this was such an incredible month for you -- reaching lots of developmental milestones, spending lots of time with friends and family, and growing in independence. you are interested in everything around you, but you also play happily with your toys by yourself for long stretches. you absolutely adore Greta and Cecilia. whenever you see them, you flap your arms and squeal with delight. they love to include you in their imaginary play and you love it too, even when they are making you be the cafeteria lunch lady in their pretend school. for now, they can keep their tiny toys out of your reach, but pretty soon we'll have to banish the Barbies to a baby-free zone!
yes, your sisters made you wear one of their ballet hairnets to play lunch lady
the perennial favorite 10 Little Ladybugs book that Grammie gave to Greta, still going strong!
hanging with the big girls
this month we visited the zoo with our dear friends Amelia, Ryan, Adeline and Elias. the whole zoo was decorated with incredible creations for the Asian Lantern Festival. it was a hot, humid day and at one point while Elias was out of his stroller, you got to borrow his stroller fan. you were immediately so much happier that we obviously had to get you one of your own!
the cool parents and babies club
born in the year of the bull! (so was Mommy!)
had to get this picture, since you were wearing your elephant onesie
ahhhhh, this is the life!
in mid-August, we flew to Washington state to visit family, including the newest member of our clan: your first cousin, Milo! of course, you had lots of snuggles and playtime with Grammie, Grandpa, Auntie Kris, and all your aunties and uncles. on our way to eastern Washington, we drove through the Bavarian-styled town of Leavenworth for a delicious lunch and you got to taste your first soft pretzel. it was a big hit!
the restaurant had cool misters running to temper the 100+ degree heat
sister snuggles ... melt my heart!
helping play Herd Your Horses
i'm so excited for you and Milo to grow up together and get into cousin mischief. you were intrigued by him, but probably more so by his blanket and possibly his pacifier, since it's the same as yours. watching the two of you together, my mama (and auntie!) heart was so full!
the cousin crew! (photo credit to Tia Genesis!!)
so happy for Auntie Kelli snuggles!
our family is so blessed!
first tandem Ergo walk! (can't blame you for being more interested in the sunset!)
another milestone of this month was that you had your second taste of ice cream, and liked it! you still made a face at the cold temperature, but you loved holding your very own adorable miniature cone.
on our flight back to Pittsburgh, you were absolutely entranced by the flight attendant's safety demonstration. the sweet couple sitting in the row behind us snapped this picture! after that, your delight continued as you got to eat your first Biscoff cookie.
this month you learned how to scoot around on your butt, just like your daddy used to do. we still haven't seen anything resembling actual crawling, but you can get up on your hands and knees, and given enough time, you manage to scoot yourself around wherever you want to go. you can stand while holding on to something. and literally on the day i took your nine month photos, you clapped for the first time! you cut four of your top teeth this month, and have taken to gnawing on the legs and tag of your penguin Wubbanub in addition to the pacifier.
it's about time for a good old airing of the grievances. while we have ever so much for which to give thanks, sometimes we need the catharsis of enumerating our woes, big and small. (you can read the 2023 edition here.) _________________________________________ first up, potty training. I buckled down and trained Greta and Cecilia both around age 2 1/2, and it went fairly well (I'm a big fan of waiting until the kid is practically ready to train themselves). Elizabeth turned 2 1/2 near the end of the school year, and logically it seemed like a great time to buckle down -- we wouldn't be driving around to after school sports and activities and we'd have more time at home. I kept waiting for the day when I'd wake up full of excitement and motivation to strip off the diaper and chase a naked toddler around the house. and ... shockingly ... that day never came. then we were preparing for our trip to Seattle in July and it definitely didn't seem like the right time
dear Victoria, sometimes I scoop you up and can't stop myself from squishing your little body right into my chest, and nuzzling my face into your neck until you squeal with giggles. you are just so darn cute! you can spend up to an hour scooting around the family room playing with various toys -- recently you've started to be interested in baby dolls and the Fisher Price doll house. you mostly army crawl, but sometimes you pull yourself forward when you're sitting, too, and a few times you've been able to launch forward an inch or so from a bona fide crawling position. you can stand supported for a little while, but you're not close to pulling up by yourself yet. we had another wonderful report from the orthopedic surgeon this month. both hips remain in place. your left hip has what they call a "delayed ossification center", meaning that it's still primarily cartilage since the hip socket didn't form properly to begin with, but the doctor said tha
sitting outside the new independent coffee shop that opened in the neighborhood this summer as a physician assistant with an undergraduate minor in psychology, I've always been fascinated by the connection between the mind and the body. that interest serves me well in my chosen specialty of primary care/internal medicine, as mental health comes to bear so frequently on physical, or somatic, complaints like fatigue, upset stomach, and dizziness. in any given day, I'll typically have one or two appointments that are scheduled specifically so someone can address their anxiety or depression, and it often comes up as a subject of conversation during routine physicals. I have probably recommended therapy to my patients literally thousands of times, whether it's to deal with an isolated situational stress or grief, or more pervasive issues like OCD, chronic insomnia, bipolar disorder, depression, or borderline personality disorder. when we're discussing starting antidepressant
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