Tuesday, April 30, 2013
9 Months Old
Dear Mackenzie,
Happy 9 months Smiley Girl! I can’t believe we have hit the “9 months in, 9 months out” point! You are such a big girl. Your Daddy and I talk all the time about how just a few short months ago you were so different and you have such a little personality now. There is so much I want to tell you about your last month. You have learned all sorts of new things and it is like night and day between this time last month and now.
We haven’t gone for your 9 month appointment yet (it’s on Thursday) so I’m unsure how much you weigh and how long you are. I do know you are likely above 17 lbs. I know that because you had your first “sickness” this month. It wasn’t a traditional sickness though. Our entire family (including Nana, Papa, Grandma, Grandaddy and Uncle Rick) got a terrible cold. People had it diagnosed as everything from the flu and upper respiratory infection to bronchitis. I think I was patient zero which likely served you well. Due to your being breastfed, I think it helped you fight it off. Instead of getting whatever we all had, it manifested in you as pink eye. We had to put drops in your eyes twice a day for a week. You were not a fan.
Your nursing is about the same as last month. You nurse 5 times a day and most nights (more often than not) sleep all the way through the night. Once every two weeks or so you wake up around 4 or 5 and no matter how long I leave you, you just can’t get back to sleep so I will often go in and nurse you. I don’t mind. Waking up once every couple of weeks is a drastic change from the numerous times a night at the beginning. I can’t complain. You have started doing this funny thing when I hold you sometimes or when you pull up on me and you will pull my shirt and look down it. You aren’t looking to nurse. It’s more like you are just making sure that your food source hasn’t gone away. It is actually really funny. You are eating more finger foods nowadays. You eat breakfast and dinner every day, which you have done for a while now and we give you finger foods with lunch. You often have veggies and cheese or some sort of fruit and cheerios. It lets me eat lunch without any issues as well as lets you practice your pincer grasp which is getting really good. Jack likes when you eat because he waits for whatever you end up dropping. Lately he doesn’t spend as much time hovering around you though because you don’t drop a ton. So, until you figure out that it is hilarious to drop food for Jack, he isn’t really enjoying finger food time anymore. You love little pieces of plums and we often share one at lunch or dinner. I can’t even name the foods you have eaten now because you enjoy such a wide variety and I try to give you a variety of foods. You seem to be getting a bit frustrated with me feeding you so I don’t think it will be long before you want to man the spoon yourself. You help me get it to your mouth quite often and seem really interested in doing it yourself.
You are still taking two naps a day and you are on a bit of a time schedule now regardless of how long each nap is. It has made life much easier for both of us having you on this schedule. I didn’t do it intentionally, but like I have mentioned before… you are definitely my daughter. Schedules are apparently our thing. You get up at 7:30. You actually get out of bed at that time but lately you have been waking between 6:45 and 7 and play quietly in your crib until I come get you. You go down for your first nap around 9:30 and sleep until around 10:30 or 11 and then go down for your next nap at 2:30 and usually sleep until 4. At the beginning of this month we started your bedtime routine at 7. Now, we are slowly moving it to closer to 7:30. We have also changed your routine up a bit. I was planning on nursing you before your bath, but your bath is too stimulating so now we do your bath, nurse, then take a walk to brush your teeth and say goodnight to Daddy. We then read your book, say our prayers, sing and you go to bed. This allows us to definitely disassociate bedtime with nursing which was my goal. You are doing really well with this so far so I think we will just keep it like this until we wean you around a year.
Speaking of brushing your teeth… we now have three to brush. You decided though that you weren’t going to get them in the usual order and your third tooth is on the bottom. It looks like your top teeth are considering come in soon, but we haven’t seen them yet so we will see when that happens.
You are a babbling machine now. You started with saying dada a lot. It didn’t have any meaning of course but it was obvious that you were beginning to babble. You have great inflection too. It definitely sounds like you are carrying on a conversation with us. It just sounds like you are speaking in another language. You are getting good with conversation as well. You let us talk and then respond. It is really cool how you pick up on things like that. We have talked to you a lot since you were born and always gave you that time to respond, though you never did until recently so we sort of facilitated that by not speaking in as many monologues. We also chose to never speak “baby talk” or “mama ease” to you. I think that is part of the reason that your babbling is not repetitive sounds like dadadadada but rather almost like words. You will say dada ba da aa ma almost like you are actually saying something back to us. You said your first word this month too. Your first word with obvious meaning. It was none other than “Jack”. With as often as we say it, it wasn’t a huge surprise. I have video of you saying it where it sounds like you are only mimicking me, but I know that you say it with meaning because both before and after the video, without any help from me, you would look right at Jack and say “ack”. Yeah, we’re still working on that /j/. You haven’t said it a lot lately but I think you are working on so many other things both physical and cognitive that you are just holding off on it until you get some of those things down. It’s amazing how fast your development kicked in all of a sudden.
In the physical development world =), you are doing so much. I mentioned last month that you crawled. Calling what you did crawling was sort of pushing it, but I didn’t want to believe you weren’t crawling yet. Well, about a week after you did that for the first time it was like a light switch went off and you just took off. It took some food to entice you, but you did it. After that, there was just no stopping you. You are a crawling machine now. You are FAST too. We have to constantly be on our A game to make sure we are able to keep you out of trouble.
You also got really good at pulling up shortly after learning to crawl. You pull up on EVERYTHING that you can. We noticed recently that now that you do all that, you don’t lay down and play ever anymore. You will crawl over to a toy and either pull up on it or something around it to play with it or you will sit up and play sitting up. It’s so interesting how that changed for you.
After pulling up, the next logical step for you would be cruising. You finally started doing that just yesterday. You are still shaky but you have the idea down.
You also love to “walk” if we hold you up. Sometime you act like you want to walk so I will stand up and take your hands then you just refuse and keep sitting down. Oh well. You will get it soon enough and then you will be off again. I can’t wait to see what you get into then. =)
You also love to dance now. When you hear music you will start bouncing whether sitting or standing. It is so adorable. We wonder if you will get any of our musical talent. Between my singing and your Daddy’s playing (as well as the fact that he has such a great ear for music and can actually read it… which I can’t), we are hoping you get some of that. If you don’t, that’s fine of course but it would be cool to have a little musician in the family. We have the piano all ready for you.
You went to the pool for the first time this last month. You have been a handful of times now. You LOVE it. The water is still pretty chilly but as long as we ease into it, you have a grand old time. You love to splash. It is hilarious when you do. You squint your little eyes shut and stick out your tongue to try to drink the water. You also love to be spun in a circle and be thrown up in the air and then brought back down into the water. We are going to get you a little float soon so that you can have some flexibility to move rather than us always holding you. Hopefully you like it. We want to make sure that you have a shade though which your crazy fair skin so we are doing a bit shopping around to find the perfect one.
Another thing we noticed this month is that some of your mommy centered behavior is going away. You are doing much better with others, especially Daddy. If he calls you to come over to him, you will crawl over and try to pull up on him. You also love to play games with him on the floor when he comes home and you don’t cry for me when I disappear from the room. You rarely crawl to me too if I am in an adjoining room if Daddy is playing with you, which was something you were doing for a while. You are definitely filling your role as Daddy’s Girl well.
I still can’t believe you are now 9 months old! I know every month I mention how you are coming into your own and your personality is shining through, but it is crazy how much personality you have now. You know what you like and what you don’t. You aren’t afraid to voice that either. You are so much fun. You smile constantly and are just so happy. We love you so much Baby Girl. In 3 short months you are going to be a toddler and we are so excited to continue to watch you grow and learn. I can’t imagine what that will be like, so we are just going to hold on and enjoy the ride.
Happy 9 Months Baby Girl!
Love,
Mommy
9 Months Old
Dear Mackenzie,
Happy 9 months Smiley Girl! I can’t believe we have hit the “9 months in, 9 months out” point! You are such a big girl. Your Daddy and I talk all the time about how just a few short months ago you were so different and you have such a little personality now. There is so much I want to tell you about your last month. You have learned all sorts of new things and it is like night and day between this time last month and now.
We haven’t gone for your 9 month appointment yet (it’s on Thursday) so I’m unsure how much you weigh and how long you are. I do know you are likely above 17 lbs. I know that because you had your first “sickness” this month. It wasn’t a traditional sickness though. Our entire family (including Nana, Papa, Grandma, Grandaddy and Uncle Rick) got a terrible cold. People had it diagnosed as everything from the flu and upper respiratory infection to bronchitis. I think I was patient zero which likely served you well. Due to your being breastfed, I think it helped you fight it off. Instead of getting whatever we all had, it manifested in you as pink eye. We had to put drops in your eyes twice a day for a week. You were not a fan.
 |
| Your right eye was so red! You had it in both eyes though. |
You are still taking two naps a day and you are on a bit of a time schedule now regardless of how long each nap is. It has made life much easier for both of us having you on this schedule. I didn’t do it intentionally, but like I have mentioned before… you are definitely my daughter. Schedules are apparently our thing. You get up at 7:30. You actually get out of bed at that time but lately you have been waking between 6:45 and 7 and play quietly in your crib until I come get you. You go down for your first nap around 9:30 and sleep until around 10:30 or 11 and then go down for your next nap at 2:30 and usually sleep until 4. At the beginning of this month we started your bedtime routine at 7. Now, we are slowly moving it to closer to 7:30. We have also changed your routine up a bit. I was planning on nursing you before your bath, but your bath is too stimulating so now we do your bath, nurse, then take a walk to brush your teeth and say goodnight to Daddy. We then read your book, say our prayers, sing and you go to bed. This allows us to definitely disassociate bedtime with nursing which was my goal. You are doing really well with this so far so I think we will just keep it like this until we wean you around a year.
Speaking of brushing your teeth… we now have three to brush. You decided though that you weren’t going to get them in the usual order and your third tooth is on the bottom. It looks like your top teeth are considering come in soon, but we haven’t seen them yet so we will see when that happens.
 |
| Your third tooth!! |
In the physical development world =), you are doing so much. I mentioned last month that you crawled. Calling what you did crawling was sort of pushing it, but I didn’t want to believe you weren’t crawling yet. Well, about a week after you did that for the first time it was like a light switch went off and you just took off. It took some food to entice you, but you did it. After that, there was just no stopping you. You are a crawling machine now. You are FAST too. We have to constantly be on our A game to make sure we are able to keep you out of trouble.
You also got really good at pulling up shortly after learning to crawl. You pull up on EVERYTHING that you can. We noticed recently that now that you do all that, you don’t lay down and play ever anymore. You will crawl over to a toy and either pull up on it or something around it to play with it or you will sit up and play sitting up. It’s so interesting how that changed for you.
After pulling up, the next logical step for you would be cruising. You finally started doing that just yesterday. You are still shaky but you have the idea down.
You also love to “walk” if we hold you up. Sometime you act like you want to walk so I will stand up and take your hands then you just refuse and keep sitting down. Oh well. You will get it soon enough and then you will be off again. I can’t wait to see what you get into then. =)
You also love to dance now. When you hear music you will start bouncing whether sitting or standing. It is so adorable. We wonder if you will get any of our musical talent. Between my singing and your Daddy’s playing (as well as the fact that he has such a great ear for music and can actually read it… which I can’t), we are hoping you get some of that. If you don’t, that’s fine of course but it would be cool to have a little musician in the family. We have the piano all ready for you.
You went to the pool for the first time this last month. You have been a handful of times now. You LOVE it. The water is still pretty chilly but as long as we ease into it, you have a grand old time. You love to splash. It is hilarious when you do. You squint your little eyes shut and stick out your tongue to try to drink the water. You also love to be spun in a circle and be thrown up in the air and then brought back down into the water. We are going to get you a little float soon so that you can have some flexibility to move rather than us always holding you. Hopefully you like it. We want to make sure that you have a shade though which your crazy fair skin so we are doing a bit shopping around to find the perfect one.
Another thing we noticed this month is that some of your mommy centered behavior is going away. You are doing much better with others, especially Daddy. If he calls you to come over to him, you will crawl over and try to pull up on him. You also love to play games with him on the floor when he comes home and you don’t cry for me when I disappear from the room. You rarely crawl to me too if I am in an adjoining room if Daddy is playing with you, which was something you were doing for a while. You are definitely filling your role as Daddy’s Girl well.
I still can’t believe you are now 9 months old! I know every month I mention how you are coming into your own and your personality is shining through, but it is crazy how much personality you have now. You know what you like and what you don’t. You aren’t afraid to voice that either. You are so much fun. You smile constantly and are just so happy. We love you so much Baby Girl. In 3 short months you are going to be a toddler and we are so excited to continue to watch you grow and learn. I can’t imagine what that will be like, so we are just going to hold on and enjoy the ride.
Happy 9 Months Baby Girl!
Love,
Mommy
Comments
Post a Comment