Eight & Nine Months

Hey y'all!  Let's forget that I've been MIA for two months, mmmmk?

Our little girl is now NINE (almost 10) months old!!  The pace of life has picked up significantly with church, friends, work, and this little bundle of energy.  I used to wonder why people called their children "busy", but now I GET IT.  This girl is all over the place!  The last few months have been full of milestones and fun.

9 Month Stats:

Height ::  27 inches - 30%

Weight ::  19 lbs 10 oz - 65%

Milestones:

Ava began crawling a few weeks after turning 7 months old!  Once she figured out to crawl, she was off to the races.  She is so.much.happier. as a crawler.  I think much of the fussiness we experienced in the first 6+ months was due to her frustration with not being able to move.  She now happily crawls all over the house, and she is quite fast.  She does this little wiggle crawl and loves to be chased.  When we "chase" her, she just laughs and laughs and tries to go faster.  She knows how to crawl up the stairs all by herself (with us close behind, of course), but she hasn't tried to go down yet.

Once she got the hang of crawling, it was only a mater of time until she began pulling up and then standing up.  At first, she needed to grab onto something tall to pull herself up, but now she can stand up on anything by just grabbing on.  She loves to stand!  Recently she has started cruising and now walks circles around her music table, along the edge of the couch, and from one person to another.  I think she will be walking before too long!  We practice every day!

Ava has 3 full teeth (all on the bottom), and there are two more on top and one more on the bottom just starting to peek through!  Her first tooth came in during her 7th month.

Ava has a few "party tricks" that are so fun because they show us she is learning!  She learned how to clap, and there is  nothing more adorable than chubby little baby hands clapping.  Her favorite song is "If You're Happy and You Know It".  Whenever we start singing it, she immediately begins clapping.  Melts my heart.  I sing it in the car, and I look back at her in the mirror to watch her clapping.  She also likes to clap when she knows she's done something good or when we say "Yayyyy!"

She has learned how to shake her head "no" and does it all the time.  Anytime I say "no", she shakes her head with the cutest little look on her face.  We have a book called "Are You a Cow?" and it goes through all these animals asking if you are a cow, duck, dog, etc.  She loves shaking her head "no" at each page.  We're still working on "YES", but that seems to be a bit more difficult.

Ava babbles quite a bit, saying all kinds of things in her little Ava language.  She definitely knows mama and dada, which we love.  I'm trying (though halfheartedly) to teach her baby sign language.  I just keep forgetting to do it!  Right now, we're working on the signs for mama, dada, eat, milk, more, all done, and dog.  We'll see if that pans out.

She can wave, but not on command.  She will spontaneously wave to random people in the grocery store, and it's pretty adorable.  She loves to ride in shopping carts and it quite happy being pushed around stores, taking in the sights.  People in stores are usually beside themselves with how cute she is.  I don't blame them ;-)  

Eating:

Ava is quite the little eater.  She has done really well with solids and we continue to give her as much variety as possible.  She is eating a variety of purees and finger foods.  Sometime she refused purees, and sometimes she refuses finger foods, but I can't find any rhyme or reason to explain why.  She definitely has preferences and will let us know what she likes and what she doesn't!  She usually eats a bit of puree and a bit of finger food at each meal.  I am still making her purees, but when we go out to eat, she loves the Plum organic pouches as a treat.  Her favorite finger foods are bananas, pancakes, toast, pears, grapes, chicken, graham crackers, and cheese.  We're working on the sippy cup, and she is getting good at drinking water out of the straw cup.

We're still doing a combo of breast milk and formula.  I nurse her about 4 times a day, and she gets two formula bottles a day.  I nurse when she first wakes up in the morning.  Then she eats breakfast around 7:30.  I nurse her again around 11, then she eats lunch at noon.  She has a bottle at 2 before her nap, and then she has a snack after her afternoon nap.  I nurse her again and give her a bottle around 5, and she eats dinner at 6.  I am still doing a dreamfeed around 10 pm before I go to sleep.  I know I should drop it, but it is such a good feed because she is mostly asleep, and she eats a lot!  It's easy for me to do before I go to bed, so I think I will continue to do this until I stop nursing.  Overall, I think we are winding down with nursing.  She is less and less interested and sometimes refuses all together.  This has been emotionally hard for me and frustrating at times, but I'm glad that it looks like we will be weaning gradually and on her schedule.  I think by the time she nears 12 months we will be close to done.

Sleeping:

Our sleeping schedule has finally normalized!  Ava naps twice a day, usually for one hour and fifteen minutes at each nap.  Sometimes she will sleep less (45 minutes) or more (2+ hours) depending on the day.  Her naps are at 9 and 2.  Nighttime sleeping is good, though we have had a few bumps in the road.  Generally, she goes down at 7:30.  I dreamfeed her at 10 and then she sleeps until 6 am.  She's our little early bird.  {Coffee, lots of coffee.}  

We went through a sleep regression at 9 months where she woke up multiple times a night for about a week.  We made it through, knowing it would end soon, with a lot of nursing.  Lately, teething has really been bothering her, so she will occasionally wake up in the middle of the night screaming.  If I can tell her teeth are hurting her, I'll give her some infant Tylenol.  Then I just nurse her until she goes back to sleep.  I'd say this happens once or twice a week, but it doesn't bother me as much as it used to.  I'm trying to enjoy those snuggles and the fact that I'm the one she wants in the night.

Playing:

Ava loves to play!  I don't think she's met a toy she didn't like.  We are in the process of turning our basement into a playroom, and she loves everything we've put down there.  We bought these amazing tunnels from IKEA, and she has so much fun crawling through them.  Blazer often joins her!  We bought her one of those Fisher Price music tables, and she's obsessed.  She can stand there for 30 minutes playing with it.  Apparently it plays 50 songs... I think I've heard them all about a hundred times!  She loves books and enjoys taking every book off the shelf.  Occasionally she will even open them :-)  She loves to hang out in the kitchen while I'm cooking and play with her pots, pans, Tupperware, spoons, and measuring cups.  She has a few kitchen cabinets that she can empty out while I'm cooking.  She loves walks and happily looks around from the stroller for at least an hour a day.  She still loves outings, so we try to go out at least once a day - any errand will do!  She is starting to show a lot of interest in other kids and gets so excited when she sees them at the store or church.  We definitely need to find a playgroup soon.  These days, she's happy crawling around whatever room we're in and exploring!  Her favorite playmate is probably Blazer.  They play tug-of-war together all the time.  It's precious how she waves his toys in front of his face until he grabs them and tugs.  They also love to look out the front window together and chase each other around.  I am so, so glad Blazer has taken to her and loves her so much!