THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN

So Bella had been working toward crawling for a month or two. She could easily get up on all fours and rock back and forth, and she even got a little reverse motion going from time to time. It seemed to Jen and I that she would crawl any day. That was one of the main reasons we wanted to move out of the house we were renting into a newer, larger and CLEANER one. So we did, and the week we moved - Bella started crawling.

Jen saw her do it first, and then on September 11, 2008, I was playing with her in her room on the floor. I was trying to pictures of her with my cellphone to send to Jen at work, and Bella likes nothing more than to get her hands on my phone and look at it and push the buttons (usually when Jen or someone is on the other end of the line). So I wanted her to crawl, to show me she could do it and knew how. Then it dawned on me: throw the phone across the room and see if she'll go get it. I did and she watched it tumble to a stop five feet away. Then she popped up on all fours and crawled over to it.

This video is a compilation of a few moments from that day.



Now, the new house is getting cleaned all the time, we're child-proofing the cabinets and drawers, and Bella is everywhere. I can leave her in her room and a minute or two later her little head pokes around the corner into the kitchen - a good 20-foot crawl. I can hear her when she leaves her room and starts crawling on the fake wood floors because her hands pat down very heavily.



We now have a 12-foot by 12-foot area of the living room covered in foam rubber activity pads, and most of her toys and the jumparoo and others larger items are there. I've put pillow and a rolled up rug and other things at the kitchen end of the living room so she can't crawl out of there without considerable effort. But she mostly enjoys hanging out on the activity mats - her romper room - and crawling to the jumparoo to stand up beside it and play with the features from the outside.

We went for her nine-month check up last week - her nine-month birthday! - and everything is OK with her. She is 28 inches tall, weighs 18.5 pounds and still doesn't like getting shots. Though she seems to be getting used to the experience. Or is it just me?

WHO IS THAT BABY IN THE MIRROR?

STANDING TALL

One day during the first week of September, I put Bella in her crib to nap. She hollered for a while, and then kept hollering. After about 20 minutes, it really ramped up in volume and intensity so I went in to check on her. Lo and behold, Bella was standing in her crib, holding on to the rail, and screaming at the wall a few inches from her face.

It was the first incidence I knew of in which she stood up on her own.

Over the next few days, she fell in the crib and hit her head on the side (which hurt) and then learned to fall straight down and land on her butt (which doesn't hurt). All of this meant I had to drop the level of the mattress in the crib down a level so she couldn't somehow topple over the top of the crib rail.

Bella also began enjoying grabbing onto parts of her parents when we were laying down with her and trying to pull herself up to a standing position using us. She tried the same plan with pillows, clothing, toys, boxes and anything else she could dig her nails in. This meant we could no longer simply leave her anywhere that didn't have four walls to hold her in place. It was a good thing we began packing boxes to move that week.

The move to the new house - a half-mile away - was precipitated by Bella's newfound mobility. She wasn't crawling yet, but we knew it wouldn't be long. We wanted to move into a house that was bigger and (most importantly) cleaner. We began moving on September 4 and soon found out we did so just in the nick of time.

PHOTO DUMP

Here's a bunch of photos that you need to see but that missed being attached to any specific post.


Sound asleep in August in her parents' bed.


Smiling in her crib.


She believes what she reads!


Practicing her downward dog yoga position.


By the end of August, Bella had mastered how to assume the crawling position, but just wasn't making much headway. She did, however, look good wearing her shirt over her head!


We call this her Popeye face, which she makes often in her high chair when she's not ready to eat whatever mush it is we're trying to pass off as food.


Sometimes it helps to get close to your food before you pick it up, taste it, and drop it on the floor.

BEACH BABY

Lots to update at this point, so I'll start at the beginning.

We took a trip to St. Simons Island for the Labor Day Weekend with our friend, Todd, and stayed at his boss's house there. It was Bella's first trip to the beach - and also her longest car ride. Jen opted to ride down with Bella in her car, while Todd and I took my car. We made it down in just over five hours, but it took Jen and Bella something like 9 hours. They stopped several times to eat and take walks.

That experience knocked Bella off schedule, and to top it off I forgot to pack the pack-and-play. So I had to dismantle two twin beds and put the mattresses next to each other on the floor of a bedroom so the three of us could sleep together without fear of Bella rolling off.

On Saturday we hit the beach along with a thousand other people. After we got an umbrella set up, Jen and I took Bella down to the water and let her get her feet wet. She loved looking at the tiny waves and the bubbles they created around her. That lasted about 10 minutes, then we took her back to the umbrella's shade, gave her a bottle, and watched her pass out cold in her swim diaper. That lasted about an hour, until Lee and Jason showed up. The umbrella flew off at one point and Bella was up.

She got to hang out for a bit with Lee and Jason's girls who are a bit older, but loved playing with a baby. And the return car ride wasn't nearly as bad as the trip down. We all stopped at Bass Pro Shops in Macon to use the restroom and walk Bella around. Weird place. Real weird. Bella pooped there.