CMT: Nine Months

On January 8th, Cressey turned nine months old.

Weight: 25 pounds, 9 ounces

Length: 29 inches

Head: 48

She took her second plane ride this month, to upstate New York this time, and handled travel delays and a very late night like a champ.

She loves to clap and say, “Yay!” (Said yay first on New Year’s Day)

She is still not crawling, but she loves to stand and hold on to stuff. In fact, she’ll even lock her legs when you try to set her down on her bottom. When I set her on my bathroom counter with her feet in the sink, she reaches for the faucet and pulls herself into a standing position. That’s the only time I’ve seen her pull up though.

She started saying “dada” right at Christmas, and around January 11th, she finally started saying “mama.”

She will sometimes lay her head on your shoulder, which surprises me every time. She wants to be on my hip 24/7 but is not one to sit and cuddle with me. She has also patted me on the shoulder a few times. Her sister did that a lot, so I hope Cressey will keep it up.

Aunt Edie helped her learn a new trick where she leans her head to the ground and then pops up…”dooooown, up!”

A second mole has popped up on her upper left thigh.

She is pointing with her index finger, and HG loved letting her chase the laser pointer with her finger.

It seems that her hair is starting to curl on the ends. Still can’t quite figure out which way her hair will part with all of her wild cowlicks.

She calls the kitties (or John when he’s been bad) with her little hand, saying, “Come here!” I’ve noticed she babbles in a high pitch voice too when she’s calling the cats.

At a restaurant, she has to be kept busy eating real food. Cucumber slices are our go to, but she’ll eat anything off your plate. I really haven’t found anything she’s turned her nose up at (obviously). With the new allergy rules (to expose earlier to prevent allergies from developing), we’ve now tried eggs, strawberries, peanut butter, etc. She hasn’t had a response as of yet. I feed her two sit-down meals a day (an early lunch and dinnertime) and bottles throughout the day, but if she’s awake for my breakfast, she’ll insist on eating my waffle or oatmeal too.

She’s still taking two big naps during the day and a dinnertime nap, although sometimes she’ll drop that last one. Half the time, she’s awake by 7 a.m., but other times, HG and I have to drag her out of bed to go to school.

She’ll drop her head to her shoulder and smile at you like she’s flirting.

Her temper has shown its head as of late. Like a toddler. Not sure what this means for our future! But if she doesn’t want to sit down, if you take the bottle from her, if you take your phone from her, etc., she will arch her back and throw herself out. Dangerous! She’s hit her head a few times as a result, but the lesson doesn’t seem to have sunk in yet.

She will sometimes go straight to strangers (even the guy at Swanky’s that helped us to our car), but then other times, she’ll cry in the arms of friends. Also, I’ve noticed her cry a few times when I leave.

There’s snow outside on that roof, so an outfit with snowflakes was in order!

“Oh, elephant, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to go!”

“Ha! That was fun!”

{HG at 9 mos, Feb 2010; she wasn’t throwing her hippo, but she was climbing out of the chair and eating her sign.}

HG asked to come along to Cressey’s check up so that Dr. Vargo could listen to her wheeze. (She was traumatized by C’s shots last time, so I knew she was worried.) Fortunately, she knows her body well; unfortunately, she needed a breathing treatment. Cressey wasn’t sure what to think of that big, loud machine. A lot of albuterol and prednisone over the following week fixed HG right up. Cress only had to get one shot- the second half of her flu shot- and she basically went, “Oh!,” and moved on. Didn’t even fuss when I took off her band-aid that night. Amazing.