And now I am nine (months)

Shockingly, Nora's nine months old today! I can't believe it - everyone said that it would go so fast, but it really, really does. I mean, it really does. Not kidding here. :) Nine months feels like such a huge milestone to me, bigger than any of the other month "birthdays" we've passed already. Symbolically, anyway, it means that from here on out, Nora's been out in the world for longer than she was inside me. I'm blown away every day by how much she's grown and changed in the last nine months. She truly is the most amazing addition to our lives.

To celebrate her nine month birthday, we have a special field trip planned for tomorrow (you'll find out about it then!). After she went to bed tonight, we also opened a bottle of Nora wine (Aunt Abby and Aunt Sara and our friends Mike and Jeanna both found this wine for us!), which was delicious.

Nora gave us two gifts, too! First off, she slept through the night last night, for only the second time in her life. Hopefully she's decided that 9-month olds sleep through, and she'll continue in this vein! Presumably someday I won't be able to keep track of the number of times she's slept through on one hand, right?

Second, she started waving at supper tonight! We've kind of been going crazy modeling waving for her the last few weeks, but she hadn't shown much inclination to do it herself. Even this afternoon at swim class, her teacher Laura waved at her as we were leaving the pool, and Nora just looked at her like she was from another planet. Then, while eating an egg yolk and cheddar omlette (yum!) for supper, she just started waving like crazy at Daddy! She spent the rest of the evening waving - at Daddy, Mama, her sippy cup, her toothbrush, the mobile over her changing table, as she was nursing... It's sooooooooooo cute it kind of hurts. :) Lucky for you, we took a couple of videos during supper, which I'll post as soon as Google Video finishes processing them.

In the meantime, here are a couple of pics of Nora hanging out her her cave - the space under her exersaucer. This is now one of her favorite places to play! She's sporting the new barrette I just made her for Valentine's Day in these. Oh, and her funny faces are due to the fact that she's teething, and just doesn't know what to do with her mouth while that's going on. Poor little muffin.

Here's a still photo of the wave - not quite as exciting as the videos will be, I promise. :)