Lydia: 8-9 Months

Our little Lydia Elise is nine months old today.

Nine. Months. Old.

I'm holding on to every sweet baby thing about her, because I can see the baby starting to leave and the toddler starting to take it's place. I know it's a bit early to be feeling that way, but listen: Lydia can crawl, stand, cruise around furniture, and is getting that gleam in her eye like she wants more than anything to walk. She is eating small pieces of fruit, cheese, bread, and potatoes. She is starting to copy everything I do, and sometimes I look down at her and think that she looks so much like a little person that my heart wants to burst.

This month has been a busy one for us, and our darling girl has been SO amazing through all of it. As soon as we got home from our Christmas holiday we started packing up all of our posessions, and the last full week of being 8 months we cleaned (and cried), cleaned (and cried), and cleaned (cried) some more. She learned and then practiced her crawling amid all of the half filled boxes. She learned to cruise along stacks of boxes that were just the perfect Lydia height. She was content to play on her own while I worked endlessly to pack and clean, and I may never have been more grateful for such a good baby. The last few days of cleaning were the hardest, because she was just getting over a little cold and just wanted to be held. She would cry as I cleaned, but as soon as I scooped her up - all was right in her little world.

We will go to her nine month checkup this Friday, and so I will have her official stats then - but as far as non-official stats go... She is slowly growing into the size 3 diapers we moved her up to at the beginning of the month. She is solidly wearing 6-9 month clothes, but still fits into the smaller end of that range best.

*Update- Lydia's Official 9 Month Stats are:*

Weight: 15.98 lbs (15.66%)

Length: 26.25 (7.25%)

Head Circumference: 17.25 inches (49.75%)

--I had a really hard time moving her up to size three diapers. They are just so much bigger than the size twos. Although I know it's kind of silly, I wanted to go and buy another pack of twos and just squeeze her in them for a little while longer. The best day was when David found a little stash of size twos hiding in our brown diaper bag and we got to use them for a couple of days.

-- Lydia went from getting stuck in a semi-crawling position and then moving back to her bum to crawling all over the place. She is seriously pro. My favorite thing is when she crawls to me, whether that is a few feet away or from the next room over. I just love to see her smiling face grinning up at me while she hurries her little self over. Sometimes while I was packing, I would set her in the front room and go back to one of the bedrooms to work on packing a box and she would slowly make her way back to me, grinning proudly all the while. It gave me some time to get some baby-free packing in. However, as she practiced more and more - she got so speedy that she can now move vast distances in hardly no time at all. I have to keep an eye on her at all times because she can disappear in the blink of an eye.

--The day that Lydia turned 8 months old, she slept through the whole night. It was a miracle and such a blessing to her poor sleep deprived mama. Unfortuately, she has only repeated that accomplishment a handful of times. Our schedule now mostly consists of her sleeping from 8 p.m. until 4 a.m. with a small intermission and then waking up for the morning at 6:30. (At which point I bring her into our bed and nurse her until I'm ready to get up around 7:30.)

--I haven't been able to get a good picture of it, but Lydia has started doing the strangest thing with her fingers. She will cross her fourth and pinky finger then play with her thumb and third finger by rubbing them back and forth on each other. I've noticed that she does it most when she is a little nervous about something that is going on. It's so cute, but also so interesting. I wish I had a picture to show, but you'll just have to use your imagination.

--Lydia can pull herself up on pretty much anything now. At first, you could tell that she was using her arm strength to get her to the standing position and then she would just kind of lock her legs to keep her upright. But now she can stand just using her legs as long as she has something to balance against. She can stand up against a wall or even a package of diapers. She can cruise around while holding on with only one hand and loves the ability to get somewhere without having to sit down and crawl to it. She has even started letting go with both hands and balancing for several seconds on her own. (She mostly does this when she is holding a toy and decides that she needs both hands to inspect it.)

--Recently, she has started standing up, then reaching down with one hand to pick up the nearest toy. It took her a while to be able to accomplish the tast without tipping over, but now she is really good at it. She will stretch her arm down and pick up the toy/remote/small object then grin at herself as she drops it on the ground and starts the whole process over again.

--Something that has been fun is that Lydia recognizes David more and more when he comes home from work and greets him with a big grin. She is still a pretty big mamas girl - but she sure loves her daddy and she lets him know when he walks in the door. (The other day she was in the bath and she heard the front door open and she kept looking over my shoulder waiting for him to show his face. Her eyes were glued to the doorway.)

--Our nightly routine consists of feeding her some yummy mashed up food, giving her a nice warm bath, wrapping her up in her towel and making faces in the bathroom mirror, changing her into her pajamas, some nursing time, and then down in bed. At first I didn't think I would like giving her a bath every night, but I actually really enjoy it. She used to LOVE the bath, but now it takes her a little while to warm up to it. Regardless, I think that the warm water helps to calm her down and signal to her that it is time to sleep.

--Lydia is eating lots of food now. I was so worried about the "Stage 1/Stage2/Stage 3" foods. I read on a friends blog that their pediatrician had okayed their child to move up to Stage 2 foods, and so I got that into my head that I had to wait for approval from Lydia's doctor. Finally I read the label on a Stage 3 food and realized that it said "crawls with tummy off the floor." So we kind of jumped into Stage 2 and Stage 3 foods all at the same time. I have this constant battle as far as food goes - I want to make sure that she safe and eating good food at the right times, but I also want to be able to feed her food off our plates. I'm pretty sick of having to wait four days between new foods - because I want to be able to feed her spaghetti with sauce and I don't want to have to introduce tomatoes, then pasta, then mushrooms, then basil, etc... I just want to be able to feed it to her. Obviously, I want her to be safe and we would use our baby food grinder (such a fun new thing that we bought this month) but I don't want to have to wait to introduce every new thing. I don't know.

 --I got sidetracked on the bullet above. It was supposed to be about the foods that Lydia has eaten. She still loves apples, pears, peaches, squash, and sweet potatoes. One of her new favorite Gerber foods is Pears, Oatmeal, and Cinnamon. She eats small bits of bananas really well and has also done really well at eating small pieces of potato, cut up mandarin oranges, and little pieces of cheese. She is pretty happy to eat anything and we have been really enjoying our family meals where David, Lydia, and I all eat dinner together.

--Lydia still loves tags. If there is a tag to be found, you better bet it will be in her mouth asap.

--Some of the baby things that I am cherishing so much are:
      -The way she clings to me when she is tired.
      -The way she looks when she is asleep, peaceful and so tiny.
      -Her little baby gurgles and squaks.
      -How cozy she looks in her carseat carrier when she is bundled up in her blankets.
      -Her cute little clothes that make my heart melt!

--Some of the fun toddler-like transitions we are making:
      -Pulling herself up on furniture and looking so big standing up!
      -Starting to cruise around furniture and starting to stand on her own.
      -Sitting up in the shopping cart at the store and riding in the big kid part of the stroller.
      -Exploring everything and seeing the light in her eyes while she figures things out.

--One of the sad things about transitioning from my sweet baby... she is just getting SO big! She is growing out of her baby diapers, baby clothes, and baby swing/bouncer. I tried to put her in her little bouncer while I was doing the dishes one day, and just had to laugh at her little feet hanging off the end. When did that happen?

 --While we were spending some time at my parents in Morgan, Lydia was absolutely entranced with the gas fireplace in the basement. Because it sits pretty level with the floor I would make sure that I was always between her and the fire so that she wouldn't go and lean on the glass and burn herself. One night from about 2-4 Lydia decided that she wanted to be awake and playing instead of sleeping in her bed, so I pulled her out and let her crawl around on the floor while I laid in front of the fire and dozed off. I kept waking up to her trying to get around me and get to the flames. She would wait until I was starting to fall asleep and then she would make a run for it around my feet or above my head. I would simply just grab her and turn her around to go and play with her toys, but that girl is smart! Even during the day, if I turned my head for one minute she would make a beeline for the opening I had accidentally left for her. I made sure that I was far enough from the fire that there was no chance that she would get to it before I got to her - but she certainly kept me on my toes.

--About halfway through the month, I was busy packing a box and I looked over and Lydia had figured out how to climb up on a small game box as she was standing by the couch. I couldn't believe it.

--As if climbing up on a box wasn't enough, Lydia decided that she was going to learn how to climb up the stairs! At this point, she has only made it up the bottom two steps, but really - once she gets it... she gets it. We are going to have a get a baby gate as soon as we move into our new house. Something fun is that we actually caught it on video. Unfortunately, I can't make the stinking video work here. I will try tomorrow because it is so cute.



--Everything goes into her mouth still. In fact, maybe even more than before. My favorite is her special attachment to the wii remote. She will put the end of the wrist strap in her mouth and then drag the remote with her as she crawls around. It kills me. She will crawl around the room dragging the wii remote between her hands and knees. If the end pops out, she will sit back up, put the end back in her mouth and then head out on her way again.

--The only sound she really makes is "ba" - as in bababababababababa. I know lots of other babies say "mamama" or "dadadada" - not as in the names, but just the sounds. However, Lydia is pretty happy with just her babababa's. She went through a stage where she would make a loud "Whah....wwwhah" noise, but now it's mostly just screeches and gurgles or bababa's.

--While staying with David's parents, his mom Sue brought out a little stuffed giraffe and Lydia went crazy. She was SO excited. She was screeching and laughing - and she was loving playing with it. I couldn't believe how happy she was about it. The only thing she has ever reacted as strongly to is my parents dog, Dante, whom she loves. I loved her big smile as she petted and played with her little giraffe friend. (I realize that there are a lot of pictures of this, but I just couldn't choose.)

--There were so many other things that I wanted to post about, but I can't remember. I'm so sad - but I'm too tired to worry about it right now. If I think of anything else, I'll probably just come and add it to the post retrospectively. However, the one thing that I know is that I absolutely adore this girl. She is our whole world and we love her SO much. She is so happy, and she makes our lives so bright. (My only hope is that this month we can work on the whole sleeping thing, as this mama is pretty exhausted.) So to finish off, here are some more fun pictures of our nine month old baby:

We love you Lydia Elise!