The Pope Kiddos: 9 months

Another month into the history books. Abby's doing well. She's still scooting around but not crawling yet. She's spending more time up on her hands and knees and she always gets down on her stomach from a seated position. She really wants to crawl, she just hasn't quite figured it out yet. Some times this is very frustrating for her when she can't get what she wants. She's always getting into things, pulling on cords, finding tiny pieces of paper to put in her mouth, etc so I think we'll be in trouble when she really starts moving around. She can always find the one thing in a room that you don't want her to get into. This is especially difficult with Lily around. Lily always seems to have stickers or rips paper and leaves it on the ground and Abby is always there to pick it up and try and eat it.

Speaking of eating, Abby still doesn't have any teeth yet either. That doesn't mean she doesn't like to eat though. She loves to feed herself. She's not so fond of eating baby food but she loves to eat on her own. I think she has a problem with the texture because she always makes very strange faces when she's eating pureed foods. She does tolerate some things, like applesauce though. She mainly just wants to eat whatever everyone else has though. She doesn't like being the little baby that has to eat something different. She really likes cereal, like Cheerios and Kix. And when she's full she likes to smash everything she doesn't want to eat (especially peas and beans).

She likes to mimic other people. If I blow, she tries to blow back. If Lily makes a high-pitched screech, she makes one back. She'll keep this up for a while. And she's very proud when you tell her what a good job she did.

It's funny how different babies are and how things happen at different times. Abby was able to sit on her own earlier than Lily but Lily was crawling all over the place by Abby's age. Babies are different.

At the Peabody Museum

An out-take.

The official stats:
height: 29 3/4" (97th %tile)
weight: 20 1/4 oz (75th %tile)
head circumference: 45.7 cm

Where does the time go? Lily has reached the 9 month mark already. I can barely remember those newborn days any more (probably partially because I haven't had a full night's sleep since I was pregnant). Every day she's turning more into a little girl and acting less like a baby. She sure has opinions these days. She will let you know if you don't do something the way she wants. The little tantrums are already starting. A surefire way to elicit a tantrum is to take the TV remote away from her. She has also developed a very strong bond to her mommy. Want to hear a screaming baby? Have mommy walk out of a room. Luckily peek-a-boo is her absolute favorite game so popping back into the room periodically and screaming "LILY!" or "BOO!" or anything with your arms up in the air is usually enough to keep the huge crocodile tears away. Just don't be too slow. And peek-a-boo also brings the biggest belly laughs. That and blowing raspberries on her belly. That is also hilarious.

Of course she's still an absolute joy. She has a beautiful smile. She is talking up a storm. At her 9-month checkup her doctor wanted to make sure she had 3 "words"; she must have at least 20 or so. "Mama" and "dada" are common but so it "hi" and "dis" and "baba". None of these "words" have meaning to her yet so we're not foolish enough first-time parents think she's actually calling either one of us. But hopefully that's not too far off. We've been trying to teach her sign language also. I took a class as an undergrad from Linda Acredolo, PhD she created "Baby Signs" or sign language for babies. She encorages moms and babies to make up their own signs for things, but we're using the traditional American Sign Language. So far, it's only me signing to Lily but I hope that eventually she'll pick it up. So far we only regularly do the sign for "milk" to see if she's hungry or not. I think she has picked up on what it means when I do the sign, but she hasn't been able to do it herself yet. The idea behind signing with babies and toddlers is that young kids understand what we are saying to them they just don't have the language ability to talk back yet. Plus kids that sign actually have a larger vocabulary than kids that don't so it doesn't inhibit them from speaking at all. Plus Dr. Acredolo was on Oprah, so it must be good, right? See a baby signing here. But back to Lily...

She is really on the move. When we get home in the evenings I usually set her down in her little play area in the living room and then I walk back over to the entry way to take off my jacket, put her milk away, etc (if you haven't visited our apartment, this is about 10 ft). Now as soon as I start to walk away Lily follows. Then I sometimes head into the bedroom to change into more comfortable pants, I talk to Lily the whole time and again, she follows (if she doesn't get distracted by the bookcase along the way--and again this is another 10 ft, are you seeing a trend here?). But there's something even more fun to follow around the house than mommy--bunny. The rabbit isn't sure what's going on but Lily will follow him wherever he goes. Being a rabbit, he's a little erratic and unpredictable so he's often hopping back and forth across the bedroom with Lily crawling after him. His cage also has perfect grips for her to pull up on. So she love crawling over to his cage and pulling up on the bars so she can stand up and talk to him. And they both shake the door of the cage. The rabbit does know that she could provide pets (or treats?) so he comes up to the front of the cage when she's there and nuzzles her hands with his nose. This is where the baubies and grandmas are shreeking I know, don't worry, he doesn't bite, and he's not covered in his own poo or anything.

She got a fairly bad bug this last month. She had a consistent fever that didn't want to go away. We called the on-call pediatrician the evening after the fever set in just to check in about what we need to keep an eye out for. They aren't concerned unless the fever doesn't go away with Tylenol (which is always did within 45 min or so). But she suggested we take her to the doctor if she still had a fever on the 3rd day. By day 3 the fever we thought the fever had gone away and then that afternoon it went back up again. So we went to the doctor just to be on the safe side and make sure it wasn't anything more than a simple bug. Of course she checked out fine and her lungs were clear and her ears were normal. Plus sitting on the exam table and trying to reach all the instruments and crumpling up the paper across the table is pretty fun. But the doctor also cleared us to travel the next morning. Grandma and Grandpa were relieved.

Lily and I took a trip up to the Grandparents house the last weekend in January. Grandma found a last-minute deal on airfare so she bought a ticket for Lily and mommy. Grandpa didn't know we were coming. As it turns out Aunt Melody, Isabella and Aunt Kellie also came down from Oregon to everyone's surprise. So it was a big get-together without any dads (except for grandpa). It was a quick trip and our flights out of LAX and Redding left at 6 AM (yawn!) but it was fun. Lily did really well on the plane though. I think morning flights suit her. She did a pretty good job of falling back to sleep on all of the flights, which was good for a tired mommy. This marked flights 9-12 for Lily (we had to change planes in SF). She's a well traveled girl! I didn't go on my first flight until I was 8.

Milestones
Wants to stand up all the time.
Stood up alone without holding on (2/3/09).
Can walk if you hold her hands. Likes to practice this.
Cruising all over the place.
Favorite toy- herFischer-Price "iPod". We're not sure about the facination with this, but as soon as it catches her eye, anything else gets tossed to the side.
Other favorites: her musical table (a favorite place to stand and play), her blue ball (a staple for a long time), her little piano, and a teddy bear.
Non-toys that are also fun: empty toilet paper & paper towel rolls, empty plastic bottles (.5 liter water bottles & 2-liter soda bottles are best), plastic bags (not unsupervised of course), helium balloons (Trader Joes you are so smart), and the trash can (unfortunately).
Favorite foods: avocado & sweet potatoes