Nine months.
*sigh*
I don't know what it is about the 9-month mark, but I feel like somehow this makes her not a baby anymore. I mean, she's still a baby. And I'll probably keep calling her that well into toddler-hood, but for some reason this is a weird invisible line of demarcation in my head that makes me think she's old.
And that makes me sad.
So let's talk about what she's up to now that she's an old baby.
There haven't been many changes over the past month - at least not right up until just before her 9-month birthday. She still only had her two lone bottom teeth, though the top two were on the verge of coming through (one of them came through on the 19th, the other is sure to follow soon, and it looks like she's got two more on the bottom that should be making an appearance soon).
Cate has at least finally decided that there's something to this whole solid food thing. She's a little picky about what she will and won't eat, and still makes the most hilarious face anytime food goes into her mouth, but she eats things besides breastmilk, so that's exciting. Her favorites include bananas, apple (I give her a chunk and she scrapes at it with her teeth - too funny to watch), cheese, and some pureed fruits and veggies. We've started to just give her bits of what we're eating instead of steaming up something separate, so she's also had black beans, broccoli, chicken, ground beef (not a favorite), fish (that got spit out), red pepper, pizza crust, a little bread, pancake, and a few other random things. I've realized that, by the time she was this old, Michaela was eating a whole container of YoBaby yogurt every morning, along with some fruit, and she was eating a "lunch" that I'd send to daycare with her - usually leftovers of whatever we ate the night before. Cate maybe eats an ounce of real food a day. I'm thinking I might need to get a little less lazy about it and start giving her more so that she might actually eat meals sometime after she turns one. We're down to only three months to practice... might need to get on that.
Sleep has been sucky pretty much since we got back from our trip up north. She used to sleep a good 5-6 hour stretch every night when we went to bed, generally waking up too close to the alarm going off for Jason to be happy, but at least we'd get a good chunk before that. In the last month, though, she's woken up a lot more often and we're getting a lot less sleep again. I don't like it. But between being sick when we first got home, a growth spurt, new milestones, and no longer swaddling her, she's just not sleeping for long stretches. I'm hopeful we'll get back to it one day. I miss sleep. A lot.
Speaking of milestones, Cate has been working diligently on a few big ones. She hasn't started actually crawling yet, but, as I learned at her well-baby check on Friday, the rolling and scooching she's doing actually count as "crawling." Apparently, as long as she can make herself move in a specific direction, she's mobile. And that she is. She'll either roll to get where she wants to go, or push herself backwards on her belly, or scooch on her toosh. The other big thing she's doing is standing up holding on to furniture and people. She LOVES to stand up and is so proud of her new talent. She hasn't quite figured out that her feet can move, but I think that's coming soon. She's also trying very hard to actually pull herself up into a standing position. She can do it if she's positioned just right and can get the right leverage, but it won't be long until she can pull up on anything. Jason keeps asking if it's time to get the kiddie coral gates back down from the attic. For now, I can keep her occupied in an exersaucer or her jumper, so I think we'll wait to take up more floor space with those, but true mobility is not too far in the future, I'm sure. I remember thinking Michaela was never going to crawl, and then, one day, she just did without much warning. Cate is at least rocking on her hands and knees a little, so we have a little heads up, but I think it'll happen fast for her, too... from not getting it to crawling like a champ in two days is my guess.
Last month's obsession was her toes. This month it's her teeth. She spends a lot of time running her tongue over her teeth and feeling them. She also LOVES being outside. Any time we let Fred in or out, if she's in our arms, she reaches for the door and wiggles and kicks her feet. She knows for sure what the front and back doors are, and seems to think that a bunch of other doors also lead to the outside as well, especially the door going IN to Michaela's Mom's Day Out building. She very enthusiastically reaches for it every time we drop off and pick up and we're waiting for it to be opened for us. One day she'll realize it only goes inside. One day.
And, finally, Cate has learned a few "tricks." She started waving just a little bit in the past week or so. She totally melted Jason's heart one night when she looked over at him from my arms and waved to say hi. It's a super sweet sight to see for sure! The other thing she learned was how to drop something and have Daddy pick it back up for her. They sat in a chair together one night and she dropped her pacifier over and over again, laughing hysterically each time it hit the floor and Jason said, "Where'd it go?" or "What'd you do?" Fantastic entertainment for me!
I think those are the highlights. She's growing up too fast (which totally hit me in the face last week when I was packing up the little clothes... I cried) and I'm just not ready for her baby days to be winding down. Before I know it, I'll be planning her first birthday party. Meanwhile, I soak up every bit of cuddling and baby-ness I can get from her, and enjoying being here for it all this time around. Mostly.
So here she is... showing off her 9-month onesie (it's a white onesie, with a sticker... shhhhh) in one and her new skill of trying to crawl in the other. It's a good thing she's not actually good at crawling or she may have fallen off the chair. I'm already predicting difficulty in picture-taking next month.
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