The first time Zoe went to the zoo, back in late Jan., she slept almost the entire time. (See 1.28 post for pictures.) Today marked her third visit there, and she managed to stay awake most of the afternoon. She did sleep through the lions, tigers and bears (oh, my), but she saw many other animals and insects (the spiders and bees seemed to be favorites) and even got to pet a few. Another highlight: she and her dad hung out for a bit in a fire truck, thanks to some nice firemen waiting outside the zoo.

To quote from one of my favorite movies (“Old School”), it was a “pretty nice little Saturday.”

-M

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Zoe. Fresh from a bath, her hair is oh so curly. I think she gets that from her Dad…

Q

Zoe and her dad look pretty cozy, don’t they??

-M

Babies are much smarter than people give them credit for. I, for one, never knew how quickly Zoe’s mind would develop or how fast she would pick up certain words/phrases/concepts. A friend and I recently had a conversation about this; I was telling her about the words and phrases that Zoe seems to understand, and it occurred to me that I should share a few here. (Q could probably share others; these were just the first to come to mind.)

-“Milk.” This is the one word (aside from her name) that we’ve used constantly since she was just a few months old. Before almost every meal, we ask, “Zoe, do you want some milk?” or simply say, “milk.” She invariably stops what she’s doing, looks up with big, wide eyes and begins shaking her arms with excitement. She’ll sometimes crawl over and try to climb on me, but that’s a relatively new thing.

-“No, no.” We’ve just started using these words on a regular basis, as Zoe has become increasingly mobile and curious. She definitely gets the concept now; she always stops what she’s doing and looks up at us when she hears the words. She typically repeats her action a few more times, but after a few “no”s she’s on to the next thing.

-“Bless you.” This is another phrase Zoe has heard a lot of – after every sneeze, that is. Lately she’s been smiling and laughing whenever she hears it – and the few times we haven’t said it right away, she looks up at us, waiting for it.

-“It’s time for a nap now.” Before every nap, we sing the same song – which begins with these words. (We also have a nighttime version, during which we sing good-night to all of Zoe’s loved ones.) Zoe recognizes this as the sleep signal; whenever she hears the first few notes of the song, she pops her thumb in her mouth and plunks her head on my chest. It works so well that I used to feel guilty about it; it felt almost Svengali-like. (I got over those guilt feelings pretty fast!)

-M

It’s officially fall, and Zoe decided to dress up in honor of the new season. Here’s a picture of Mommy helping get her ready this morning.

Jon Q

In thinking of the best way to describe Zoe at this age, I keep coming back to the same set of words. Curious. Bubbly. And oh, so independent. Zoe likes to know what’s going on around her at all times, and she’s constantly spinning her head, craning her neck or crawling over to a desired person/item to check out things – many of which wind up in her mouth. (Because of her propensity to pick up and try to eat tiny objects on the floor, her babysitter, Elena, has dubbed her the “little vacuum cleaner.”) If you try to hold her when she’s not in a sleepy or (rare) mellow mood, she’ll likely try to squirm out of your arms to zip off somewhere. (Needless to say, she’s not much of a cuddler.)

Speaking of zipping, Zoe has gotten quite good at crawling – and she has also learned how to pick up the speed. I’ve had to move pretty fast to pick her up a few times, and I’ve also gotten quite good at pulling on her pants (and even changing a diaper!) as she’s scooting away. She’s also able to crawl up and down a stair – something she gets practice doing at daycare.

Crawling might soon be old-hat to Zoe, though, as she has taken some pretty big steps (no pun intended) towards walking. A few weeks ago, she started sitting up on her knees and pulling herself up on various objects; around the 9.5-month mark, she began pulling herself up to a full stand (see below). For the last week or so she’s been constantly standing and “cruising,” and it’s not uncommon to find her standing in her crib in the morning or after a nap.

Zoe’s personality continues to be a happy one – she’s often smiling, laughing and squealing – and she’s also more talkative than ever. She still says her “dada”s and “baba”s a lot, and she also likes to experiment with making different sounds. (On a note, she did finally say “mama” this month – but she doesn’t say it very often.) For awhile, she was making very deep, throaty, monster-type sounds; more recently, she has been blowing out to get the sound of her lips rubbing together. She can entertain herself for quite some time doing this.

Another big development is the appearance of her bottom two teeth; they popped out about two weeks ago (at the 41-week mark). Poor Zoe was miserable during the teething process (crying all the time, not sleeping well, etc.), and we’re glad we got through the first two. Her new teeth are awfully cute, but both Q and I will miss her gummy smiles.

I should also mention Zoe’s sleeping patterns, which have changed slightly. Her third, late-afternoon nap finally fell to the wayside (which I’ve learned is fairly common around the 9-month mark), but she continues taking a short (30-45 min.) nap in the morning and a longer one in the afternoon. She still goes to bed around 7:30 or 8 PM and wakes up around 6:30 AM; we’re almost always greeted with a big smile in the morning. We love those smiles – and our happy baby!

-M

…long about a Saturday night. Zoe has always loved the water, but these days she can’t get enough. Check out her last bath!

Q

Zoe has come a long way since her very first, very messy bite of solid food. She’s a fairly neat eater these days, but she does have the occasional messy meal – like last night’s.

-M

Zoe’s great-uncle Al passed away this morning, and we’re all remembering and missing him. Our thoughts go out to Aunt Joanne, Aimee, little Tanner (pictured below with his grandpa) and the rest of the family.

-M

When we need to get a few things done around the house – and worry about her crawling away on us – we sometimes put Zoe in her Pack-and-Play. She seems to like it; she usually sits with her toys and talks to herself while we get our work done. She spent some time in there yesterday, but she certainly wasn’t sitting. The first thing she did was pull herself up to a standing position, where she stayed for quite awhile.

Our little girl – she’s really growing up!

-M

Zoe has now taken 6 round trips and been on 18 different airplanes and she isn’t even 10 months yet. She is very close to her first free ticket and Premier status! She really IS the frequent flier…

Q

Feb:
SFO – ORD – 1840 miles
ORD – MSN – 108 miles
MSN – ORD – 108 miles
ORD – SFO – 1840 miles

April:
SFO – IAD – 2410 miles
IAD – SFO – 2410 miles

May:
SFO – STL – 1730 miles
STL – MSN – 307 miles
MSN – MKE – 74 miles
MKE – SFO – 1840 miles

July:
SFO – PHX – 650 miles
PHX – SFO – 650 miles

August:
SFO – STL – 1730 miles
STL – MSN – 307 miles
MSN – ORD – 108 miles
ORD – SFO – 1840 miles

Sept:
SFO – IAD – 2410 miles
IAD – SFO – 2410 miles

Total: 22,772 miles

Our recent trip was Zoe’s sixth jaunt out of the state, and our last plane ride marked her 18th one. Although I fret before each ride (Will she be uncomfortable? Will she cry a lot? Will everyone on the plane hate us?), we’ve been pretty lucky with our air travel. We’ve had a few unpleasant moments, of course – but all in all, things have gone smoothly and we’ve picked up lots of good traveling tips.

Someone once told me that friendly flight attendants can make all the difference in the world when traveling with children – and I couldn’t agree more! We’ve had flight attendants give Zoe little toys and free food, and others have let me hog the back of the plane to rock Zoe (even though other passengers weren’t allowed to linger there). And on this last trip, we even had a mini-babysitter of sorts: the flight attendant scooped up Zoe in the middle of the flight and told us, “I’m going to take her up to first-class!” She then marched up to the front the plane and walked a very surprised Zoe up and down the aisle with her. As we were deboarding, a man sitting behind us said he had never seen such a popular baby on a flight! We couldn’t help but smile.

Here’s a pic of Zoe on the flight – and one with her new flight-attendant friend.

-M

We just got back from our trip to Maryland, and Zoe had a great time. During her busy visit she celebrated Rosh Hashanah with the family, played around with Cousins Zavi and Lexi, met new friends at her Sunday brunch, and spent lots of bonding time with Safta, PopPop, GG-ma, Aunt Wendy, and “Grandma” Dorothy. Zoe can’t wait to visit again!

-M

Just hanging out on the plane:

Assisting Safta and PopPop on the computer:

Learning about animals from Cousin Zavi:

Playing with Aunt Wendy:

Kicking around with Dad:

Enjoying an evening on the swing with Dorothy and GG-ma:

Bringing in the New Year with a blow of the shofar:

Learning how it’s done from Cousin Lexi:

Saying good-bye to Safta:

No post! The three of us are now back from our trip to Maryland, and we have lots to catch everyone up on – and lots of pictures to post. Since it’s late and we’re exhausted, I’ll just say: We had a very fun, very busy time with family and friends, and Zoe was an absolute angel on both plane rides. (She’s a real travel pro by now!) We’ll post more tomorrow, but here’s a little taste of our time there. (Thanks to Zoe’s support, the Washington Nationals won Sat. night’s game.)

-M

It’s a common thing these days: I catch a glimpse of Zoe and find myself thinking, ‘Who are you?’ and ‘Where did my little baby go?’ Although she’s only 21 pounds and not yet a year old (small by most people’s standards), she seems so big – and old – to me. I don’t even think of her as a baby anymore; she’s more of a little girl. She’s constantly moving around, exploring, trying out new things… Every day she amazes me with a new skill, a new ability, a new side of her personality that she seemingly picked up in her sleep.

People warned me that kids grow up fast, but I really didn’t expect this dizzying pace.

Watching someone grow before your eyes is an amazing experience – and also a slightly terrifying one. Just when you feel like you’ve figured out a certain age, or perfected a certain parenting technique, your kid moves on to the next phase – leaving you in the proverbial dust.

The other day, I found myself holding a sobbing, teething little girl – not sure what to do to make things better – and I commented to Q that I was feeling a bit weary about the future. I feel like an expert at this point in caring for *babies*, I told him, but I’m fairly clueless about little girls! What if I can’t keep up?

In calmer, happier moments, of course, I know that all will be fine and we’ll figure out everything. Yet… I wouldn’t mind if things slowed down just a bit. After all, I miss my little baby.

-M