Baby Diaries #46

Another month has flown by and I now officially have a 9 month old.

Do you know that tomorrow June 28th...Bitsy will be out as long as she was in?!

Kinda crazy to think of it that way, but she will be technically 39 weeks and 2 days.

We had Bitsy's 9 month Dr. appointment today and here are her stats:

Today she weighed in at 25 lbs and 2 oz = 100+ Percentile

She is just short of 29" = 95th Percentile (Can you tell yet that she is the child of tall parents?)

And her head circumference this time was 75 cm which is in the 99th Percentile.

I could only get one picture of her full length on the rug.

She's such a wiggle worm.

All the rest I'm holding her down with one hand, which she thought was somewhat funny!

Also you may or may not notice that I'm one pink flower short on my '9 Months' cutouts.  

Bitsy decided this would be a good time to attempt to eat a paper flower.

Silly child.

This has been quite the month for Bitsy.

She has started pulling up on the side of her crib.

We lowered it one level, it can still go down 2 more times.

I feel like we will be lowering it again soon as she gets more and more confident in her 'pulling-up' skills.

She has also started pulling up on the coffee table and couch.

She still only pulls up onto her knees, but before we know it she'll be getting those feet under her.

We officially broke the habit of Bitsy needing a bottle to go to sleep.

It was quite a bit of work.

There were some tears shed, but in the end it mean that we were able to kick the habit.

She still wakes at night to eat, but I think we are both still getting the rest we need.

A new habit, that we actually enjoy, come bedtime is that Bitsy will fall asleep on us.

She goes down for her 1st nap almost exactly 3 hours after getting up, sleeps for 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

She goes down for her 2nd nap almost exactly 3 hours after that and sleeps for 1 to 1-1/2 hours.

Finally, she goes to bed between 8:30-9 depending on her nap.

Each time it's nearing her 'bedtime' we scoop her up and she proceeds to place her head on our chest.

We rock and sway, bounce and pace.

Sometimes she fights it, but most often she calmly rests her head allowing her eyelids to grow heavy.

Once she is asleep we savor the moment for 5-10 minutes and then we bring her upstairs to her crib.

We gently lay her down and she rolls over and continues her nap.

We love the quiet baby sleeping on us feeling.

On June 4th we noticed that Bitsy was seriously rocking in the crawling position. 

We knew that it wouldn't be long before she began crawling.

Father's day was the big day.

While Skyping with Bud's Mom and Step-Dad we sat the lap top on the floor and all of a sudden Bitsy took 4 crawls towards the screen!

Oma & Opa saw it first hand!

I nearly cried.

Now she is much more mobile and if she sees something she wants she will go after it.

The dogs aren't sure what they think of this, they look at me and I can hear them saying, "Mom, you didn't mention the mobility clause...we thought she was going to stay in one spot forever and ever".

Another development this month is her love of dancing!

We noticed it first in the car.

We would be buckling her into the car seat and she would start to push out her chest rhythmically.

The next time we noticed was while watching Sesame St.

All of a sudden our daughter started bouncing to the music.

We started to watch her every time there was any kind of music or beat and sure enough she started to bob her whole body.

At church on Sundays she will 'sing' and bounce to the worship music.

Sometimes I swear she is even raising her hands for the praise music.

This child loves music and she loves to move!

I am also happy to announce that Bitsy is 100% able to get herself from a laying position to a sitting position.

She taught herself while attempting to learn to crawl.

I love that she can do this, because it means I don't have to sit her up when she gets tired of laying on the floor.

It's absolutely amazing how you can actually see the wheels turning in her head.

Bud said that tonight while he was changing from work, he sat her on our bed.

He watched as she crawled to the edge.

She stopped, looked down and then sat back.

Then he said she appeared to think for a moment.

The next thing he saw was her rotate on to her belly and start to swing her leg over the end.

Almost as though she knew she needed to go down feet first.

He stopped her of course, for safety purposes, but we know good and well that she will be getting on and off furniture in the blink of an eye.

The worst thing this month and actually it's only been in the last couple days would be her stranger anxiety.

She is really upset if someone other than Mom or Dad tries to hold her.

She also has times of the day when she wants to see us, always!

If she is in her highchair and I walk around to the pantry, out of sight....WATERWORKS!

I'm glad to know that the stranger anxiety is a temporary phase.

Despite not wanting others to hold her, she is very social.

When in our arms she will smile and wave at just about everyone.

I have loved this last month.

I'm so excited to see what the days and weeks leading up to her 10th Month will hold.

What will unfold?

How will she develop?

I can't wait to find out!!!

I hope you had a Blessed Wednesday!