Nine months!

It became apparent to Josh and I this month that Piper was indeed named very well. She is everything you might think a "Piper" would be: loud, peppy, rambunctious, and assertive. Our Piper is all that and more. A couple different times this month when Piper and I were out and about, strangers have approached me to say that they thought Piper "just looked like a handful." Boy, are they right! What's funniest, though, is that she was really being good those times! I wonder what people would think if they saw her being her stinky self?

Size: I'm not exactly sure of Piper's size, but I'm going to guess she weighs about 17 pounds. I'll post her updated stats when we come home from the doctor tomorrow. She wears 6-12 month clothes. Most of these fit her very well, but there are a few that are still too big for her.

Food: We haven't experimented too much with new foods this month but have focused on textures. She's now feeding herself puffs, but she'd much rather play with and smash any food that's soft. She LOVES my Grandmom's pumpkin bread. She's also had tastes of other breads.

Teeth: Piper still only has her two lower teeth. I'm very surprised we haven't seen the uppers yet. She's sure been acting like they bother her.

Play: Entertainment this month has consisted of opening and closing cabinets and drawers (over and over again!). She also likes to "unpack" anything that has lots of objects in it. This includes taking everything out of her toy box, emptying all of the baby food packets from their nicely organized pallets, and dumping out her diaper bag.

No: This is a word we've come to know very well lately. However, Piper isn't catching on to its meaning. She has learned, though, to pitch a mini temper tantrum every time we tell her she can't climb the stairs, pull up on the toilet, help Mommy unload the dishwasher, take a bath in the dog bowl, or hurdle the dog. I told Josh that we needed to make sure she understood this word before she started walking. I'm not so sure we're winning this battle.

Daycare/Church Nursery: Piper all but jumps out of my arms when we get to daycare on the days I substitute. I worked quite a bit over the past two weeks, and she did great. She's even surviving the hour at church on Sunday mornings.

Sleep: We've definitely hit some rough patches lately as we've been dealing with this horrible cold that just.won't.go.away. Piper usually sleeps between 11 and 12 hours and night, takes a 2 hour morning nap, and a 1 hour afternoon nap. At daycare, though, there is too much fun to be had to sleep. She takes two 45 minute naps there and crashes early in the evenings.

We love our little munchkin!

happy to be strolling with Mommy

What a sweet face!

Daycare playmates

Swinging and grinning

I was trying to cook dinner and turned around to find her IN the refrigerator. I snapped this picture right before she started throwing things off the shelves.

Playing with Ally

Pictures

I don't really have anything exciting to share, but I wanted to post some pictures, anyway. Piper is still sick (three weeks and counting). We go to the doctor on Wednesday, so hopefully he can do something for her. Most of the time she's in remarkable good spirits, but she's not sleeping very well (which means none of us are sleeping well). She is so congested. I'm not working any this week, so we'll spend our time resting up for our big trip to Boston this weekend. I am a little nervous about how Piper will do on the plane. My friends have told me that their babies were great on a plane--they just slept the whole time. I will be very surprised if Piper sleeps on the plane. She's too nosy!

Here she is crusing along the couch one night last week. She's wearing the Thanksgiving dress my mom made for her. I'll have to try to get a better picture of the dress, but she's getting more and more difficult to photograph!

A rare sighting: Josh and I without Piper! We spent Sunday afternoon out with some of our friends. They were kind enough to snap this picture of us, the first of just the two of us since Piper was born!

Good News!!!

Piper visited the allergist today. A few moments of discomfort for her were definitely worth the peace of mind it brought her mommy. After discussing her history with the doctor, he tested her skin for nine common food allergens (dairy, soy, beef, corn, peanuts, egg, shellfish, wheat, and tree nuts). She showed NO REACTION to any of them! This is fantastic! Not only do I not have to be so stringent with what she eats, but I can eat like a normal person again!

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I must explain how the allergist described Piper's condition. He said that her earliest symptoms (bloody, mucosy stool and ecxema) were probably the result of colitis caused by an immune reaction rather than a full-fledged allergic reaction (the latter would have other symptoms such as vomiting, rash, shortness of breath, etc. along with the previous symptoms). The colitis is triggered by an amount of the irritant, rather than the mere presence of the irritant. In other words, Piper might have a negative immune reaction to the dairy protein, but it is not an allergic reaction. Even if she never outgrows the colitis, which she should and is apparently on her way to doing, she will always be able to process some dairy.

Once every two months or so I attempted to reintroduce dairy by eating it myself. Before Piper was eating solid food, she continued to show a reaction to the protein with loose stools and sometimes diaper rash. But once she started solids, it became very difficult for me to gauge her reaction. Her stools were no longer green or loose no matter what she or I ate. Sometimes she would get diaper rash, but honestly that could have been blamed on a lot of different things. Last week I had a large peppermint-chocolate chip milkshake from Chick-fil-A (it was heavenly!), and I noticed NO REACTION from Piper in any form. This explains how her symptoms seemed to lessen and then disappear once she began eating solid foods along with nursing--she was getting less and less of the irritating protein.

Now don't get me wrong--I will not be serving up cold glasses of milk any time soon. I will, however, be slowly reintroducing dairy back into my diet (pizza tonight!) to see how Piper does. Hopefully by the time I'm ready to wean her at around a year old we can move to milk at that point. We might try yogurt or small amounts of cheese before then.

Piper was such a good sport during the testing. I don't remember the order of each prick, but #1 was soy and #2 was milk. Number 9, the one you can see that she reacted to, was the control, a histamine that the doctor uses to make sure her skin reacted to something. If Piper had reacted to any of the allergens, the other pricks would look like #9.

We are so thankful for this good news! I was selfishly very concerned about what in the world I would eat at Thanksgiving. Now I don't have to be quite so picky!

New Adventures

When she's not running around on all fours or pulling up on anything in sight, Piper is climbing and cruising. She's getting tougher to keep up with, even when she's sick!

I'm not sure why this wouldn't rotate, but you can still get the point.

Sick Baby

Piper has come down with her second cold in as many weeks. This one seems to be worse that the first, which doesn't bode well for the rest of her family. She managed to get us all sick last week. I don't have high hopes; I bet she sneezed on me 30 times today. And to add insult to injury, I think she's also working on her two top teeth. We hope she feels better soon!

Happy Halloween!

On Sunday night, we took our busy little bee trick-or-treating for the first time! She wasn't really into it, but we had fun anyway. We met our friends Cole and Ashley for dinner at their house and went around their neighborhood with their daughters Meg (23 months) and Mary Clark (3 months). Piper was just adorable in her bee costume! Josh made out with all the candy since I can't eat any of the chocolate :-(.

We weren't very successful at getting a picture with the two girls.

Buzzing (spitting) in my face

She really liked crawling through the leaves.

Regatta

Josh had a regatta in Oak Ridge this weekend, and Tam-tam and Mamaw met us there for a visit. We could not have asked for better weather to spend the day together. And even better, Josh's team didn't lose every race they were in!

The view from Piper's setup

Tam-tam's lap is the perfect place!

staying warm with Tam-tam and Mamaw