Nine Months

Claire turned 9 months old on January 8th! Some things about Claire at this age:

• Favorite toys are her new play table, doorway jumper (still), Sassy teething toys and burp cloths. She's started going to sleep holding a burp cloth - she seems to be adopting them as her "lovies."
• She laughs easily. Things that she finds funny: getting undressed, tickling, bouncing, swinging up into the air, Daddy, Mommy, "Peek-a-boo," seeing herself in the mirror.
• Started to pull up. She can easily get to her knees, and many times can stand all the way up. If you hold out your pointer fingers towards her, she will immediately grab them and pull up to a standing position.
• She's consistently able to roll from her tummy to back - finally! :) She's always hated being on her tummy, so I didn't force her into too much tummy time. Now that it's clicked, it's really easy for her.
• I can tell that she's starting to get frustrated by her lack of mobility, so I think crawling (or walking) isn't too far away. When sitting, she'll lean forward on her hands and start to go to her knees, but then she gets a little wobbly and pushes back to sitting again. Then she'll start rocking back and forth and fussing until someone moves her to where she wants to go or brings her the toy that's out of reach.
• She gets shy around strangers but warms up pretty quickly.
• She's wearing 6-9 month size clothing, although she can still fit into some of her larger 3-6 month size clothes.
• Graduated from the baby tub that we used over the kitchen sink to her duck tub. She was really scared of it at first, but once she saw her toys in there she warmed up to it a bit. Now she loves it, and so do I! It's great being able to bathe her in the tub and not worry about her tipping over and hitting her head.

• Eats 3 oz. of cereal in the morning, 3-4 oz. of veggies or fruit for dinner, and 25 - 28 oz. of formula every day. She loves to eat, and the only things she's tried so far that she doesn't like are broccoli (although it's okay mixed with other veggies) and garbanzo beans. Her latest favorite is a mix of spinach, mango and pears.
• Has a mouthful of teeth - 4 on top and 4 on bottom! I think we're going to start more finger foods here in a week or so (her pediatrician said we would discuss at her 9 month check-up).
• Sleeps about 11 hours at night and takes 3-4 naps totaling around 2-3 hours each day. I'd like to get her on a more consistent nap schedule, but at least she's getting enough sleep every day.
• Brings so much joy to our lives!

I'll have height/weight stats next week - I'm looking forward to seeing how much she's grown.