9 Months

I figured it was high time for an Alyssa update, as she is officially out of the "infant" stage and into the "get into everything" era. Here are the current stats:

• Height: 28.5" (75%)

• Weight: 18.5 lb (50%) - at 8 months she weighed 19 pounds, so her crawling and extra half inch have seriously reduced the size of the adorable thigh wrinkles. There's only one left!

• Number of teeth: 2 (bottom middle), both of which came in a month ago. She has a huge lump of gum next to it that has been playing peek-a-boo for nearly a month.

• Hair: even longer so she got her second hair "trim" and it's fairly even now and starting to fill in. Most of the time it looks reddish but sometimes it's just blonde or more brown. 

• Eyes: still ginormous, but looking less blue! I'd describe them as more gray, but there is still blue in there and sometimes I catch glimpses of green. Someone commented on her ginormous eyes the other day and described them as "gray steel" which is probably a good fit.

• Night wakings: more and more she is sleeping through the night, thankfully! We've been doing more baby whisperer sleep training and it has worked well for the most part.

• New Tricks: crawling instead of belly flopping, climbing on everything, blowing "kisses", waving, clapping, shrieking (not a fan of this one) saying "Mamama" all day long! and occasionally we get a "dada" or a "daga"

 

the evolution of crawling over the past two months

 We're teaching her to sign "please" instead of shrieking...

• Things that HAVEN'T changed: she still drools constantly, spits for fun, and flaps her arms. When she does it in the bathtub she makes impressive waves and gets everything soaked. Her smile still lights up the room and makes you feel like the most important person in the world. And her giggle sounds more like a machine gun :o)

• Favorite food: strawberries. and ice cream. but this girl will scream for some strawberries. She also likes beans, graham crackers, yogurt, and watermelon. She tolerates vegetables.

• Favorite book: anything she can turn the pages of. She flings through as fast as she can, back and forth.

• Other favorites: she likes music and has some sweet dance moves. She's a baby groover! She also does yoga anytime she is nursing, grabbing her feet and putting them behind her head and such. It's hard to lay her down for bed because her feet are up past her ears. She loves getting tickled by daddy, swinging around, and playing with Scotty.

she still has one thigh roll :o)

This girl is a climber. I had to rearrange some of our furniture because of her special skills. When she picks up a toy, she doesn't play with it at first. She finds something to climb onto, like Scotty's train box, and perches up there to play with it. If the toy box gets too close to anything taller, she's up on the table or the couch. She loves to snuggle with me in bed but I have to keep a hand around her leg because she will dive off the edge or try to climb up the headboard. If you are sitting on the floor, you become her personal obstacle course, and she's climb over you back and forth until you get tired of baby knees to the face and your clothes are covered with drool.

She is still a serious mama baby, which I promise is more her personality than anything I am doing! It can be hard for Eric to help because she resists--even eating baby food is a stretch if she can't see me. We're working on it, but it's rough going sometimes. For the most part, however, she is happy and likes to be involved. I love my little girl!