9 Months Old

My little CakerBoo is 9 months old today! I love this age! Sallie Cate is still so sweet {read: too young for temper tantrums/being sassy} yet so fun, always exploring new things and just generally excited about life {see today's pictures}. I can't believe she is going to be 1 in three months! By this point with Curran, I think I pretty much had her birthday party planned out. I have hardly thought about SC's, and it's right around the corner! I'm in denial.

She was wild this morning for her pictures.

SC is still our sweet girl, but this past month she has struggled some. She has had a few colds/ear infections/persistent fluid in her ears that has caused her to be a little grumpier than normal. She started waking up at night {which she never does} and was hard to put down for some naps and bedtime. I think some of that was her newfound ability to stand up in bed. She would stand up and then start screaming hysterically. I don't know if she couldn't lay herself back down or what. But it was also her ears because she was pulling at them and also pulling at her hair. After 20 consecutive days of antibiotics and now we're at the tail end of 10 days of ear drops, I'll be anxious to hear how everything looks at her 9 mo checkup on Monday.

Besides when she was sick, she is still sleeping really well, going to bed between 6-7pm and sleeping for about 12 hours. She is down to napping twice a day and is on a pretty set nap schedule of 9am and 1pm, and she usually naps for 1.5-2 hrs. It can be hard for her to make it from that last nap until bedtime though, so if we are in the car late in the day { coming home from school or running errands}, she usually catches a little cat nap.

Right after she turned 8 months old, she started clapping and waving. She claps all the time {again, see pictures} but won't really wave on command. She started doing it a lot when I was feeding her {she would look up at me and do the backwards wave}, and now she does it when we walk out of a room. She also mouths 'baba' when waving and even squeaked out a 'bye bye' when John was leaving the room the other day. Not calling it a first word yet though, because it could have been totally by chance.

She is pulling up a lot these days and is getting more steady on her feet. She sits up on her knees, and she seems very interested in trying to stand alone, but she can't quite get it yet.

She has tried some table foods this past month: blueberries, banana, a biscuit, a roll, butter beans, black beans, and a pancake. She liked the beans, but otherwise didn't seem too crazy about the others. She still LOVES her baby food, especially rice cereal and oatmeal. She likes pretty much everything I have given her but isn't too fond of carrots, bananas or peas by themselves but will eat them mixed with other things. She likes puffs and cheerios, so those are nice to give her when we are out to eat or while she's waiting on me to get her meal ready. Sister does NOT like to be kept waiting at meal times. I'm looking forward to introducing yogurt and other dairy products this month.

She is still nursing/taking bottles every 4 hours during the day. At the beginning of the month, I dropped from pumping 3 times a day at work to 2. {I'm just recording this for my own benefit.} I'm so thankful to still be able to nurse and pump enough milk for SC. At this point with Curran, my supply was rapidly declining and I was quickly using up my frozen supply. But with SC, I haven't even had to touch what's in the freezer, so even if my milk disappeared tomorrow, I would be able to make it another 3 months. Things have gone much differently this time, and I have a whole post planned about it. Get excited.

Random things I haven't recorded before and don't want to forget: She has a little dimple on the right side of her mouth that is only visible some of the time. Her hair looks like it's going to be wavy and seems thicker than Curran's {hopefully one of my children will get their father's thick hair!!}. Her nickname at school is Hollywood. She is fascinated with the air vent in her room and plays with it all the time. She HATES having her nose/mouth cleaned. Wanna see my generally happy girl get seriously ticked off in a second? Try to clean her face. Curran calls her just 'Sallie' a lot of the time. :)