If you're going to pull hair...

Addy has been in a hair-pulling mood for the past several weeks, which makes cuddling her not nearly as pleasant. The other day I was pretty fed up with having her pulling on the tiny hairs at the back of my neck, so I told her, "If you're going to pull hair, could you at least pull your own please?" About a week ago she started noticing that she does, in fact, have hair on her head, too. She doesn't seem to pull nearly as hard on her own hair as she does anyone else's (kind of like how she doesn't bite on her own fingers nearly as hard as she does ours).

93 days and counting

I don't know why, but I have had Halloween on the brain lately. I think we've settled on what Addy's costume will be this year, but there's still plenty of time to change our minds. A pirate is tempting, given the cute snarly face that she's been making of late. I think we'll save that for next year so we can have time to teach her a few choice pirate phrases.

The opposite of "no" is "yes"

Every once in a while you can get Addy to nod her head "yes," but it's super adorable because she moves her whole body when she does it.  "No" is definitely the easier gesture to do.

She's finally getting the hang of rolling over (other than front-to-back-over-her-right-side).  Front to back over the left side is finally fun, though easier when she's wearing her funny therapy shorts that hold her legs together.  Back to front is still not exciting, but Addy is absolutely able to do it even if she isn't interested in it. 

Crawling remains a bit of a chore for her--I need to work on finding the magic motivating something that will make Addy really want to put some effort into getting it.  I thought I had a clever idea of making a burp rag with lots of little satiny tags around the edges (Addy is an expert at finding the washing instruction tag on any item she gets her sticky little fingers onto).  Then I saw one at Target for $9.99 (link).

Newest tricks

Addy's latest food adventure is rice puffs (think over-priced Cheerios (R) for the 21st century).  It's a very, very slow process, but she does manage to grab a puff, get it into her mouth, and mush it up enough to eat it.  She also does a lot of pushing the puff across her tray, passing it back and forth between her hands, dropping it on the floor (and picking it back up), and getting it into her mouth and then pushing it back out with her tongue.  But eventually it dissolves in her mouth!

Her other super cute trick is shaking her head "no."  A lot of times when you ask Addy a question she'll shake her head as a response.  I don't think she means "no" when she does it; I think she's figured out that if she shakes her head, it makes us laugh.

Chomper #2

Addy now has two teeth. Maybe the poor dear will be more pleasant in a couple of days...

Favorite books

Addy's new favorite books are "Dinosaur vs. Bedtime" by Bob Shea and "Curious George at the Zoo" by H A Ray. The former involves lots of "ROAR!" sound effects. The latter is the great trifecta of Curious George, chew toy, and touch-and-feel book.

Bob Shea also has a book called "Dinosaur vs. The Potty". Too bad we're not potty training yet...

New tricks, old tricks, bad habits

The red-headed wonder is now fully weaned to formula--huzzah!  Unfortunately, that has had an unpleasant side-effect of some tummy troubles.  Fortunately, Addy loves prune juice.  We're still working on finding the right balance, but it's finally getting better.

Starting a couple of weeks ago, Addy figured out how to make a super-adorable new face.  She scrunches up her nose, squints her eyes, and makes a snorting noise.  Apparently she looks especially like me when she does this.  She has also started saying "Mamama", but mostly when I'm not in the room.  (After she says "Mamama" a few times and it fails to make me appear, she moves on to "Dadada".)

Her latest trick, which I'm not really excited about, is throwing a small fit when she doesn't get her way.  Usually it's because she wants to play with a cell phone or something and it has been taken away from her.