The Saga Continues (10.5 months old)

It has been a crazy time for the last few weeks.  Here are the updates on Empress Zoe:

The Empress is very comfortable with moving around now.  She motors around as she will, can handle terrain obstacles (there is a step up between our formal living room and our formal dining room, which she navigates with ease), and can stand up using local objects.  Walking does not seem to be too far away.  However, as with everything she does, Empress Zoe has her own style.  When she wants to change the direction she is looking while sitting, Zoe has figured out that she can use her heels to pivot.  This leads her to turn on her butt like a gun turret, using her legs to spin her.   She has also started testing objects to determine if they are stable.  If not, she will attempt to push them until they stop moving, understanding that this will sometimes make the object stable.  It is something absolutely brilliant that she worked out entirely on her own.  Lastly, she enjoys being chased.  While she is crawling (only after she has already started crawling, trying this while she is sitting still just makes her confused ), Spock or I will come up behind her, hitting the ground heavily to either side of her.  She then speeds up a little, and starts giggling.  If you don’t catch her by the time she reaches her destination, she looks very confused.

Empress Zoe is now a proud possessor of Teeth (that’s right, plural).  She has her two bottom front incisors.  The first broke skin about 2 weeks ago now, and the second came through last weekend.  This has lead to some very uncharacteristic unsettledness and irritability, but we’ve made it through.  Now however it seems another one is coming in.  We are not sure where, but we are guessing the front top incisors will be next.  Most of the time, she is fine, just a little cranky.  Nights have kinda sucked though.

With the advent of teeth, Zoe has incorporated solid foods in with her diet.  String cheese, diced fruit (bananas, pears, and peaches thusfar), little baby meat sticks, peas (though we do not like peas), cheerios, and yogurt have all traversed this baby’s mouth, and she is loving it.  She will put off eating softer foods as much as possible, and tries to avoid the bottle, just so she can have more.  These teeth also came in just in time for Thanksgiving, and she got to try turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, and jellied cranberry.  She loved it all.

We started her on swimming lessons about a month ago.  Classes are on Saturday at the local YMCA.  Thusfar we have been to 3 classes (we missed one due to diaper rash), and we are doing pretty well.  She takes to the movements pretty decently, and kind of enjoys herself, but she doesn’t have a lot of patience for it.  It’s the start of a long road, but we’re doing ok.

As a side note, it is hard to get a baby gate that will block off a Christmas tree.