Birthday Countdown: Month 9

Elise perfected her waving skills this month; alternating between the "crazy finger wave" (where she the only thing she moves is her fingers, and in no particular order), and the “rubber chicken arm wave” (this one involves the entire arm, waving around like it's made of jelly. She usually accompanies this one with a casual, “hey”). What can I say? She's got mad social skills!

Speaking of social skills, I started taking Elise to a local library for story time. It was really more for me than her (I LOVE playing with the parachute while singing Baa Baa Black Sheep), but it was also fun to watch her interact with the other babies. I discovered that Elise is very outgoing when she's one-on-one with other kids, but tends to get shy when she's in a big group... just like her Momma!

In May we took Elise to her first Rangers game. It was a semi-disaster, mostly because she didn't nap that afternoon and she was very cranky. Plus the Rangers kept hitting home runs, and every time the fireworks went off and the crowd would cheer, she would start cheering too. Only her version of cheering was screaming. Loudly. As if we were stabbing her with red-hot pokers.

We also decided to enroll Elise in swimming lessons. Okay, that makes it sound a lot loftier than it really is. Basically it was a bunch of infants splashing around in a pool. But she loved it! Since we don't have regular access to a pool, it was important to us to get Elise used to being in the water at an early age so that when she's older, it doesn't freak her out. It was also fun to meet some other parents from the community.

Whew, only 4 more days until her birthday... hard to believe!