9 Months Old

Our little Madeline is 9 months old! I'm telling you people, each month just gets better and better. She is so much fun! I think she has given up on the walking thing for now. She was taking several steps a day. But, she hasn't been taking as many steps in the past few days. She can crawl very fast. It is pretty cute to watch her. She almost bounces off the floor when she gets going fast. She loves to crawl up and down the steps now. She does it almost all day long. She comes down very well. She knows to back up to the edge of the step and come down backwards. She does the same thing to get off of the couch or bed or anything high up.

She has rediscovered her toes in the car. Every now and then we will hear a sucking sound in the back seat. When we look back, this is what we find.

She has become a great eater. We found that the secret is videos. It doesn't seem like a great habit, but when your child just doesn't eat you will do almost anything to get her to eat. Her favorite videos right now are sign language videos. My aunt gave us these videos called "My Baby Can Talk". We think she has developed a little crush on one of the little boys in the video. She gets a big smile when he comes on now. I also think she has started signing "more" as well, just from watching the video. She has only done it a couple of times.

She will eat pretty much anything now, especially if it is off of our plates. I also gave her some yogurt to see if she is sensitive to dairy anymore and we haven't seen any bad reactions yet. So, we are officially back on dairy. (Andrew and I ordered 2 big pizzas this past weekend! And I had leftover pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner today :) Hey, it's been 8 months people!) She still loves green beans and peas and will eat any baby food. But, she also likes pretzels, crackers, pizza crust, taco meat, chicken, rice, peaches, strawberries, Cheerios, and like I said, anything off of our plates. She is still nursing great. But, she does drink a bottle of formula great as well. We usually give her a bottle if we are traveling in the car somewhere. Obviously it is a little easier than nursing in the car.

She still enjoys her books. She seems to know which ones are for her right now because she won't sit and look at a book if it has a lot of words on the page. She likes her board books.

She has four teeth now. Her top two popped through without us even knowing it. I just heard her grinding her teeth one day. (Which is not a great sound by the way.) She seems to have trouble with them as they are coming down. She keeps a low grade fever for a few days and doesn't nurse well. But, they pop through with no complaints from her.

I think it is pretty cute when she sits on her knees like this.

A few of her favorite things are the refrigerator...

...and the dishwasher.

One of her new tricks is when you say,"hello", she will hold up her phone to her ear.

She is one Daddy's girl! Andrew seems to be the favorite around here these days.

Before Andrew wakes up in the mornings, Madeline will crawl to his door and bang on it. I try to distract her for a while so he can sleep a little longer. Then when she hears the shower going, she has to bang on the bathroom door as well. Then she cries until Andrew comes to get her. As soon as he picks her up in the mornings, she waves bye-bye to me and is permanently attached to her daddy. When he leaves in the mornings, she crawls after him towards the door and then cries when he leaves. Needless to say, she is so excited to see him when he comes home from work. She waves at him in the window and then gets sad when he gets out of sight on his way up the steps to the front door. But, as soon as he walks in, she smiles so big, bounces up and down and crawls as fast as she can to him.

I can understand that mommy can get a little old after spending all day, everyday with her. But, I am crazy about my little girl. She is just so wonderful. And of course, after Andrew leaves for the day, we have a blast together. And actually our evenings are usually filled with fun family games of, "I'm goin' to get you", which brings many wonderful giggles from our sweet little girl. She is such a blessing to our family!