Update

Hi everybody! Let's update some of Nina's progress in the past month or so. It would be impossible to capture everything she has been up to, but let's see how we can do.

First, let's start off with an easy one. Teeth! Nina got her first two bottom teeth back in July. Since then nothing, then all of a sudden teeth explosion! About a month ago, one top tooth broke through (middle right). Then another bottom one (middle second to the right), then the other top one (middle left)! So five teeth total and possibly two more on the way. The top ones aren't completely in yet, but by Christmas she should have a big toothy grin!

Stranger anxiety. Nina has definitely been showing signs of stranger anxiety lately. One day at Target, we were checking out. She was riding in the cart and got one look at the checkout lady and started bawling. Like big hysterical tears, she was truely terrified. Usually it is not too bad, she is just a little shy when meeting new people. It takes her a 10 or 15 minutes to warm up. She'll cling to us until she has decide that, yes, that person is ok and maybe they'll even play with me!

In complete opposition to stranger anxiety, sometimes she is a social butterfly. For example, yesterday we were walking down University Ave in Palo Alto. Mirko was carrying her, and all of a sudden she started waving and saying an occasional 'hi!' to everyone that walked by. Of course when people actually waved back to her, she got all shy and turned away. So cute.

She is into absolutely everything. She wants to open every cabinet, every drawer, pull out every item one by one, then move on to the next one, leaving the wreckage behind her. She is walking like a champ and of course her preferred style is with a toy in each hand. She has to carry something at all times! She is getting so steady that she can go from standing to squatting with her butt hovering a few inches off the floor. She'll pick up a new object then stand up and go off on her merry way.

Nina has also discovered the 'throw the toy onto the floor, watch mom pick it up and then throw it back on the floor' game. Hoo boy, is that a fun one - not! At first we thought she was just accidentally dropping the toy, but oh no, she just wants us to pick it up so she can drop it again. Now, we just say 'bye-bye toy'!

We have been working with the baby signs. We ask her if she wants to eat and do the sign for eat. Most of the time, she'll repeat the sign, and then we put her in the high chair. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean she's hungry, and often she wants to get down right away. But she is definitely associating the sign and the action, so I think she'll get the hang out it eventually.

Ok, I am sure there are about a million more new things that she has been doing, but that is all I can think of for now. I leave you with a couple of pictures of Nina and her good buddy Tara.