Sadie has hit double-digits. She has officially been out of her mother longer than she was in. Everyone’s happy about that.

I can often get good pictures when she’s gazing adoringly up at her mother.

She’s enjoying her newfound mobility, going from zero to trouble in just a couple of seconds. The first floor holds many forbidden delights — the cat food, the pots and pans, the cord for the lamp, and especially the stairs.

I put her down in the kitchen while I sort the mail, and ….. she’s off!

Her balance has improved markedly, though she still often goes boom. She’s now strong enough to pull herself up to standing.

Once she’s up, she’ll see what she can find. Sadly for her, not a lot happens on the second step to upstairs.

So, it’s time to come back to Daddy.

Sadie’s not easily deterred. Sometimes it’s more fun to plow through obstacles that go around them.

Sadie’s christening our new furniture. Jordan’s Furniture micro-fibered, scotchgarded and saran-wrapped our new family-room set. We’ll see how well it holds up to a determined baby.

She’s cruising along. She’ll get herself up on one side of the couch and walk all the way to the other side, holding on to the couch along the way. She’s not ready to walk on her own yet, but she’s probably only a month or two away.

We’re trying to teach Sadie the joy of reading. I read her a book each night before bed (with Goodnight Moon and the Very Hungry Caterpillar among her favorites). To foster her reading habit, we give her books she can flip through, or, you know, eat.

She also likes to emulate us, mimicking what we’re doing. For some reason, she seems to like holding the remote control. So, we gave her the Comcast remote to play with, or, you know, eat.

I can only imagine how happy Comcast will be to get their remote back.

This is Sadie’s first real football season, so we’re teaching her the Patriots rules. When we’re watching the game, we’re watching the game; we’re not crying, we’re not talking about our feelings, we’re watching the game. She’s still working on it.

To help her feel more involved with the action, we’ve taught her how to get in the four-point stance and knock Elmo off the block.

Little Miss 97th Percentile can crush all the other little babies. As you can imagine, she’s making lots of friends at daycare. She’s growing so fast, we’ve had to retire some of our gear earlier than we were planning. For instance, she has gotten a little tall for her pack and play.

She’s eating some real food — applesauce, grapes — and using the sippy cup. Two months from now, she retires the bottle. That should be fun. She’s a little sad that she hasn’t gotten teeth yet. She’s been teething for months, but we have nothing to show for it but massive Orajel bills.

She’s starting to know the boundaries. I’ve said “No” more in the past month than in all my previous 34 years combined. She recognizes the “No” but still tests us every once in a while. She thinks she’s all stealthy. She’s not.

Along with that, she’s starting to have preferences. When she’s not precisely where she wants to be, she’ll fuss. From what I hear, this battle will only last for the next twenty-two years or so.

Alas. She grows fast. Still pretty cute, though.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 18th, 2006 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Sadie. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.