9 Months Old

Well, I am a week late on reporting on Madeline’s nine month birthday, but what can I say… it’s December. We had a brunch for some of Daniel’s co-workers today, and it was the sixth and final event that we have hosted at our home within the last month. I love to open our home to others. But I. Am. Tired.

Miss Madeline has loved having guests at our house so frequently. She is quite the little entertainer. Truly, she comes to life when she has a roomful of people watching her. She acts shy for the first ten minutes or so when she is around new people, clinging to me or Daniel and burying her head in my shoulder. But after she has a chance to get comfortable with the situation, she is in performance mode. She goes from one “trick” to the next, smiling and laughing and doing all she can to keep all eyes on her. Her current repertoire includes:

- Clapping her hands and playing patty cake
- Cocking her head far to one side or the other and waiting for whoever is watching her to do the same
- Dancing by either bouncing up and down or swaying her head from side to side
- Waving bye-bye by opening and closing her hands
- Waving her entire arm up and down and up and down
- Laughing, both real and fake (she has a fake laugh that sounds like Woody the Woodpecker that is hilarious)
- General squealing and babbling; usually the quieter the room, the louder the squeal

The kid loves to eat. A few of her favorites include: black beans, cheese, bread, graham crackers, all kinds of fruits mixed with plain yogurt, applesauce, avocado (especially guacamole!), all kinds of potatoes, meats, and, well, pretty much everything that we have fed her except for the green stuff. Like I said, she just loves to eat. We are starting to give her more table food now, only making sure that nothing is high in sodium or too sweet. She thinks it is great fun to feed herself finger foods, and she is getting pretty good with her pincer grasp. I have noticed in the last week that she seems to be favoring her left hand like her daddy.

She has settled back into better sleeping patterns again. This time last month we were struggling with her waking up several times per night. Currently she goes to bed about 8 pm, and she sleeps for twelve hours each night. She usually wakes up around 6:30 am to eat and goes right back to bed. I really don’t mind that because I feel like it helps her to sleep longer in the morning than she would if she didn’t eat. She naps twice a day around 10 am and 2 pm. I have been working hard for the last couple weeks to keep more consistent nap times, and it has helped her to fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. It’s definitely worth the effort. She usually sleeps on her tummy or on her side now. I think it is the cutest thing to see her on her side. It just looks so grown up.

We went the doctor for a checkup earlier this week, and we found out that her weight has slipped from the 96th percentile to the 90th. She now weighs 21 lb. and 13 oz. My arms are certainly stronger than they used to be. She is 27 inches long – 40th percentile. The doctor said that the minor rash that she has had on her cheeks for a couple of months is probably a mild case of eczema, and he told us to put fragrance-free moisturizer on it several time per day. She has not started crawling yet, and she really isn’t even interested in trying to be mobile. She is content to sit and only play with whatever she can reach. He recommended that we let her stand up and hold onto furniture so that she can strengthen the muscles that she will need to crawl. Honestly, I am not in a big hurry for that to happen. I know that she will eventually, and for now I am just thankful that I don’t have to worry about the Christmas tree coming crashing down.

Thanks for reading all of that. The details of Madeline’s growth and development are constantly on my mind now, and it’s nice to have an outlet to share. As a reward for making it to the end, here is a video we took of her yesterday. I got this dancing and singing snowman as a gift from Daniel’s grandma, and Madeline LOVES it. She starts dancing as soon as it is turned on. What a cutie!