“Hi” is definitely her favorite word right now. She says it when she wakes up, she says it when we come home, to people in stores, and just randomly. Maybe the best though is that she says it to her stuffed animals. She’s only really just noticed them, and she will say HI and then crawl over and give them a hug. Her favorites are beaver and polar bear, and she also just started saying “beaver” and “bear” yesterday. She’s also started on “butterfly” – several of her favorite books have butterflies in them, and E just hung a butterfly mobile from her ceiling. Oh, and “kittycat” has made a big return this week.

 

I wrote this in september and somehow didn’t post it:

She’ll be nine months in three more days. She’s currently eating: chicken, cheese (extra sharp cheddar), beans, zucchini, green beans, avocado, broccoli, sweet potato, plums, pluots, peaches, prunes, cheerios, yogurt, carrots, tomatoes. She’ll play with small pieces of stuff like cheerios, chicken, and cheese (one-finger method; I’ve tried showing her opposable thumbs but she’s not interested) while you shovel the mashed stuff into her mouth. She usually isn’t interested at first and will block but will eventually accept some food, if you start with something she likes (like vanilla yogurt, right now) and keep her occupied. Every meal takes at least an hour.

 

Also…
Flower ninja kills you with cute
Flower ninja is not stealthy
Flower ninja shreds the carpet

 

I’ve started a new blog for making somewhat boring posts about Nora-related details. The only thing I’m definitely planning on doing with it is posting what she’s eating and any related recipes. If you’re interested, you can find it at http://nora.perkowitz.net/report/ and entries will be listed at her main page and on her facebook page.

 

Well, though Nora was saying “kittycat” she only did it for a few days. Her word for the cats now seems to be “ba” or just her high-pitched screech. She’s started saying a new word though that we can’t figure out: “abu”. It doesn’t just sound like babbling because she says it pretty distinctly and it seems directed at things, but we can’t figure out what it means. If you say it to her she will often repeat it back though.

 

Since it’s essentially impossible to keep the floor 100% free of Nora-tempting dirt particles, why not just scatter the floor with crumbs of delicious, nutritious cheerios to decoy her away from the dirt?

 

My daughter will crawl halfway across the floor (a very large effort for her right now) to pick up and eat a piece of lint, and fight like a tigress to prevent you pulling it out of her mouth when you grab her with a horrified gasp, but she is not interested in the delicious pears, plums, chicken, cheese etc. presented to her at the dinner table and will turn up her nose at them in a frosty manner.

 

Happy 9-month birthday, little girl!

 

 

Nora’s first word is: kittycat. She says something that sounds more or less like “kittycat” or “cat” when she sees the cats (she also shrieks loudly). She also says something like “dada” a lot but that one’s more random — all kinds of things and people seem to count as “dada”.

 

And since I’m rambling and have the floor, every man needs a daughter. ALL of my male friends who had children were changed for the better by having at least one daughter. It is not a wife who socializes a husband, it is a daughter.

 

After reading a bunch of Game Theorist, I’m starting to think that economist parents may be even more scary¹ than psychologist parents.

–
¹ I use “scary” in the affectionate sense, being a sort of amateur-psychologist parent myself, with enough game/mathy obsession to be a potential amateur-economist parent as well.

 

optic: lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vNxjwt2AqY
optic: i am starting to get a vision of my future life that is both weird and comical
cnote: that is pretty adorable
cnote: you should do videos like that too
optic: sure
luna: i wish i could be entertained for 4 hours like that
optic: agreed
cnote: it’s basically teh same thing we do with the internet
luna: i think he looks like he’s having way more fun than us
cnote: agrd

 

What’s the fuss, gus?
What’s the trouble, bubble?
Why so mean, bean?
Why the hissy, missy?
Why the squirmin, herman?
Why the wiggles, giggles?

 

At about 6-8 weeks, Nora’s main mode of expression was still crying; she didn’t have many other sounds in her vocabulary. Around that time, she got a cold or something and was stuffed up for a while and started sneezing. She’d often sneeze a couple of times and then try to sneeze again but miss, instead emitting a super loud AWOO sound which was hilarious. It was the first non-crying sound we’d heard her make and pretty much the cutest thing we’d ever heard (probably not the last time I’ll say that). We kept trying to catch it on video but never succeeded. And now, at three months, she’s figured out how to sneeze without accidentally saying AWOO (though she makes similar sounds along with her growing vocabulary of coos and shrieks) and we’re afraid we’ll never hear it again. The elusive AWOO is sort of like the sound at about 0:43 of this video, except it actually sounds like she is saying “AWOO!”

 

(following on to this post...)

[11:55] dgirl1: nora rules! she's only kicking with the left leg now and does it so hard she has shaken the cards off the mobile
[11:55] dgirl1: she's super into doing it herself
[11:56] dgirl1: i took some video
[11:56] optic: haha thats awesome
[11:56] optic: if you switch legs does she figure it out
[11:56] dgirl1: its kind of amazing
[11:56] dgirl1: i'm going to do that after lunch
[11:57] dgirl1: she is totally fascinated by this - it is interesting to watch
[11:58] dgirl1: i just switched legs
[11:58] dgirl1: she's puzzled
[11:58] dgirl1: but working it out
[12:02] dgirl1: she's now moving both feet in an attempt - and its working but she's still going left leg and adding in arm movements to try it out
[12:02] optic: heh
[12:03] dgirl1: oh she figured it out! shit i wish i had the camera on her the face was awesome

E, who spends pretty much all day every day with Nora, has been reporting lately that she gets easily bored -- if E doesn't take her out or do something new and different with her, she gets annoyed by late afternoon. So cute, but kind of hard on E right now. We recently got her a mobile. Babies love mobiles, and will stare at them for hours (and they're very educational, it turns out). But poor Nora gets bored with her mobile if it doesn't move, so E had to keep jiggling it while trying to do other things.

Obvious solution might be to put a fan nearby, but I was reminded of an experiment I read about in the scientist in the crib where the experimenters tied a string from babies' feet to mobiles, and the babies learned that they could cause the mobile to move. So we tried that this morning, and E says she's figured out how to keep the mobile moving and it's kept her busy for hours (where hours in baby time = like an hour).

I love our home psych lab!

Nora says:
- Cheers to Slumdog Millionaire. Nora found it a real pleasure to sleep through and barely raised a peep during the whole thing. Also, mom and dad enjoyed getting out of the house to see it and were less cranky later when woken up in the middle of the night.
- Jeers to John Adams. No particular reason, Nora just did not like it and was critical throughout.
- Cheers to spitting up on daddy. This never stops being funny.
- Cheers to cooking with mommy, or at least watching from the bouncy chair.
- Jeers to mommy going in the other room where Nora can't see her.
- Cheers to stories at bedtime. Even though Nora can't read and has little idea what fox in socks is getting at, she likes looking at the pictures and having family time in bed.
- Jeers to waking up in the morning. Nora's preferred wakeup routine is as follows: wake up slightly, stretch for ten minutes, briefly open eyes, return to sleep. Nora's actual wakeup routine is: stretch, cry, stretch, cry, refuse to open eyes, repeat.
- Cheers to morning dance party. Once awake, she does enjoy stretching on her changing table and being danced around the room to her morning mix.
- Jeers to daddy having to leave for work in the middle of morning dance party.
- Cheers to the Beatles, the unacknowledged kings of baby music. Yellow submarine? Ob-la-di ob-la-da? Good morning? Baby dance party heaven.
- Jeers to NPR. It has no beat and Nora cannot dance to it and it depresses mom and dad.
- Cheers to aunt Cnote.
- Cheers to Fox in Socks and Go Dog Go. These books are rhythmic and surreal and fun for everyone involved. Especially new blue goo and all those hats.
- Jeers to The Cat in the Hat and One Fish Two Fish. Not Dr. Seuss at his best.
- Jeers to spinach, for reasons not worth going into.

all Nora updates can be found at nora's site. now with rss!

Two months old already!