Clips and Kitties

Sunday, February 8, 2009

This is what Naomi is doing right now - taking a much-needed nap after a late night last night. Usually she misses her morning nap on Sundays, but she was just way too tired today - so we are having a quiet morning at home, instead of the usual rush to get out of the door in time for church. And I am taking advantage of the extra time to finally update the blog!
Our days are full of little moments, funny faces, attempted words - I don't feel like I am in the midst of a whirlwind, but at the same time life is flashing by like scenery outside a train window. I am trying to take it all in, absorbing each new thing as Naomi does. Our lives have settled into a fairly regular routine, and day-to-day there is not much to report - but since it has been a while since I updated, there are a couple of events to record.

Mommy made her first major parenting mistake (at least that I am aware of!), and left a small hair clip in Naomi's hair when she went down for a nap. A couple hours later, when she woke up from her nap, the hair clip was nowhere to be found. She seemed fine, however, and she had never eaten anything bigger than a Cheerio, so we figured it must have just fallen out in her sleep. Adam and I searched high and low, stripped the bed and the child, crawled around on our hands and knees on the nursery carpet, everywhere we could think to look. The clip was gone. A call to the doctor confirmed that we should take her in for an x-ray. This was 7:30 on a Friday night. Thankfully, we live very close to the hospital, so a trip to the emergency room was not a major hassle. But we were prepared for a long wait.
It turned out to be the quickest, least stressful ER visit I have ever had. They registered us within five minutes of arriving, and took us back for an x-ray right away. And there sat the hair clip in my little girl's stomach!! The staff were very nice about it, and said stuff like this happens all the time - but I couldn't help thinking, what if...? Their diagnosis was that the clip should work its way through her system within a couple of days - so we searched through each dirty diaper until we found it (Monday afternoon). No more tiny hair clips for this little girl! Adam said she is only allowed to have things in her hair that are at least the size of a golf ball. :)

On a happier note, we believe she said her first word! She definitely knows what certain words mean; one of the first things I noticed was how she would look for and point to the cats when I asked her where they were (she loves animals). While reading one of her books with her grandma, she came to the page where "cats and kittens say 'Meow!'" and Naomi said "Mow!" We were excited, but not ready to call it until it had happened several times - and it has, on different days. If you ask her what a kitty cat says, she will mouth "Mm-ow" and repeat it with prompting!! Of course, not usually when we are trying to show off her first word...but it counts! So Naomi's first word is "Meow" - not Mommy, not Daddy, but Meow!! Perhaps a budding Dr. Dolittle? At her last doctor's appointment, he informed us that she will probably be able to say 2-3 words by her first birthday - but I think that is a very conservative estimate for this girl! It seems to me like every day she tries to say something new - "kitty", "kiss" (she leans in to give Mommy and Daddy kisses when asked), "yes" - and she often speaks or sings in her own language.

Lastly, some pictures of Naomi playing - this is what I get to enjoy every day!
An empty tissue box with a couple of her smaller toys and a clean tissue in it provided hours of entertainment! She likes to take things out of the box, and rip the tissue into ever smaller pieces.

And this seems to be her "camera face" - whenever I get the camera out lately, this is the face she makes when she notices me taking her picture! What a cutie! :)