Happy (Belated) 9-Month Birthday, Margo!

At the Little Cheerful in Bellingham

Doing push-ups instead of napping

First Cheerios!

I can stand!

Margo has had a big month. She got two more teeth - on top - so now she has four. She's started eating finger foods and loves Cheerios the best. She can now sit up on her own - she starts on her tummy, then pushes back up on her hands and somehow swings her legs around and ta da! Seated. She just learned this last Monday. The only issue is that now when it's time for her nap, she'd rather practice sitting up and lying down and moving all around than go to sleep, and we've had several very teary nap sessions.

Margo can also pull herself up to standing now and she's learned to clap. She's been very busy! Her foods now include:
-- Beef
-- Chicken
-- Salmon
-- Broccoli
-- Pears
-- Mango
-- Butternut squash
-- Sweet potato
-- Carrot
-- Banana
-- Avocado
-- Blueberries
Soon we'll introduce wheat and cheese.

Last weekend Pete, Margo and I went on a getaway vacation overnight to Bellingham, WA. We had a wonderful time! We'd never been there before. We took Chuckanut Drive on the way up. It had been rainy until we turned off I-5 onto Chuckanut. Chuckanut was beautiful as promised, and reminded us of Big Sur. We got to Bellingham around 11:30 and not only did our lovely hotel let us check in early, they upgraded us to a water view room for no reason! We had our own little terrace and a nice sized room so Margo could play on the floor without being too crowded. We walked downtown and had a fun lunch at the Little Cheerful, recommended by the lady at the hotel. We then did some shopping and checked out the farmers' market. We walked back to our hotel - Margo napped on the way back and then we had an early dinner at Anthony's which was a short walk from our hotel. This was the first time we fed Margo anything other than Cheerios at a restaurant - she had mashed banana. She enjoyed the banana and was so well-behaved! Margo slept well in the hotel pack-n-play, and Pete and I chilled out on the terrace and watched the sunset.

The next day we ate at the Little Cheerful again because we'd liked it so well the day before. It was just as good, plus one of the servers greeted Margo by name and held her for a bit while we ate. After breakfast we drove around WWU and thought about our friends Hil and Matty and Chili who'd gone there. Then we walked around Fairhaven, a nice neighborhood that used to be its own town. Then we were off - we took highway 9 down instead of I-5 and it was a gorgeous drive. We picked up Sally in Carnation at Bonnie's farm - Sally had a great time on her vacation too.

Thursday night I had suddenly came down with a bad cold, and Margo was teething unhappily, so we thought about not going on our trip. But I think it did me good to get out and once we were done with the morning drive I felt a lot better. And I think the travel and distractions did Margo good as well - you'd have never known she was teething - she was a great traveler and as we like to say, a champ! In Bellingham she got a lot of attention from passers-by and had a smile for everyone.

We had Margo's 9-month check-up on Friday and she's on track and doing well. She now weighs 17 pounds and neither of us can remember how long she is.

Hooray for Margo!! Latest photos are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/CarolynPeteMargo/Margo12

p.s. Blogger adds all these extra spaces, not me! I try to get rid of them and they come back! Grrr.