10 months... the countdown to 1 year is on!

She's a strange one this kid - for a while now she has had a fascination with mirrors. Understandable I guess; they can be pretty fun. But a week or so ago I walked in to find her getting pretty up close and personal with one! Apparently they taste pretty good! So does marmite (still) - yes, unbelievably some does actually get in her mouth!

She adores her time in her swing, and has now well and truly got the hang of it (scuse the pun) so likes to be swung up really high (I think we've bred an adrenalin junky).

She's also a frightful mimic, meowing when Mia (our cat) talks to us, echoing the local fire station siren and repeating the sound of the electric saw from the house being built across the road. She also started yelling every time the dentist drill started up - I'm sure the dentist lost several clients simply because of the noise coming from the surgery while she was in there!

I think these trousers pretty much say it all when it comes to our Ruby-doo!! She's crawling everywhere and has a well developed sense of curiosity.

We took her to the park the other day for her first try on a see-saw and a slide - a great success judging by the beam on her face the entire time!

She's on the move!

Well, she's finally done it! She had to wait until there was an appropriate-sized audience of course, so it was only fitting that her first crawl was at our party surrounded by people egging her on and just waiting to applaud. She was so delighted with the enthusiastic response to her new skill that she then sat back and started to clap herself - another first. It was all on last night! No photos of the crawling wonder as yet, it was all too exciting (and short-lived!) to remember the camera, but I'm sure there'll be plenty more opportunities in the near future!

It appeared that the motivation had to be right - she was after Sarah's plate of food... mumma's girl! Or she may have been motivated by a visit from her friend who was already crawling, and in fact standing... and two weeks younger than Ruby! Clever little mite! Shikera (here with her mate Ruby) was a big belly that attended antenatal classes with Ruby (also as a mighty big belly). They could be cousins with those big brown eyes!

A busy few weeks

Ruby's learning how to do stuff at such a rate of knots that it's hard to keep up! Here are the highlights...

learning how to feed herself (uh oh - looks like vegemite sandwiches are a hit - Dad wins - Mum prefers marmite but Dad's the one at home influencing her behaviour on a daily basis!) ...

practising her kiss at the same time as eating above-mentioned marmite sandwiches ...

partial to a bit of cucumber too - check out those teeth! She's also working on dropping 4 down at once from the top gum, not pleasant if all her grumble-bumming is anything to go by!playing peekaboo behind the curtain. If you drop a cloth over her head and say 'where's Ruby' she freezes and waits for you to find her - it's the perfect way to get some peace (a little like putting a cloth over the parrot cage), although she is getting wise to it and doesn't wait as long as she used to. More tongue moments at the pianoand a rock-star moment; move over Elton John! She has a new bike (read: complete suckers for parents!). We saw this on the way home from Ohakune and couldn't pass it by. It's a tricycle that also has a complete-surround baby seat so she can sit on the normal bike seat but not fall off. When she's big enough to hold on properly that baby seat can come off and the footrests fold up so she can pedal. For the moment we're making great use of the parent-handle at the rear, with which you can push and steer while her majesty beams at the world... and the world beams back. The hat was made by Aunty Alyson in Wellington before Ruby was born. I used to think there was no way she'd ever be big enough to fit it... but I guess all things come in time!
We recently stayed the night at her Aunty Sarah's and Uncle Mike's... unfortunately for Uncle Mike, who was working a night shift... something Ruby's loud voice has no compassion for the next morning. Still - he didn't seem too put out, as he wasn't awake long before the bubble mix appeared and Ruby had her first experience of trying to catch bubbles.

Back at home on a sunny day Ruby discovered the cat door and happily played with it for about half an hour on and off. Just waiting for her to try and crawl through it...

Out and about with Daddy; I think this was in the cafe downstairs from the dentist where I was being tortured. She has had a thing for his hat since the day he bought it and finally got to wear it. Some things just don't wait around for photos - case in point is Ruby's first 111 call. She was hiding behind her toybox and last time I'd looked she was looking at a book. Next thing I know I hear beep beep "111 emergency, fire, police or ambulance?". I was off that couch and across that room like lightening to gasp "oh my god I didn't know my baby had the phone, I'm so sorry" and hang up... Miss Ruby T had managed to hit the speed dial button and the number one all at the same time - thank goodness! Without that speakerphone button the next thing I might have heard was an official knock on the door! 9 months is a little early for prank calls and the phone hasn't been left on the floor since.

I give her about a week until she gets the hang of crawling, she's been right on the verge for a few days now and life as we know it is about to change. Our landlords have been good enough to build us a gate so she won't be able to get off the deck if she manages to escape out the catdoor. But I'm sure she'll think up lots of other adventures to keep us on our toes and snapping photos.