Nine Months!

OLIVIA GRACE, you are NINE months old!

What have you been up to?

*We will go to the doctor on Tuesday for your nine month check up.  I can't wait to see how long you are.  Last time we weighed you (which has been a while), you were 21 1/2 pounds!

*You still wear some of your 9 month outfits, but have mostly transitioned into 12 month clothes.  We've had some pretty nice days here this last month so we are getting our use out of all the summer outfits.

*You are still in size 4 diapers with plenty of room!

*You have TWO new teeth!  You started cutting both of your top front teeth around the same time.  One cut all the way through on March 15th and the other was just a few days later.

*You have decided that you no longer like to sleep in until 7.  These days you are waking up anywhere between 5:45 and 6:30.  Usually it's closer to 6.  This was happening long before daylight savings, so we can't even blame it on that.  Mostly the reason is that you have decided that 11 hours of sleep a night is plenty.  12 hours is for babies! ;)

*You are on a solid 2 nap a day schedule.  This has especially been reinforced this past week now that you are going to work with me every day.  Your first nap is between 9 and 9:30.  This nap usually only lasts a half hour, but has stretched to an hour and fifteen minutes at times.  Of course, this all depends on when you woke up in the morning.  Your second nap is around 1.  I have to wake you at 2:30 if you are not already awake.  This is when we go to pick up Little Man from school.  Daddy picks you up a little after 5:30 and you are in bed no later than 7.

*We had to go ahead and sleep train you.  I always knew it would come to this.  I've been talking about doing it for months but secretly figured we'd be rocking you until you were closer to one.  However, there were MANY reasons why it was apparent that now was the time.  It went WAAAAY better than daddy and I expected.  You now go to sleep in your bed on your own.  Sometimes you fuss for a few minutes, but that is alright.

*You still don't crawl.  It has to come soon.  You do absolutely all of the pre-crawling moves.  You've even shuffled to the side once on your hands and knees.  You just can't go forward.  You can still make your way around the room though.

*You have started to pull yourself up on things.  You can stand if we place you somewhere, but you aren't cruising along furniture yet.

*You are still at 4 bottles a day.  You are also eating 4 ounces of solids at breakfast and 4 ounces of solids at dinner.  Just this week you have started wanting more though.  We will also be adding in lunch now.

*We gave yogurt a try and it didn't go great.  You got a pretty bad diaper rash, which is a sign that it isn't agreeing with you.  This bummed me out.  If you can't handle yogurt, then it is likely that switching to regular formula isn't going to be tolerated either.  We will wait and see what your doctor says on Tuesday.

*I've lost track of all of the new foods you've tried this month.  Some that I can think of off of the top of my head are: mango, kiwi, pastina, cous cous, asparagus, and chicken. We also re-tried carrots and they were fine this time.

*You are a pro at eating puffs.  You get so excited when you see the container!  You are also pretty good at eating finger foods.  Although we probably don't do it as much as we should.  We will do more of it this next month.

*You are no longer a fan of avocado.  I'm not sure why.  You love prunes and bananas.  You pretty much like anything we give you.  You enjoy the chicken when it's slightly pureed and mixed with other ingredients (verses when I tried to give it as a finger food).

*You love to blow raspberries and make any noises with your mouth that you can.  You like it when we make noises with our mouths too.

*Thankfully your stranger danger has seemed to have calmed a little bit this last month.  You finally got use to Miss Christy (at TLG).  You let her hold you and use you as a model of what we are doing in class.  You also let someone hold you at life group for a long time!  Plus, K held you one morning at work and you were fine.  You still don't like if you can't see us, but we're getting better.

*You are squirmy!  You are constantly wanting to be on the move.  You'll pull up to me and want to be held, but then you just try to squirm around or away.

*You love looking at yourself in the mirror.  You even try to steal glances of yourself in the car windows.

*You still don't say any words that you associate as words.  At least I don't think so.  You do talk all day long though.  Your favorite things to say over and over (and over and over) are da-da-da-da-da and na-na-na-na-na.

*You love to sing.  If I sing to you, you join in.  You also "sing" during some of the songs at TLG and library story time.

*We had to quit swim lessons.  For whatever reason you no longer liked them.  You cried hysterically through the whole thing.  This was not fun for us and not fair to the other kids.  We'll try again another time.

*You love to see other little kids.  You always try to hold their hand.  You enjoy seeing kids at TLG.  You also like to play with your friend Camdyn.  You absolutely love Little Man.

Things you love right now: your mailbox, your set of eggs, getting crazy in the exersaucer, mommy's hair tickling your face, puffs, and Mickey Mouse

Your least favorite things right now: not being able to see mommy, not being able to move forward when that is all you really want to do, and having to be patient

16 pictures and this is the best one.  She kept staring at my cupcake or trying to grab it.

HAPPY NINE MONTHS BABY GIRL!

WE LOVE YOU!!!