9 Months Old

Yet another month has flown by and here we are at 3/4 of a year old! The past month has seen a flurry of development and changes.  I feel like she is a completely different baby than she was just a few weeks ago.  Abby is flourishing at her new nanny's house.  She and her new friend (our nanny's 5 year old daughter) love to play together.  Abby rides along when they take the little girl to pre-school and gets to participate in fun events, such as a recent performance by DinoRock.

Abby learned to do so much this month that I actually had to keep a list on my phone so I would remember it all.  It started with a cute little Monkey See, Monkey Do game which I think I wrote about last time.  She would tilt her head to the side and wait for you to copy her, and then move her head to the other side.  Then, one day she was holding her Taggie blanket in front of her face and jamming it down into her lap.  Over and over.  We realized she was playing peek-a-boo!!! I about died the day she played Peek-a-boo with Chloe. She held the Taggie in front of Chloe's face and pulled it away, laughing, over and over. She also has mastered clapping her hands.  Clapping her hands is one of her new favorite tricks.  She also knows what to do when we say "clap your hands!".  There is a bit of confusion, however, with the word "quack" (like a duck) vs. "clap". Playing with her little rubber duck sometimes gets confusing when we say "quack quack!" and she claps her hands... but hey... it's cute.

More recently, she has started waving "bye bye", but I have only seen her do it a few times.  She and her nanny wave bye bye to me every morning as I leave. My favorite recent development is that Abby now gives "kisses"!!!! She leans in with her mouth open and kind of just puts her mouth on your face... super adorable until she leans into Chloe with her mouth wide open and gets a mouthful of nasty dog tongue. She still loves her doggies but she wants to be all up in their grill and they really don't want her anywhere near their grill...

Lastly, Abby isn't exactly crawling but she definitely isn't staying in one place.  She can easily get to the floor from a sitting position and she can army/belly/awkwardly "crawl" across the room to whatever it is she wants. She hasn't mastered getting up on all fours, or sitting up from a laying down position.  But I'm sure it's coming.

Also, I know it's bad for babies to watch TV but you haven't seen anything until you see her face when Mickey Mouse comes walking up the path and invites everyone to play at his clubhouse.  I have the series DVR'd and I put it on for her in the mornings while I'm packing my lunch.  She doesn't usually make it past the Roll Call in the opening credits but she LOVES Mickey Mouse.  I also put on Sesame Street for her sometimes.  I mean, I'd rather her watch that than Castle...

How many? 9! NINE!

Stats? Abby now weighs 20 lbs 8 oz and is 28.5 inches long. She is in the 80th percentile.  Last appointment (at 6 months) she was in the 60th percentile.  Her Doctor is really happy with her growth and development!

Diaper Size? We recently moved her from a 3 to a 4. It was a suggestion from her nanny after a few blow outs and I think we made the right call, even though they start at 22 lbs and she's not quite there yet.  I also tried Pampers cruisers instead of swaddlers and I really like them (thanks, Melissa!).

Clothes Size? 9-12 months. Some of the 6 month stuff still fits on top. She's wearing a 6 month onesie today. It's a little tight, though. The 9 month pants are a little short but now that it's hot out I just act like they are capri pants...  I also started putting her in shoes. She likes to stand up and hold onto the coffee table and I feel like she needs support on those little ankles.  Plus baby shoes are so cute.  She's somewhere between a 2 and a 3 with 4 inch long feet. I read that bare feet are best when learning to walk, so she doesn't wear them all the time.

Mom. Take this stupid thing off.

Eating? Still going strong with our eating schedule.  Oatmeal with fruit in the morning (dumped into a bowl and mixed w/formula), Gerber veggies for lunch (level 2 and she is starting to want more than just 1 container), and Gerber meat with veggies for dinner.  (Same thing, level 2 and yes I know it is gross but I'm a little weird about feeding her. Plus I only really give her the ones with turkey and chicken because...the beef one was absolutely disgusting.) She still does not do well with finger foods like little pieces of banana, avocado, cheerios or puffs. Just doesn't want them. Not interested.  But she LOVES rice rusks. (Baby Mum-Mums are her jam right now.)  I'm, of course, terrified she will choke because she loves to bite off a huge hunk of it, but it gets mushy really fast and she is starting to get better about "chewing" and she does a good job feeding herself. So I think there is hope for the future after all.  She actually just started letting me put little pieces of food in her mouth. Slow progress. We haven't done too much work with sippy cups but I will start working on that this month. She is also still taking 3-6 ounces of "milk" (formula) 5-6 times/day.  Finally, she has four teeth now. All on the bottom.

I LIKE YELLING

Sleeping? Still a rockstar sleeper.  ~3 naps per day but sometimes more and sometimes less.  She usually has a good, long morning nap and a long afternoon nap and sometimes a short evening nap. If her morning nap wasn't long enough (i.e. the dogs woke her up) she might need 2 morning naps.  We just never really pushed a nap schedule with her. I'm kind of indifferent about it. She sleeps well at night, although she does wake up between 5 and 6am.

Milestones?
-Extremely vocal. New one is "DoiDoiDoiDoi" but she'll blabber on to anyone that will listen (or to herself...) Also loves to be LOUD.
-Pincer grasp- got it down! (picks up all the little pieces of dirt on the carpet and makes me feel like I should vacuum more) (but doesn't put them in her mouth!...yet)
-Sitting to tummy/laying down (but can't sit back up again and gets sooo mad)
-Tummy slithering ("army crawl")
-Has started climbing on me (i.e. to get across my lap to the remote control) and pulling up to her knees on things she can reach. Great.
-Loves to stand up and hold onto things (only stands with help)
-Fart noises.
-I don't know if she understands "no" but she definitely knows tone of voice.  You should see her face when Joey yells at the dogs.

Mom's Corner
Well, enough about Abby.  Here's a fun fact about ME! I am very excited to announce that starting at the end of May, I'll be a Part Time Work-at-Home Mom. In the government contracting world, there is always uncertainty.  When our customer wanted to scale back our contract a little bit, I volunteered to work part time in order to help out.  Bonus- I get to do it from home.  I know it will be a bit of a juggling act at first while I figure it all out.  But I am so excited to get to see my daughter all day.  I am also a little sad, as I absolutely LOVE her nanny. We will not be ending our relationship with her and we plan to get the girls together often. I'm thrilled about this opportunity and I'm really lucky to be part of a company that has had my back for 6+ years. So everyone just wish me luck.  And I know there are some work-at-home Moms that read my blog so please let me know if you have any advice!!!

Here are some more pictures from the last month! :)

She loves putting things in her bucket.

We had some HOT weather this month! Hello, Summer!!

Practicing standing up and being a boss and not holding on, either.

This outfit is so cute.

Nobody puts baby in a corner!!! ....except baby.

Chloe didn't see it coming...

T-r-o-u-b-l-e

You may have noticed that our living room got a bit of a makeover.  It's not ready for a blog post yet, but here is a sneak peek.  I re-did the cornices, we got new furniture (new coffee table not pictured), and soon all the A/V equipment will go to its' new home in the basement.  We also re-did the side porch. So I guess I owe a house post at some point to show off all our fun activities.

Hope everyone has a FABULOUS start to their summer.  I can't believe it's summer once again. We're counting down to our beach trip for Abby's first birthday.  Don't even get me STARTED on that... where has the time gone?!

~SG