Olivia at 9 months: Crawling, teeth and general growing up-ness

Guess what??? Mah baybee is nine months! Nine months!! How?

She tried really hard to get some good photos, but… I mean between the ribbon on her outfit, her feet and her elephant…

It was a little difficult to get a decent picture.

And then finally…

Every monthly update I think to myself, I have too many pictures. I put too many pictures on her monthly blog update. But then I look through them and think Gah! I have to put this one on there! And this one! And this one! And then you get 40 pictures of my daughter in her August update. Sorry. This is a lot to scroll through. Maybe it means I need to blog more. Spread the photos out a bit throughout the month. I’m working on that. In the meantime, here is Olivia’s 9 month update… with an obscene amount of photos.

I am in awe every single month at how fast 30 days can go. I mean, how is it possible I have a 9 month old?

How is it possible that she will be a year old in just three months? I’m still trying to figure out my feelings of sadness on all this. Like, my beautiful healthy baby is growing up before my eyes, and why am I feeling so sad about it when I should be excited, happy?

We booked a place for her birthday party in November. And I know I need to get planning because these three months will fly by and I don’t want to rush this stuff. It’s not going to be anything crazy but there will be a ton of people invited and some decorations to buy and party dresses to find and invites and cakes and a menu and presents to be bought for my little girl. Her one year photo session is booked by none other than our fabulous photographers, Erin and Andi who have been there for the last 9 years capturing our engagement and wedding photos, family photos, birth and newborn photos. It’s such an honor for them to be there capturing Olivia’s one year photos as well.

This month was much less busy than Month 8. No trips, nothing too crazy. Olivia finished the summer Storytime at the library as well as her last evening of swimming lessons earlier this month. I’m so proud of this girl. She started out kind of just laying there when we practiced her floating on her back and when the ball would come her way to practice leg kicks she just would struggle to pull her head up to glare at me out of the corner of my eye and at her last session she actually kicked her legs out at the ball! Submersions didn’t really improve with her as she is the only one of the babies to keep her mouth open as I blow on her face before dunking her. Even her instructor would laugh and say that she only ever saw other babies do that when they were older and just being silly. So leave it to my baby. I’m not sure we’ll continue lessons until next summer due to the cost, but it was fun and it’s helped her so much in the water.

Other than that, we just went to two kid birthday parties and I’ve been busy helping plan my little sister’s baby shower.

I also made it two nights flying solo while Chris was out of town at the beginning of the month. My best friend came to stay with me and Olivia and then spent the whole Saturday here to keep me company. Luckily, Olivia slept decently well, although I can tell she missed her Daddy and was just slightly off.

Nicknames: Livvie, Livvie Lou, Monkey, Monkey Chunks, Monks, Miss Olive, Ollie
  
Weight: 19lbs 13oz
Length: 28 inches

Head Circumference: 45 cm
Diaper size: 3
Clothing size: Mainly 6-9 month clothes, but moving into 9 months and ironically can still fit into her 6 month dresses. I just packed away her 6 month clothes and have her 12 month ones ready to go. Wahhh.

Eating: She is nursing about every 3 hours during the day and just once at night. I’ve been trying to be really good at giving her two meals a day, mostly breakfast and dinner, but I admit, I haven’t been very consistent. I’ve been mostly consistent, how about that? She’s gotten so much better at actually chewing and swallowing food now and hardly ever gags anymore, so I must be doing something right. New foods tried this month: Hamburger patties, peanut butter, pancakes, green beans, taco meat, black bean quesadillas, chicken, celery, brussel sprouts, fajitas, Happy Baby puffs, those freeze-dried yogurt drops, and Cheerios.

Sleeping: She goes down between 7 and 7:45pm and will do one of two things: she’ll either wake around 4am and then sleep until 7:30-8am (ideal and makes me the most happy) or she will wake between 1 and 3 and will be up anywhere between 5 and 6 (not ideal and makes me drink an extra cup of coffee). And I get it could be a lot worse, but it’s also hard to function when she is up twice at night. One thing we figured out helps is if she wakes earlier, Chris goes and gets her and brings her to me in bed, I nurse her and then return her to her crib. I think that helps me fall asleep quicker again vs me sitting up in the glider in the nursery with her. We did get two glorious nights of her sleeping 7p-7a.
Naps have been going pretty well. She sleeps roughly two hours in the morning around 10am and then an hour and a half or so in the afternoon, about 2:30-3.

Milestones: Well, she officially crawled the day she turned 8 months! She’s also been pulling herself up to stand, though she isn’t cruising.

In fact, standing on things is probably her favorite thing to do, and if it’s climbing up Mama, why that just tops the cake. She’s also started to look for things when I hide them, like peeking her little head or craning it to see where it went. She’s clapping her hands. Her pincer grasp is coming along so I think she can start handling smaller pieces of food now.  

Speech: The babble of the month has been “ahbaba!!” Still says “Mama!” and “Ba ba!” She’s also doing some actual babbling/talking that use a lot of vowels. To Chris’s dismay, she still refuses to say “dada.”

Health: She had two nights this month of low grade fevers (well no temperature, but her head was definitely hot) and the second time she had the fever, she threw up about an hour and a half after her dinner. And then again while I was holding her while Chris was drawing her bath. It’s the first time it wasn’t just a baby spit up and it made me so sad for her to see her like that and also a little impressed with myself for handling it so well. I. Don’t. Do. Puke. I brought this up at her 9 month appointment and the doctor thought she may have had a stomach virus. So that’s strange.

Teeth: She haz them! In fact, I was sitting in the doctor’s office on Thursday for her check up and was going to bring up her lack of teeth when I decided to give a feel on her lower gum. Lo and behold. I felt roughness. Her doctor felt and said she had two, in fact. One coming in slightly ahead of the other. So there you go. My toothless baybee is toothless no more.

Likes: Standing, especially climbing up me and holding on with one hand. Sometimes she plays daredevil and lets go and has been seen standing there alone for three seconds. Chewing on things. Being read to (this makes me happy because she is doing less chewing of the books and more sitting and actually listening). She’s all about her Touch and Feel books right now. Crawling towards things she can’t get into like dog food bowls and cords. Playing with Toby.

In fact, she’s pretty much all about Toby. Or rather, Toby is all about her. I was going through the photos on my phone yesterday and… well look:

All these photos and Toby is Right There in all of them.
She also likes banging things together. Climbing under the chairs at the dining room table. Sitting outside on the grass. Think it’s also safe to say she finally likes being in her Tula or Ergo. Woo hoo!

Dislikes: When you take something away from her. Getting herself stuck. Falling down (she really hates that). Waiting for you to serve her her food. Girl has zero patience.

Undecided about: Her baby jail. She used to like being in there, but I think she hates being separated from me. If I am in there with her, she plays happily. Strangers.

Looking forward to: Buying her convertible car seat. (Maybe I’m not looking forward to this, per say. More of an inevitable event that has to happen.) Her infant seat only goes to 30lbs or 30 inches and she has two more inches to go. I’m freaking out a little because while we may be able to get away with one convertible seat for awhile, we will need to eventually have two, one for each car lest we drive ourselves nuts switching it back and forth constantly. And they aren’t cheap. But I am looking forward to our trip to Texas in 3 weeks! And I’m trying not to look forward to her first birthday. This year is already flying. I don’t want to make it go any faster you guys.

35 weeks

36 weeks

37 weeks

38 weeks