9 Months Old!

Eleanor is 9 months old. Wow! She is super busy which is keeping us active (and tired!). This month has been fun. Ellie has enjoyed rolling herself around and is very inquisitive about pretty much everything. She smiles, laughs, and waves all the time. Ellie loves music, singing and dancing and especially loves to look and play with anything new.

Some highlights of this past month:
- Teeth! It took a while for the first one to appear but Ellie has teeth (not a tooth!) Her two bottom teeth have poked through and there is at least one on the top that has as well! It's crazy, it looks like the poor girl is getting all of her teeth at once. She has been pretty tough about it though. Lots of drool and chomping on teething toys and a little less sleep for all of us.
-Pinchers- Ellie has mastered the pointer/thumb pincher. She pretty much developed this skill after Cheerios became a major part of her life but it is pretty cool. It is amazing how fast babies learn and develop fine motor skills. The jury is still out on whether she uses her left hand more than her right (her Grandpa Tom is still hopeful!)
-Speaking of Cheerios...Ellie loves Cheerios! The other day she was a little fussy in the car so I gave her a little plastic tupperware container of cheerios to play with. It was closed but she thought it was pretty cool to shake around and play with. Pretty soon I looked back and she had somehow gotten the container open and spilled Cheerios all over her lap. She loved it! She grabbed handfuls at a time and tried stuffed them in her mouth. Silly girl! Luckily we were close to home.
-Rollie Pollie- this month Eleanor has developed a mode of transportation-the roll. She can scoot and roll to her toys and loves to flip over onto her belly when we are trying to change her diaper. She isn't crawling yet but she seems to be pretty close. We aren't quite ready to have a completely mobile baby!!!
-Standing- Ellie can hold onto things and stay standing up. She loves to stand at her little activity table and beat on the piano. She pulled up for the first time a few days ago but she was sitting in the laundry basket (helping me do laundry) so she had a little help with the clothes under her bum.
-Go Wolfpack! Ellie went to 2 Wolfpack football games! She loves it! We figure since she was born on the day of their bowlgame last year it is appropriate for her to be a Wolfpack fan. The first game was nice weather but a boring game (Murray State) and the second game it rained the whole time but it was a great game (Pitt). Oh well! She really loved being under the poncho with me but we eventually went under the stands and watched from there.


-Wash your face! My mom started giving Ellie a wipe to entertain her when she washed off her face after eating. Ellie is a great helper! She'll wash her highchair tray and will even wipe your face if you let her. Too cute!
-Eye Doctor-Ellie had her first visit to the eye doctor. They wanted her to participate in the Infant See program since her daddy's eyes are so bad. She did just fine. They had her look at a bunch of different pictures with stripes, and smiley faces and they watched how her eyes worked together. Then they dilated her eyes and looked at her retinas. She even got to wear 3D glasses and try to grab a fly! It was pretty cool and we're glad to report that she seems just fine.