SOOO, if you can't tell from the title, somewhere between Christmas and New Year's, I missed an important blog post! My baby girl turned 9 months old! While I didn't document this important feat in words, I DID take her in to have 9 month pictures taken, so don't judge too much :-).
Callie's 9th month was lots of fun. With her newly discovered skill of crawling, she decided independence suited her and she didn't need "Mama-mama" quite so much. I loved this, as I could move into the next room without her screaming, and if she wanted to, she'd just follow! She also did fantastic in the church nursery, as she finally felt like she could move like the big girl she always thought she was!
The second weekend of December, we took our first official vacation since Callie was born. We went to Sunriver with our good friends the Elliotts. Callie LOVED having friends to play with all weekend! She did much better than we expected on the 3 1/2 hour drive there (and back, actually). Sleeping and eating were a challenge all weekend, but we discovered after we returned home that teething might have added to that problem. The week following Christmas into the first week of January, we discovered 3 new teeth! (YES 3!!!) She now has 4 teeth on the top and 3 on the bottom. (I'm pretty sure the bottom 4th is coming soon, though!)
So, here are some 9 month Callie highlights!
- Is a pro-crawler now!
- Only crawled for about a week before she started pulling herself up onto EVERYTHING!
- Went on her first vacation to Sunriver, OR
- Discovered Cheerios and "cookies"-which she loves
- Decided avocados are pretty much the best food in the world and thereafter refused to eat ANY "baby food"
- Celebrated Daddy's 30th b-day with a surprise party and did WONDERFUL with Grammy and Poppy for the evening
- Celebrated Christmas 4x. Callie loved Daddy's Lego train around the tree and the pile of presents. She would crawl over and make selections each day, but didn't open them. She did pretty well around the tree, only starting to take ornaments off toward the end of the month. She loved the Advent calendar Grammy made for us and got so excited to put the new "ornament" up each day!
- Got 2 top teeth at the beginning of the month and then 2 more and another bottom tooth the last week of the month right around her 9 month b-day.
- I completely weaned Callie this month. She made the transition to bottle pretty well, since she could look around much better this way and bite it if she wanted to! It has been a good thing for Mommy and Callie. (though, we discovered formula is NOT CHEAP!)
- Callie really started looking like a "big girl". Chubby cheeks, pulling herself up on everything and crawling very fast add to this look!
- Loves her fire truck toy from cousins.
10 months!
About a week after Callie turned 9 months, she pulled herself up on her push toy and took off walking! She is so delighted with this skill and loves to demonstrate it for anyone who will watch. (We hold the webcam up so Grammy and Poppy and Aunt Anna can see her on Skype. She watches the computer the whole time-making walking straight a little tricky, but she wants to see their impressed reaction!) She is doing better with sleeping at night. When she does wake up, it's usually because she scooted out of her blankets and just wants to be tucked back in. Nap times are changing. Her consistent 10am morning nap is now more like 11. This is wonderful for church, since she is happier in the nursery. However, on normal days, we're still struggling to find the time for her afternoon nap. Sometimes she goes down between 2 and 3. Other times, she will just play and play and just wants a short nap before 6.
Much to Daddy and Mommy's delight, Callie started giving Wonderful hugs! Her Daddy loves to lie on the floor and have Callie crawl over to him. When he lifts her up on his chest, she buries her face in and gives him a big hug! She also has started giving her stuffed animals hugs, which is pretty adorable.
Dave is having so much fun with Callie as she gets older and more able to "play." Yesterday, when I was at work I received the following text message from him: "Callie LOVES animal cookies!" And when I got home I discovered Daddy and Callie had built her first fort with blankets and the kitchen chairs. Inside the fort were all her favorite toys and the bag of animal cookies :-). They had a fun morning!
