we were eating. gran gran discovered she likes the itsy bitsy spider song (which plays on the Learning Home toy she just got last week) so we sang it to her and it kept her quiet during dinner. She doesn't like sitting in the stroller but we couldn't hold her and eat at the same time! Also, last Saturday, David the ipad artist drew a portrait of Sierra reading. (this is the only position in which she'll sit still for long).

Speaking of reading, she loves books and will turn the pages and look through them on her own.

Oh and Sierra really enjoys the Kelty hiking backpack (hand me down from Bill at work). The first time Josh tried it around the block. Halfway around the block, Josh asked me to see what she was doing from the front, and I checked and she was asleep! Josh gently took off the backpack when we got home and she stayed in it until she stirred/woke up a bit and then he put her in bed for her nap. The 2nd time we were at SJ state (symphony) and she enjoyed the bird's eye view. Walking around campus afterwards, she was laughing. Then last weekend at Arastradero, she fell asleep.

Sierra tried a playground swing twice so far (at Cuesta Park). She really enjoyed it! She was smiling and lasted awhile in the swing. The 2nd time, I put a shopping cart cover in it since those things are germy!

Bored in the car

Sierra doesn't like riding in the car (not that she ever loved it) the last couple months. I've been bringing toys to entertain her. She particularly stops crying when I show her the vtech helicopter (hand me down from Inn) with buttons you push that play music. It's plastic though so I don't like having it in the car since it could bang hard. She's not as into the soft toys (or at least they're not as distracting). I got her My Pal Violet - a stuffed dog that sings when you push her paws but she isn't as into it as the helicopter. Guess I should look into buying more Vtech toys.

Sierra has really gotten good at bouncing with joy in the exersaucer lately. It makes a loud noise when she bounces/pushes the saucer up and down and it's pretty dramatic and funny. She is really good at and enjoys spinning toys too. On the exersaucer, she spins the spinner super fast!

Crawling

Sierra has made some good progress in her crawling the last 2 weeks. She is crawling all over the moving blanket, and this morning she crawled off and was trying to get out of the living room.

Yesterday she pulled herself up in the crib (which is still on the upper setting, which is fine since she still doesn't sleep in the crib) by grabbing onto the aquarium soother hanging in the crib. She has also been caught trying to pull herself on the bedrails.

For at least a couple months, Sierra's been sleeping on our king size mattress on the floor with bedrails and against the wall. We're thinking we need to get a long baby gate now since the bedrails are too short. Josh & I have been sleeping next door on the guest bed. (Naya occasionally sleeps in the crib. Yes, what is wrong with this picture? :))

At night, I nurse her to sleep (or Josh walks her to sleep on his shoulder and lies with her and then rolls her out of his arms in bed, which sometimes take a few tries). She then sleeps until 5-6am and wakes up for nursing and then sleeps until 8-9am on a good night. On other nights, she'll wake at 1am, 6am, and/or 7am, and need to be walked to sleep by Josh. At night she sometimes wakes up and then goes back to sleep on her own after a few cries. Last night in fact, she stayed awake and was grabbing my nose after her 5am feeding and then I walked out. She then cried a few cries and went back to sleep (Josh was next to her. He's been sleeping with her lately until we find a solution to her potentially climbing the bed rails.)

During the day, I nurse her to sleep or she'll sometimes fall asleep in the stroller.

She still can't fall asleep on her own. i.e., we can't put her down at night or during the day for a nap while she's awake and have her fall asleep. She'll just cry. Though admittedly we haven't tried letting her cry for long. You can let them "cry it out" after they are 6 months old, but bc either she or I (mastitis) have had something we haven't been able to do this (when I had mastitis, I had to nurse frequently, so when she woke and cried, I'd nurse her).

Sierra's tastes in foods

Sierra really likes pears, bananas, sweet potato, apples mixed with any of these. She thinks apple alone is a bit tart (she scrunches her face) but still likes it. Squash is a good (but less sweet) alternative to sweet potato for her.

She thinks peas are OK, and green beans are little less tasty than peas. Green beans are on the same level as chicken and sweet potatoes mixed. Chicken alone is gross and so is gran gran's homemade chicken broth (with ginger only) mixed with rice or rice cereal. She gags (which makes her throw up) when she doesn't like something, and will quit eating afterwards. Not exactly the best way to show she doesn't like it. I wish she would just spit it out, but it's like she swallows and THEN processes that she doesn't like it and wants to get rid of the food from her body ASAP!

She's not a big spinach fan either. Mango is OK, but gran gran thinks it tastes moldy (jarring process?) and she subsequently had a stomach virus after eating a lot of mango (1 week of diarrhea and not eating much except breastmilk), so we're off mango.

We have mainly given her jarred foods so far bc of her sensitive stomach. I tried cooking green beans and running it through our food mill - she tried a cocouple bites and then gagged. Same with the homemade chicken broth (in rice cereal and in homemade rice porridge milled together) She wouldn't eat the plain homemade rice porridge gran gran made when she had diarrhea (the glutinous part on top is supposed to have a lot of nutrients/vitamins according to chinese), though she wouldn't eat her rice cereal then either, so it might have been lack of appetite. She did gobble down a blended banana I gave her once, but this was a mistake bc it made her diarrhea even worse (like she only had gone 1-2 diarrheas per day, but after this, she went like 4-5x per day!). Chinese say that banana makes you go (as opposed to western doctors). Well, I guess she does have a chinese stomach!

When she likes something she goes mmmmMMMM! mmmmMMMMM! while she's eating it. And opens her mouth like a baby bird for more. It is super cute.

Sierra doesn't have a big appetite. At most, she'll eat about 1 stage 2 jar (4 ounces). We'll usually stop her after 4 oz if she really likes it bc she normally doesn't eat that much and we don't want to overload her tum.

She does like rice cereal plain mixed with water, which is great. I've read babies (like Max) may not like rice cereal since it is bland.

This morning, she tried puffed rice and Trader Joes O's (cheerios with no wheat) for the first time. She didn't seem to mind them or specially like them. She held them in her mouth for a bit and then they were gone. The puffed rice kind of melts in your mind pretty quickly.

SHE's a bookworm

SHE's all hiked out

SHE's a bundle o joy

SHE's all hiked out