A budding quilter

At 9 months old, Eleanor is a lot of fun. She is still commando-crawling after 3.5 months, but is very proficient at it, and we have to watch James closely, because he leaves things on the floor which aren't safe for her. She loves to play with her toys (and James') , but is often happy with just a piece of material to wave around and suck/chew. She loves to pat Shadow and Cocoa, but they usually see her coming and move before she can reach them. One night last week she did a couple of 'real' crawl moves, but quickly reverted to the faster style she has perfected! Here she is crawling outside at Port Hughes at Easter (note the tongue!):

Her 3rd and 4th teeth have come through, and now with 2 at the bottom and at the top, she is finding it easier to chomp through more solid food.Corn biscuits are a favourite, especially if they are swiped from James! She must have Sarah's fast metabolism, because she eats a lot and loves her food, but is still very petite. A lot of her summer clothes were barely worn, because she was still in size 000 until recently.

One of her new warm sleepsuits is a bit big, and she woke several times one night, having squirmed around until the neck was below her waist, and she was naked from the nappy up! That's now in the spare pile until she's a little bigger - only to be worn with a bodysuit underneath! Here they are in their new winter sleep-suits:

Her carers at child care made a breakthrough last week, and she is now drinking milk from a bottle. Until then they were having to squirt it in using a large medicine syringe; very tedious! I am still feeding her morning and night, and one or two during the day when I'm not at work. She has a peculiar feeding style (although she only does this when she's feeling especially active). And yes, she was actually feeding at the time!

She is still sleeping well, and now sleeping much longer at night. We're putting her down earlier, and are trying to to let her self-settle, although some nights are more successful than others, and some nights we spend ages bouncing her to sleep. She still sometimes wakes too early for a morning feed (between 4 and 6) but goes straight back to sleep afterwards.

If I'm on the floor, she treats me as a climbing frame, and she pulls herself to standing with anything she can get a grip on, but isn't good at controlling going back down yet, and has bumped her forehead and nose a few times.

She's also started playing peek-a-boo on her own, very cute!

She still makes her scrunched-up pouty face when she's really happy. She must think it's cute, because it gets a good reaction. But while it shows a lot of character, it is hardly attractive! Her tongue is busy, too. We know she's really happy when she pokes her tongue out with a smile!

In the last week she has been really chatty again. She goes through quiet and chatty weeks, and at the moment we're hearing her babble away a lot; mostly random sounds, but also the start on dadada and mamama. She waves hello and goodbye and repeats a sound resembling hello. She's not too keen on being thrown in air the way James was, but thinks it's great fun to dangle upside down.She is still very much mummy's girl, but is usually quite happy to go to other people now - especailly if I'm still within sight.

With Great-Grandma:

With Nanny:

With Pop:

Playing with James in her cot: