November December

How is it possible that we have been home together for 9 months?

In just the past month, Zora has gone from taking her first steps (early November) to walking about 90% of the time. And boy does she GO! The final playpen was taken down today as her current response to being contained is to scream angrily. The only barrier that still remains is in the playroom and that one will be there for quite a while (although we did have to have Kevin redo the anchors in the wall as they finally gave up the ghost last week).

Zora’s favorite thing to carry around is an empty gallon milk jug. I guess it feels powerful but it looks HILARIOUS.

Also she is a fan of pulling off clothes, but who can blame her?

She’s trying new foods and just had her 15 month appointment where she weighed in at 25lbs and Dr Katie said she expects a growth spurt on the way. She has lots of teeth (incisors coming in now) and babbles constantly. She’s just started to say “baby” but mostly it’s mama and dada and “no” and “uh-uh” as in, no. She loves to play with her big sister by wrecking everything Ember is trying to do and get into trouble. But Ember is a good sport MOST of the time, and loves to play with her.

We’ve been doing a lot of crafts to get in the Christmas spirit, so Ember has proudly made ornaments of all kinds and put stickers on snowflakes to hang on the windows for our neighbors to see. We baked Christmas cookies to continue a 40+ year tradition even though it wasn’t with my mom as usual. I think next year’s cookie baking will be a blast – Ember will probably even want to do more than 2 minutes worth of stirring!

As the weather has gotten colder, and the COVID case counts have gotten higher (500 new cases a day in our county) our daily walks outside have diminished. I am excited for when they will return, but right now Zora isn’t a fan of being bundled up so we stick to indoor activities.

Ember was very excited when her final driveway ballet class was moved to Zoom and we could participate. She will be even more excited to find out we are signed up for Zoom ballet weekly for the 6 weeks after Christmas. She really enjoys it and I’m so proud of her.

A COVID Christmas is a hard one. It is sad not to see all of our friends and family to celebrate. Thanksgiving was a Zoom call with Mamaw and Granddaddy and waving from the storm door to Gigi when she picked up leftovers and dropped some off for us. We are extremely excited about the vaccine being available soon as the first ones have begun being distributed to Frontline Healthcare workers here in town and all over the country. We are doing our best to stay hidden away in our warm little home together and away from this scary terrible unpredictable virus that has taken so many and harmed so many in the process.