Nine Months

I can't believe Natalie is already nine months old! Let's take a look back at the first nine months of her life, shall we?

Haha! Funny jokes. Can you believe how my belly grew?! And she never stopped growing.... I'm really excited because we have stats this month from Natalie's check-up at the doctor. She is growing like a champ! And she did amazingly well with her shot this month.

STATS
Height: 30.5" (99%)
Weight: 25 lbs. 3 oz. (99%)
Head: 17.5" (66%)

She got four new teeth this month, bringing the total up to six! The top two middle teeth came in earlier this month and the ones on either side of the top came in just under the wire. Teeth are so cute!

She believes the fridge holds a mysterious treasure, the essence of life. Seriously, she will hustle across the house whenever she notices the fridge door is open. She tries to climb right inside.

We had to go shopping since the weather turned cooler, and Natalie had a long pants shortage. We've really been struggling to find pants that fit her since she started outgrowing some of her 12 month pants. The pants don't seem to get any wider after 12m, only longer, and this girl's cloth diapers in addition to her chubs make for a big bum! I ended up buying her some 18-24m leggings! They are only a little long, not even long enough to need to roll them up. Haha! I thought this was crazy, but then I saw her standing next to an 18-month-old at the park, and she was about the same height and chubbier. Hehe!

She loves to make me take her for walks around the apartment, holding onto my hands. She comes over to me, grabs my fingers, and starts stepping in place until I get up to walk with her. If I try to pick her up instead, she will push my hands away from her armpits and try to grab my fingers. I think she will be walking soon. Her walking was really wobbly and slow at first, but now she is steady and speedy. She can even walk holding onto only one of my hands, but most of the time she just gets mad that I won't give her my other hand.

She can stand up without holding onto anything for a little while. Actually if I stand her up and let go, she usually just squats down and crawls onto me.

She has started giving us kisses. Jake got his first kiss from Natalie this month, and I'm sure it was every bit as slobbery as he had dreamed! Now, if we ask her for kisses, she will usually oblige. It is the best! She also kisses inanimate objects without being asked, such as the mouse on her favorite page of "Goodnight Moon," the babies in her smile book, and her doll.

She is very expressive. Even though she hasn't started saying any words, I can almost always tell what she wants. Maybe that's not great motivation for her to learn to talk. ;)

I think she knows when she is being asked a question, because a lot of times when she is asked one, she shakes her head no. The only other time she does that is when we tell her no about something she is trying to get into.

She has learned to fake laugh. It is so funny because anytime she hears other people laughing, she starts fake laughing, even if it's someone outside. She will try mimic other sounds too, like the boys next door yelling or her squeaky toy.

She still hates the vacuum, which makes it really hard to keep the floors clean. I have to hold her while I vacuum or she'll scream and cry in fear, so I usually put her in the carrier, but that's a lot of work to push the vacuum while holding her! I can't set her down until the vacuum is out of sight because even if it's not on, she will look at it and whimper and cling to me.

She loves to be outside! Whenever she gets crabby for no reason I know of, I take her outside and she calms right down. Sometimes she seems to be asking me to take her outside. She'll come get me and walk me to the door, pat it with her hands and look at me.

She likes to swing.

She enjoyed meeting her first caterpillar this month. It was white and fuzzy, and I let it crawl on her hand. It was nearly impossible to keep her from grabbing and smashing him, but somehow we set him free unharmed, only a few hairs lost.

She's been eating a lot more table food this month. She has tried cooked cauliflower, beans, stewed tomato, chicken, rice, and I'm sure that's all and there was nothing unhealthy...;)

Her love of pickles continues! She likes to suck and gnaw on them. She also enjoys Jake's new creation: picklesauce. It's like applesauce, but it's blended up pickles. Seriously, she ate a whole pickle this way.

We put up baby gates this month, and none too soon. She climbed up a stair after Jake put some of his installation tools on a step he didn't think she could reach. It was pretty easy for her; I think she just needed the right motivation.

She can drink from her sippy cup now. I love that we taught her how to use a straw, though. Now she can have a drink if we're out and didn't bring her cup. No, she hasn't had soda yet, but when we took her to the cider mill, she was able to have some of our cider!

She still comes after me whenever she sees the camera, so I have a lot of pictures that look like this. In a lot of them, her hand is covering part of the shot. There is a little video from this instance below.

She thinks it's funny when we blow on her face. What a cutie!

We took her to Three Cedars Farm, where we did a corn maze (she slept through most of it), saw some farm animals (she got to pet a goat), and ate donuts and apple cider (her favorite part).

We found a tractor in Natalie's size!

I included this one so you could see most of her new teeth!

She's showing off her chompers just like that fish! (Thanks for the souvenir, Grandma and Grandpa Adams!)

Making more copies this month. ;) Not really, though. She mostly loves to touch the buttons and look at her reflection in the side of the printer.

Big yawn! And yes, our daughter wears space pjs. She loves looking at the rockets on them.

Our speedy, little blur in crawling action!

Getting a kiss from Dad!

I love how her little belly peeks out when she plays with the cat on this shirt!

Sleeping on her hands again. If you look close, you can even see little white outlines around her fingernails!

In these pictures, she went over to the door and started pounding on it and reaching for the door knob. "Take me outside, Mom!"

              

Visiting Dad at the fountain near his office!

"Look, Mom! I got Dad's cell phone!"

"Who's up there? What is the meaning of this?" She often waits for us at the bottom of the stairs if either of us goes up. She'll even call out to us to see if we're listening to her.

Helping with the laundry. Mmm...socks.

Peek-a-boo under the table. At the rate she's growing, she won't fit under there much longer!

Giving her doll a kiss after her 9 month photo shoot. So precious!

I just couldn't resist setting her down in this sea of leaves near our apartment. So pretty! And she loved playing with the leaves. She didn't even try to eat them, which she usually does. When we got inside, I realized she still had two leaves in her hand! She hadn't tried to eat them, so I didn't even notice.

And of course, I have a few cute videos to share! This first one is of Natalie's dance moves. It's a little dark, and she has no pants, but who needs pants with moves like hers?!

This is why it is so hard for me to get focused pictures of Natalie these days. If she sees the camera, she instantly drops what she was doing and crawls over to play with the camera. So funny!

This one is just a little laughing. We laugh together a lot because when I laugh, she laughs, then I laugh because her laugh was so cute, and it becomes a cycle.

Natalie is a big fan of the Barenaked Ladies, as is evident in this video. This is one of her favorite songs. She starts dancing even if I'm just singing it.

Well, that's all for this month. A little birdie told me there may be some walking to report next month. ;) (In case you didn't catch that, she took her first steps about a week after she turned nine months! We are super excited! Look for a video soon.)