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When Mommy tries to type e-mail while holding Austen on her lap, Austen reliably grabs for the keyboard — often managing to erase half of what Mommy has written. When Mommy pushes the keyboard away from Austen’s reach, Austen goes for the mouse. Mommy then moves the mouse away. When Mommy pulls the keyboard a little closer so she can resume typing, the whole process repeats itself. Eventually Austen gets fussy and starts to complain because everything keeps being moved out of reach. It’s as if Mommy’s playing games with her. Austen’s crankiness with Mommy suggests that she recognizes Mommy’s intentional action.

During a playdate at Barnes and Nobles kids’ section, Austen did the downward dog yoga position while playing on the carpet with the other babies. There’s a picture of Morgan doing this position at around the same age as Austen.

For weeks now, Austen has been reaching her arms wide when she wants to be picked up — the gesture is usually combined with a grunting “Uhh, Uhh, Uhh.” Mommy read today that this is a normal behavior for babies at nine months.

Over the past two weeks Mommy has been performing clapping songs for Austen — such as Grandma Judi’s favorite “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands …” and “Pease Porridge hot, Pease Porridge cold …” Today Austen did some clapping of her own at Gymboree. She doesn’t clap on demand or when the song calls for it but whenever the spirit moves her, usually after everyone else stops clapping.

Also, Austen has started attempting to wave “Hi!”

Mommy and Daddy will try to capture video but Uncle Rin can confirm Austen’s new clapping skill.

Thanks, Uncle Rin, for picking out this Rocawear outfit.

Austen is becoming proficient at moving from sitting position to all-fours crawling position — although she doesn’t do much crawling while in crawling postion, just looks around and reaches for things.

At her new Leap Frog Table, Austen pulls herself to standing, then falls usually.

In memory of Grandma Judi (today marks one year since we lost her), Mommy and Daddy ate crab cakes, sang songs to Austen, and said encouraging, optimistic things to each other. It was a great “family-oriented” day.

Surrounded by the adults playing their own game, Devan & Austen entertain themselves.

Here’s Austen laughing and partying it up.

(Video – be patient while it loads.)

The dessert table:

Davinder and the “little tykes”:

Check out all the party pics.

Game Night guest list: Daljit, Kimball, Angie, Sumita, Wayne, Pricilla, and nine-year-old Ian

Austen ate carrots this evening. This was her first solid food after rice cereal. She acted like it was no big deal, like she does it everyday. There’s video proof. [Daddy, add the video, please]

This afternoon, when Austen said, “Aha,” Mommy repeated the expression over and over, and then they began a laughing competition, seeing who could laugh the loudest and longest. Austen won.

Mommy set up Austen’s Leap Frog play table, like cousin Grace’s which Mommy admired while in Maryland.

Unfortunately, Austen had her first major throw-up incident today after Mommy fed her a large quantity of formula followed by milk (about 5 ounces total). [Previously, she’s only spit up tiny amounts of liquid.] Perhaps mixing both milk and formula during a single feeding was the problem. In the past few weeks, Austen has begun to get about 3-4 bottles of formula per day, mostly at night and in the early morning. She seems to like the milk-based formula and hasn’t had digestion problems, only more frequent dirty diapers. During today’s full-scale vomiting incident, Austen barely seemed to notice what had happened and didn’t seem bothered by it; she immediately returned to smiling and playing.

Before Austen was born, Mommy and Daddy decided to try breastfeeding for 6 months. But now they’ve decided to continue to give Austen milk each day to protect her from viral infections. Over the next six months, they want to reduce the burden on Mommy by gradually moving Austen to solid foods and formula.

Austen is still having napping problems. She starts to rub her eyes and whine and flail about, grabbing for anything in reach, instead of letting herself drift off to sleep. This happens despite the fact she’s clearly exhausted. Rocking and swinging and riding in the car seem to help.

A very cute thing about Austen is her reaction to new toys. She completely stops moving, furrows her brow and studies the new object, reaching for it and then almost immediately shoving it into her mouth for some serious chewing. Play and smiles follow.

Austen sat and played with toys by herself on the carpet in Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom while Mommy took a shower. This was a first, usually Mommy has to bring Austen into the master bath and set up a playmat for her on the floor.

In her Exersaucer, Austen squealed and almost seemed to jump to reach the dangling toys, all the while doing her trademark big-mouth smile.

Mommy and Austen went to Kids World (exit 13A, across from Ikea) to buy some toys and supplies. On the ride home, Austen started complaining about being strapped into her car seat but when Mommy gave her a rattle to shake she calmed down.

At night, Austen was very tired and thus very fussy and unable to calm herself down. Daddy rocked her to sleep.

Note: This picture was NOT staged. Austen got into this position all by herself.