Clara, you've now been out as long as you were in! That is kinda crazy for me to realize. It feels like such a long, long time ago that we learned that you were growing inside me. And now you're here and your first birthday is coming right up!
It seems like this has been a tough month for you. You've spent a couple weeks now either teething or sick, or both. You had a fever for a couple days and once that left, you got a rash all over your tummy and back. You seem to be feeling mostly better now, but you still won't let me put you down. You want to be carried everywhere, all the time!
You seem to have become a little more shy again this month. For a while, you would consent to being carried by anyone who wanted to hold you. Now you don't really care for anyone but mom. Dad will do in a pinch, but mom is always your first choice. When someone holds you, you stick out your little bottom lip and squish up your face and start crying and looking for me. You reach out your arms for me and when I take you back, you put your arms around my neck and give me a big hug. I love when you do that!
As much as you are in a "please carry me everywhere" phase, you HAVE learned to crawl this month! You're not up on your hands and knees yet, but you can army crawl anywhere you want to go. Your big brother and sisters' Lego and Playmobil is no longer safe on the floor. You also find every little hair, string, dust bunny, piece of paper and crumb and put them all in your mouth. Lovely. I guess your little immune system will really benefit from that...
Speaking of eating, you are still mostly just nursing. You sometimes stretch your daytime feeds out a little more than every two hours now. It's not consistent though. You went through a bit of a nursing strike where you would NOT eat for more than a minute at every feed so I thought you could handle waiting a little longer between feeds. For a few days you ate closer to every three hours but now you're back to having a full feed every two hours. We give you a taste of whatever we're eating and you love to feed yourself. You still have some sort of night snack (like oatmeal, yogurt, avocado, rice, etc) in an effort to fill you up before the long night. I've gone back to feeding you off a spoon and it works pretty well. You gobble it up if it's the right temperature and taste!
Your sleep lately has been...how do I say this nicely? I don't think I can, Sweetie. It's been the pitts. You started the month doing as well as ever, even giving me one nice stretch of sleep from 1am-9am. Apparently that was thanks to your impending sickness because since then it has just gotten worse and worse. Just days before you got sick, I thought it would be a good idea to start night-weaning you to help you sleep through the night without feeds. You were doing pretty well and I was hoping that your 8 hr stretch of sleep was thanks to my training. Unfortunately, it wasn't and you are now up every three hours. That's more than you've been up in the night...ever in your life. Sometimes you're up after less than three hours. You really need to sleep, baby girl! I'm always nervous to fidget with a baby's sleep when their current sleep routine is manageable. Turns out I should have just left it alone. Oh well. Maybe this next month will be the month when you finally start sleeping longer stretches again!
You consistently take two naps each day. I can't complain about that. Each nap ranges from 1-3 hours with most of them being between 1-2 hours. You usually wake for the day around 9 and go to bed for the night around 7-8 (sleeping later and to bed earlier since you've been sick). To put you to bed, I usually sing a bit of our song (How Great Thou Art) and then put you in bed. You've actually started reaching for your bed sometimes when I start singing. You sometimes fuss a bit when I put you down for a nap, but you always put yourself to sleep. Your nap times are usually around 11am and 2:30pm.
In addition to army crawling, you've also pulled yourself up for the first time this month! You don't do it very often, but when you're on the couch or sitting in a laundry basket or beside something that's easy to grab onto, you always try to stand! You can easily transition from sitting to tummy, tummy to back, and laying to sitting (this is new too!). You're getting more and more mobile all the time. I love to see it. You will not be one to be left behind!
You are so curious and love to explore. I would love to let you explore all over the yard but thanks to dangerous bugs, it's not too safe to put you directly on the grass and the patio is always so dirty that you have few places to crawl outside. It's a shame, with all the grass and trees and leaves that you could be exploring. But safety first! For this photo shoot, you got to be on the grass for the first time since your six month photo shoot and you loved it! I wasn't sure how you would feel about the prickly grass but it didn't slow you down at all! You just explored and took it all in!
You love to babble. Your favourite/only word right now is "buh/ba!" You say it softly, you yell it, you can say it in so many different ways. But the sound is always the same. Buh. You sometimes also pull out a "mum" but only when you're pretty upset and complaining. I doubt you know what it really means but I find it a funny coincidence that "mum" is the sound you make when you're complaining. I think I know who you learned that from. You also have a real growl that makes Levi, Kayden and Maddie laugh.
You notice other children's voices wherever we go, but especially your siblings' voices. When you hear them, you always call out a loud "bah!" It's the cutest. When they're all yelling and having fun, you get all excited and start yelling with them. It sure seems like you just can't wait to go and join them in their fun!
You've really enjoyed your Jolly Jumper this month. I found a place to hang it outside right beside where I work on my Spanish studies so you jump while I study. Again, this is another thing that you don't enjoy much since being sick, but for the first half of the month you sure loved it!
You also get so excited whenever you see Hatchi, the big dog who lives here at MTC with us. You squeal when you see him and always try to touch him.
Speaking of touching, When there's something you want or want to touch, you hold your little hand out, palm up, and reach toward it. Cutest ever. If your hand happens to actually touch it, you grab on have a really good grip! Kayden and Maddie don't really love that, as it's often their hair that your fingers reach for. Sometimes you can hold onto something for quite a while and other times you make a game of dropping things over and over again, as long as someone is willing to play along and pick it up again and again.
Your hair has really seemed to be growing this month. It's a light brown colour and fairly even all over. Your eyes are SO blue...lighter in the middle with a dark ring around the outside. They're absolutely beautiful. Everyone here who meets you says how beautiful your eyes are because they're so different from brown, Latin American eyes. You are still so small for your age. I have no idea what you weigh, probably still under 20lbs...maybe about 16-17 lbs if I were to guess? We changed from cloth to disposable diapers this month so you started the month in 9-12 month clothes and now you're in 3-6 month pants because you crawl out of your bigger ones! You're wearing 9 and 12 month sleepers, usually 9 month under with 12 month over top because it's so chilly at night.
A new habit you've picked up...spitting. You stick out your tongue and blow, sending spit flying everywhere. Your siblings think it's hilarious and encourage you all the time. As cute as it is, I'm usually the one in your spit-range, not them, so I try to discourage you from doing that. You've also learned to click your tongue this month...can you tell what I use as a distraction from spitting??
Your personality is ever-evolving and emerging. You like to be a part of things, but from the safety of mom or dad's arms. You don't like loud noises, unless you're the one making them. You like to be silly and make people smile and laugh, though you're also content to just sit and watch the action from your high chair. You're starting to copy us, both noises and actions. Things like tapping something to see what noise it makes or trying to make a noise that we make are fun for you.
Let's see, what else? You put everything in your mouth. You are nervous about things you aren't sure of. You get excited whenever you see your family and almost always wake up with a smile. You are so special and we love you SO much. No amount of sleepless nights or grumpy days can change that. We are so glad that you are a part of our family. Happy nine months, my girl. Thank you for being you!
And now, more pictures because you were looking so stinkin' adorable today!
