42-43 weeks ~ visitors & daycare blues

Kevin and his trucker hat, which Cora loved.

A flashback post for Cora's weekly development:

Mobility: At 42 weeks Little Lady is a powerhouse crawler, a stable stander, and still reluctant to take her first independent steps. She still wants to hold on with at least one hand. She has also learned how to crawl down the big single step between the kitchen/bathroom and main living room floor level - she turns around and swings one leg down first. What a champ!

Teething: Cora started getting her middle front teeth at 43 weeks. It made for a rough few nights, and disrupted her daycare time. She was grumpy and didn't want to nap at Renee's House.

Daycare problems: The unhappy combination of teething and not napping and increasing grumpiness/clinginess got to the point that I was picking Cora up early from Renee's 2 out of 3 days of the week at 43 weeks. Now Renee is worried that Cora is uncomfortable at her house for so long, so as of Thursday last week (44 weeks) Cora only goes to daycare in the afternoons. This is supposedly a temporary situation while Cora and Renee establish a better bond (?) but... I'm not sure about the ultimate outcome of these turn of events. Nate and I like that Cora spends regular time with a nice group of slightly older kids at daycare (Wyatt, Lucy and Luke are real sweethearts), but I get upset at the idea that Renee doesn't adore Cora. I am realizing just how lucky we were with Nanny Rebecca, who even now dotes on Miss Coraline.

Visitors: OK, on to happier topics. We had several visitors during week 43... On Friday, Sept. 14, our former Cornell buddies Meg and Bryan and their new baby Jonah came to Ithaca for a brief visit from Pittsburgh. Cora and I spent the day with Meg and Jonah while Bryan worked on campus.

Jonah ~ what a doll.

Late that same night, our old Peace Corps buddy (whom many of you know and love), Kevin O'Laughlin, arrived from the Bronx. He rode out with identical twins Mia (pictured at top) and N...? (whom we didn't really see much of). We fed him home cooked meals and took him to the Ithaca Farmers Market. Sunday, we headed to the Fall Creek neighborhood for Porchfest:

Live music on every street (and porch) at Porchfest.