9 Months Old

I absolutely cannot believe my little girl is already 9 months old. Now I understand how people say that time speeds up with you have kids -- I really think it does -- or maybe it is just the fact that you can't EVER sit still once you have kids.

Hannah is into everything now. Our babysitter reports that the phrase "no, no" is becoming one that Hannah hears quite often as she gets into magazines and anything else she thinks is interesting. She's developed an interest in Abby's food dish and every time we put Hannah down in the family room, she seems to make a run for it to the kitchen and Abby's dish (often multiple times in a row). She is extremely curious and is all over the place crawling, exploring, and pulling herself up to standing (but still not quite knowing how to get down).

Hannah is so much fun and has quite the personality. She'll shake her head "no" at you (how do they learn that so quickly?), smile non-stop, clap, and she loves to bang on just about everything. Let's not forget that she's at the stage where just about everything (including dust bunnies she finds under the couch!) goes in her mouth.

Jon took Hannah to her 9-month appointment, and for those of you keeping track, she is now 16 1/2 pounds and 27 inches long. She's doing fabulous! Our pediatrician told Jon that Hannah is probably the best 30-weeker that she's ever seen. Hannah's pediatric therapist echoed those sentiments when we went for her development exam and Hannah did a great job with her gross motor skills and fine motor skills. She is catching up quickly!!

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands....
Poor little girl is tired of Mommy taking so many pictures!

(but she had her eyes closed in a lot of them, so they didn't make the blog)

Hannah LOVES bath time. She loves to kick and splash, chew on her ducks, crawl after her ducks, and eat her washcloths. It's quite the adventure.

I have no idea why this picture is turned on its side -- notice the "9" made out of toys -- This was going to be the first picture on the page, but after 4 upload attempts, I'm giving up!

(but, it's still cute enough to post - just turn your head sideways!)

Hannah discovered how to stand in her crib. She lets you know when she isn't quite ready for bed....she'll jabber away and let you know she wants to play on the floor a little longer.
I'm a big girl now!

Happy Birthday Jon!

We went to Pittsburgh for Jon's birthday. We hadn't been to Uncle Josh & Aunt Danila's house since we had Hannah (and packing to go someone's house who doesn't have a baby is way different from going to someone's house who already has kids!). We loaded up Hannah and Abby and had a great weekend in Pittsburgh. After a fabulous "late lunch" of smoked pork shoulder made by Uncle Josh (it was really an early dinner -- we didn't eat until 4:30!!!), we took a trip to Sarris Ice Cream & Candy Shoppe and got to meet up with some of my extended family who lives in the area. We all enjoyed the ice cream!

The Woolley Clan

The Birthday Boy!!!

Hannah ended up being the life of the party...crawling around on the table to show off...and going after ice cream when Daddy was teasing her with his spoon.

Hannah also showed Michael how she can "play the drums" and clap (and he did his part to encourage her too!).
"Aunt" Susan misses her little peanut...who is growing up so fast!
Great Aunt Patty had a hard time keeping Hannah still enough for a picture. Hannah was all over the place!

Trip to the Park

On Friday afternoon Jon and I took Hannah and Abby to the park at the end of our street. It was such a beautiful day we decided to try to wear out Abby and let Hannah try out the swings for the first time. We all had a great time and the pictures speak for themselves... it was fun for all!

Pretty in Purple

Hannah is such a mover and a shaker....and she can already pull herself up to stand. In fact, the crawled away from me after a diaper change because she wanted to get moving - which should explain the lack of pants in these pictures. She doesn't quite know how to get down a lot of the time after she is clinging to a couch or chair or toy, so we've had some spills and she's had to cry for someone to "rescue" her. (The babysitter tells us that Hannah has this look on her face like "all options are fatal" when she's trying to get down from the toybox at her house.) All of this moving really wears her out and she will fall asleep on the floor or wherever she gets tired.

We went for pediatric therapy today and Hannah scored really well. For her adjusted age, her scores were above average (for those who know the rating system, she had a 116 for cognitive ability and 136 for gross motor skills). But even for her actual age of 8+ months, she fit into the average band - she's on the low end of average, but she's doing really well. In fact, we won't go back again until her adjusted 1-year birthday. At that appointment they'll assess language development. We are so blessed that she is doing so well.

Preemie Playdate

Ack! It's been forever since I've posted.....boy, my sister was right about my posting dropping off dramatically after I went back to work!

Near the end of September I got to spend one of my Friday's off with my friend Kristi, who has a preemie who is 2 months older than Hannah. It's so nice to get to talk to her about shared experiences and the things we've learned in this whole process. I'm going to be "lazy" and post the links to Kristi's blog for pictures, since she's the one who took them all..... but Hannah and Addison had a fun afternoon playing together, which you'll hear about in Kristi's blog.

What Kristi's blog doesn't reveal is that I walked through the door about 1/2 hour late from when I'd originally said I'd be there and practically threw Hannah at her and said "I need to do a short phone call for work, can you give Hannah her lunch?"..... and about an hour later I finally got off the phone and Kristi and I were able to eat our lunch. Thankfully Kristi is very understanding (and makes a mean cobb salad!)...but interrupting a playdate for work is still better than having to go in to work on Fridays.

Here are the links for the pictures:

http://littlebiteofheaven.blogspot.com/2008/09/preemie-playdate.html

and

http://littlebiteofheaven.blogspot.com/2008/10/preemie-playdate-part-2.html

(Thanks for blogging it for me Kristi!)