I’m not predicting that she’ll walk any time too soon, but Nora’s definitely getting closer. She pulls herself up on chairs, table legs, the couch, or people, and takes steps along the edges. She will even move from one thing to another as long as she can keep at least one hand on something. But she knows she is way faster with her crawling, and so that is the best way to keep up with Jonah for now.

Nora almost always wakes up before Jonah in the mornings, and sometimes at naptime, and then she usually goes looking for him. If I don’t pay close attention, she scoots off down the hallway to holler and bang on his door. She’s learned lots of things just by watching him, like how to draw with crayons and chalk, drive trucks around, swing a bat, strum the ukulele, stack blocks, and brush her teeth. She will also ‘dance’ if you ask her to.

Nora is becoming a more determined communicator. She still doesn’t say any specific words (other than maybe mom, dad, Jonah), but she certainly acts as if we should be understanding her emphatic sounds! She has started signing a few more things, like for changing her diaper, eating, or saying please. Every day it seems like there are more words I realize that she knows because she follows a new direction or looks for a certain thing that I’ve mentioned. It’s so fun to see her huge smile and squeals of delight when she realizes that I understand what shes trying to say.

She’s also becoming a lot more wary of strangers. It’s very helpful for Nora to have time to warm up and watch people, and if they start talking to her before she’s ready, we all get to witness a slow motion face-crumpling meltdown. This has happened a few times with kind old ladies in the grocery store checkout line… At the same time, when we go somewhere new, if I put her down on the floor, she’s instantly off to explore and is not terribly cautious with new surroundings.

Even though we’re getting into the rainy season here, that hasn’t changed Nora’s desire to be outdoors. It just means she wants to crawl through and sit in puddles, wet grass, and mud, getting herself totally messy. I’m not sure she’ll be left with any presentable 9-12 month pants when we’re through with this phase. Oh, and she wants to lick her hands clean afterwards. Nice.

In so many ways, she’s such an easy kid – she eats good meals, sleeps well (although I blame her father for the early-riser genes), entertains herself easily, and is even fun to take on errands. And she’s happy and adorable.

A month from now, she’ll be a one-year-old. Wow.

Height: 28 inches

Weight: 20 lbs