InstaFriday 9.21.12

Our week (or two) in pictures, it's InstaFriday time!

A little comfort food goes a long way when working on sleep. Iced Grande Soy Chai in my home? Yes, please, thank you.

And for the especially bad days? A gluten free cupcake.

All for the sake of this.

Sweet, sleeping baby. She finally got it. I'm so thankful, but oh man it was hard. Thank you, thank you, inventor of video baby monitors, I love you and I owe you my sanity.

One nice thing to come from our new daytime and sleep schedule is a lot more playtime at home. I've been enjoying this kind of forced slower pace of life, but it's been hard to adjust my expectations for what I can get done during the day. But this face is worth it. So, so worth it.

Cora is turning into such a little mischief-maker! All of those shelves are hers, and it's so fun watching her peek into each bin to choose what she really wants to play with.

 
She loves blocks of any variety, and the aquarium Nana bought her.

And her drumsticks. She especially loves drumming the cat. Which is kind of unfortunate for Olive. You'd be shocked how many times the words "Cora, the cat is not for drumming!" come out of my mouth.

Cora is a natural at playing peek-a-boo. We play all. the. time.

And we spend a lot of time eating. Cora is a big baby and she was pretty slow to catch onto the whole solid food bit, but she's really making up for lost time lately. 

Most meals start out like this...

And end up looking like this...

 

I'm pretty certain that Cora would be thrilled to live her life eating black beans, rice, and avocado, which isn't such a bad deal. She may look like her daddy, but she takes after her mama in the food department.

 

Speaking of daddy, we visited him at work this week for lunch. I love it when that works out, so fun!

I'm slowly learning about all that our new neighborhood has to offer, and one of my favorite things is the Tuesday afternoon Farmers Market that's 4 blocks away. I'm loving getting to know all the new different vendors. We found the best avocado man and we'll continue buying his delicious avocados even if they are slightly overpriced and not exactly local. They're from Camarillo though, which is where I grew up, so that's fun. And they're the most delicious avocados I've ever tasted, so that has to count for something. 

I've been slightly unimpressed with the color of the egg yolks that I've found so far, but the rest of the produce has been awesome. I made this dinner with the bounty. I even impressed myself.

Wilted chard, polenta, roasted tomatoes with a balsamic reduction and a farm fresh poached egg.Yum.

Overall, it's been a great week. Sleep is under control, Cora is happy, I'm in the kitchen more, we're getting ready to paint Cora's room, and I'm getting my school assignments done. It's full, but so fun.

Happy Friday!

9 Months Old!

Dear Cordelia,

So, you went and turned 9 months on us. I politely asked time to quit marching on so quickly, but it didn't oblige. I'm doing my best to savor every day with you, and you, you make that so very easy. You are such a happy and sociable baby. You adjust well to new people and new situations and I couldn't be more thankful for how entertaining you've become. It's been a big month for you!

This month, we moved out of our first home. It was so hard leaving the place where we brought you home. We loved that apartment, but it was time for us to move to a home with more space. I'm so thankful you now have a room of your own, lots of space to roam around, and a yard to play in.

 This month, you became mobile. You still aren't crawling, but you scoot along on your bottom and you get to where you want to go, and you get there quickly! It's so fun playing "chase" with you and building towers that you knock down. You love books, balls, blocks, and your new fish bowl toy that Nanna got for you. Most of all, you love playing with us, so that's pretty fun! You love giving hugs and kisses to mommy and daddy, but you occasionally get carried away and bite mommy.

This month, you are beginning to assert your will more frequently, so daddy and I are having a lot of discussions on how to guide and discipline you. It certainly feels like a shift happened from just growing you and playing with you to real life parenting.

This month, we traveled to Southern California (again, I know, I'm sorry love!) for Arya and Saman's wedding at the Biltmore and the next weekend we went up to Portland for Uncle Scott and Aunt Coco's wedding. You were such a good traveler and you had fun spending a lot of quality time with Great Grandma, and Grandma and Grandpa in the mornings as mommy and daddy caught up on sleep.

This month, you grew four new teeth. Which may explain your terrible sleep, or maybe not, who knows. Either way, you have two teeth up top, and four teeth on the bottom now. Hopefully we'll get a break from teething in September.

This month, you became quite the eater. You love to feed yourself little bits of food and we can basically get you to eat anything that way. You love to feed yourself mango (of course), black beans, avocado, nectarines, tofu, beets, and green beans. You're still a pretty slow eater, so we follow up with purees. You love when we feed you yogurt, baby dahl (lentils, blueberries, banana, coconut oil), pears and wax beans, ABC with ginger (apples, beets, and carrots with ginger), and sweet potatoes. I'm so thankful that you eventually caught on to eating, and it sure seems like you are making up for lost time!

This month, you outgrew your mini crib, and continued the co-sleeping habit that you developed while traveling. We got back from Portland and you just didn't fit in your crib! We knew that we were moving in a couple of weeks, so we decided to keep snuggling with you at night until you had a room that could fit a full sized crib. But you're a really smart baby and you know that sleeping with mommy and daddy is way better than sleeping all on your own, so you're still snuggling close to us as you sleep. Unfortunately, we're going to need to kick that habit this next month because you're starting to take advantage and get up every hour or two just for a quick nurse and then go right back to sleep.

This month, you're wearing 12-18 month pants, dresses, and rompers, and 6-12 month shirts, though some long sleeves are getting too short on you. It's crazy how tall you are growing! You are on the middle snap of your cloth diapers, and size 4 when we use throw away diapers.

Next month, we're sticking around the bay and exploring our beautiful city with you. We're working on our version of sleep training with you, and once we feel like you're fully prepared, (well, as prepared as you can be!) we're going to take the plunge and get you to sleep through the night in your crib. I know, crazy.

Baby bear, I feel like these past nine months flew by in a blink. I try so hard to be present with you during the day, soaking up your sweet babyhood and enjoying you fully, but sometimes I get caught up in what "needs" to get done. I hope this month I can really slow life down and just play with you each day while taking care of house stuff on the side. I am so thankful for you and your big personality that continues to shine through and develop. I love how sweet you are and our morning snuggles. I love how you snort when you laugh and how when we tickle you your laughter only spills out after you can't keep it in any longer.

We love you for you, always and forever.