Nine Month old Navy

This month has probably been the hardest of motherhood so far. & I blame it all on the teething monster. It was really just the first couple weeks of the month-all of a sudden I had a whiney/crying/clinging to me all the time baby. Really, like 24/7. It was so weird because she was acting completely like a different person & it was so hard for me. (guess that's what happens when you're spoiled with a baby that's really good all the time) It was obvious that she was just uncomfortable-and she wanted to be held. (or if i wasn't holding her she wanted to be standing, but only if I was right next to her) This made getting things done a little hard, and I looked forward to nap time a lot more than I used to, just to have free arms! But nap times were also tricky because she wasn't sleeping as well as she used to. Thankfully she still slept great at night. (minus a couple of really bad days that she would wake up in the night a few times.) But I just tried to remind myself that I could handle anything as long as I had a full nights sleep. I was also thankful for baby tylenol. I don't give it to her unless she seems to be really uncomfortable-but it helped a lot on those days. Thankfully the last week or 2 have been totally better. There are still bad days-and she's still teething (because despite all the awfulness, we have yet to see a tooth at all) but most days are pretty much back to normal.

a few other things this month brought...

+She's figured out how much she loves her daddy. A lot of the time she wants him to hold her over me. It's been sooo nice, gives me a little break. & Brian obviously loves it.

+She says dadada and mamama. (you know-the baby babbles) at the beginning of the month I think she just said it all the time not really associating them with us, but now she says mamama when she wants me. (which is usually when she's crying or sad-or i leave the room and she wants me) We were practicing having her figure out who "dada" is while brian is at school. But just the other day I noticed her staring at something pretty intently & then she said dadada and i noticed she was looking at him in our family picture--she then kept staring at it on and off for the next 5 minutes or so. It was pretty adorable. She also says "bababa" for bye-bye. My other favorite thing is her deep little voice. She talks all day and makes deep noises over and over, it always makes me giggle.

+She started crawling this month! (on 10/5) she's finally just did it one day when we were at my parents house for sunday dinner and everyone was there--so it was kind of exciting. We got her to do it by giving her some chocolate--and then making her crawl to it. haha, she really wanted that candy bar. i couldn't believe how good she was at it the first time she did it--probably because she's been on the verge for months and is used to being up on her knees. Even though she CAN crawl, she really doesn't do it all that often. If i leave the room she will sometimes try to follow me-or if we put something she really wants far away she'll go get it (but she'll whine the whole way, it's hilarious). Basically she still likes standing best and would way rather do that than crawl. oh, and being held by her mama too.

+Like i said, she still loves to stand, and we still do it all day long. She just barely figured out how to pull herself up to stand by herself & standing up against the couch she can easily turn around and grab the coffee table to stand there. So she does that all day long. She also just started walking along the couch-that's been a last couple of days development. She's a little wobbly though, so it takes her a long time. This obviously results in a few falls-she had one kinda bad one where she hit her mouth & her gums bled pretty badly-but other than that she usually falls down and doesn't make a peep. just whines at you to get her back up. :)

+She's figured out how to pull herself up and stand in her crib. It's pretty cute when I go in there to get her from her nap and she's just standing waiting for me. Or when I peek in the monitor and she's just standing up playing. :) but not so cute when I put her down for a nap and she thinks it's time to play-so she stands right up. But we're figuring that out & she mostly falls right to sleep now. She will also stay in her crib for up to an hour after she wakes up and just play. In fact, she'd probably even go longer than that, but I haven't tried. Somedays she's being so fussy & clingy (teething) so I put her in her crib and she automatically is happy, it's so weird. But I don't want her to start associating her crib with playing-so i'm having this battle over whether I should do that or not. But oh well, it's working for us now.

+She likes to pretend that she's shy, but she's really not.When i'm holding her and someone comes up to talk to her she'll bury her head in my shoulder. Or put her eyes down and not look at them in the eye. (but she's usually smiling-she's a big tease) But she really doesn't have stranger danger yet. Today one of my mother-in-law's friends took her from me at church and walked away and she was totally fine. The only time she'll get sad usually if someone takes her form Brian and I is if she's tired. (or having a bad teething day)

+She's really become a lot more interested in listening to me read books lately. sure, she still likes to crab them and hold them, but her attention span is getting a lot longer. and I'll usually finish the whole book or two before she decides she wants to hold the book herself & chew on it.

+Teething like a mad woman. Even though I said the beginning of this month was rough-things have been a lot better lately. She is finally starting to be able to entertain herself with toys & doesn't completely freak out when I leave the room (because she's distracted.) & seems to be back to her happy/content all the time self.

& 9 month check up info:

Height: 28 in

Weight: 17.22 lbs