Another really fun game

Here she is, all strapped into her carseat, ready to go to the store and, I might add, properly dressed with long sleeves and socks, since it was a cool day.

And here she is once we arrived at the store. Apparently, the socks were cramping her style.

We play this game every day. So much fun (for her)!

9 Months

When we first decided to start taking these monthly pictures, I wondered whether we'd be able to take the pictures on the exact monthly anniversary of the bean's birth for 12 months without missing one. So far, we have been able to keep up with taking the pictures but, as you may have noticed, I've been posting the pictures later and later in the month.



So, even though she's almost 10 months old, here's what the bean is (was) up to at 9 months.

Let me start by saying that, although I declare each new month "the most fun," I really mean it this time. 9 months is so. much. fun. The bean is so busy crawling and climbing and laughing and playing. We are getting to see more and more of her personality and more and more of her sense of humor and its just so fun. What we have learned is that our bean is a very social person. She waves and "talks" to every person she sees and hasn't displayed even the slightest bit of stranger anxiety. She actually wouldn't let me get away with lying recently when a total stranger came up and wanted to hold her. Um, no, I'm not handing my baby over to someone I don't know, so I fibbed and said, "Oh, she's really scared of new people, I'm afraid she'll cry." Meanwhile, the bean was reaching for this woman and trying to squirm out of my arms to get to her, which was probably the first of many times she'll rat me out.

The bean has gotten better at crawling and is a little faster at it, but she's still not getting anywhere very quickly on her hands and knees. She'd much prefer to be walking and will pull up to standing and grab at our hands to help her along, only resorting to crawling as a last resort.

The bean has also apparently gotten tired of hearing the thing that I swear I must say 100 times a day--please don't put that in your mouth. She now finds some off limits item (usually a piece of fuzz off the floor) and puts it quickly into her mouth, then howls with laughter when I come running to try to dig it out of her mouth. Such a fun game for her!

Given that putting things in her mouth is such a fun game, you'd think she'd be doing better eating solid food, but not so. The bean is definitely over having someone feed her baby food and would much prefer finger food, but she's still only eating a couple bites at each meal. She's still nursing every 2-3 hours, so I think she's just not hungry for solid food but I'm sure she'll start eating more when she's ready.

What else? We hit a bit of a snag with our toilet training while we were on vacation last month. We purchased a ring to sit on top of a regular sized toilet to make it baby-sized, but the bean was scared of it and didn't want to sit on it (I can't really blame her--a toilet is so tall compared to a baby!) We just stopped our efforts during that week which meant it took a bit of time for her to get back into the swing of things. We seem to have regained the ground we lost and are adding a third toilet session to our day. I'm really talking a lot more about going to the bathroom than I ever thought I would, but I really want to document this journey and I'm very curious to see how everything works out and to look back at what we did along the way.

Moving on. At 9 months, the bean is starting to become less baby and more toddler. I definitely have mixed feelings about this. I miss our little baby who we held and stared at for hours. I'm excited to move onto the next phase and toddlers are the absolute most fun! Also, toddlers are pretty scary. I'm a bit intimidated by the baby tantrums we've seen--the refusal to have her diaper changed or clothes put on, her crawling away when we ask her to come to us. Right before she was born, I wondered how we'd ever parent a baby and now I'm wondering the same thing about a toddler. I know we'll figure it out, but its a little scary (and a lot exciting!) right now.

And finally, my favorite thing about 9 months requires a bit of explanation. I used to see other new parents holding their little babies up against their chests and I'd feel a twinge of jealousy that their babies would rest their little heads right up on their parent's chest and snuggle in. As a newborn, our bean never really liked to be held that way (she didn't really like to be held, period). But we're now getting a taste of it at 9 months. When she's tired, or sad, or just needing a hug, she snuggles right in and its the best. thing. ever. Yay for 9 months!

Two-fer

Two days before we left for vacation (almost a month ago now!), the bean's first tooth broke through.


She spent most of December with painful teething and then those little teeth took a vacation for a few months. This first one popped through in mid-March with little notice. We just saw that her gums looked swollen one day and the next day I felt the very tip of it.

Notice all the fingers in that picture. Its not so easy to take a picture of the inside of a squirming baby's mouth. Even with props, it takes lots of hands.

Two weeks later, the second tooth broke through with the same lack of fanfare, but now the top teeth are coming. You may remember it was the top teeth that we thought were giving her the trouble in December. Well, those two upper guys (gals?) are working their way down now and, apparently, they hurt. The poor bean has been grumpy the last few days and there have been lots and lots of tears. Although, I guess if cutting teeth has to hurt, its maybe better to cut four more or less at once to just get it over with.

Easter

I know I'm late, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share a picture of our little jellybean in her easter dress.

She's getting so big!

Do you like vacation??!!

A few weeks ago, the bean crawled over to the sliding door and sat there staring out and pounding on the glass.

I got the feeling she was trying to tell me that she had a little cabin fever and who could blame her? Between our many illnesses and the bad weather, it seems we've been cooped up in the house all winter. We decided we needed to get away to someplace WARM.

To say we were nervous about the trip is an understatement. We tried to remember every detail that would make the bean comfortable and avoid any potential meltdowns. Thankfully, our bean was a trooper and did her best to charm everyone around us, earning herself the nickname "the little mayor."

At some point during our first day of travel, the boy turned to the bean and explained that we were going on vacation. "This is vacation, do you like it? Do you like vacation?" We laughed so much at this and remembered to check in often during our week away. "Bean! Do you like vacation?" The more times we said it, the crazier our voices got until the bean was very perplexed at her parents talking in funny voices and then laughing hysterically.


We spent our week swimming, sitting on the beach and relaxing. The bean loved playing in the water and waving at every single person she saw. Vacation with the bean was, obviously, much different than going away pre-baby. We had to be careful to organize our day around the bean's nap and meal schedule and, of course, we enjoyed no late dinners out--we had to be back in our room by 7 each night to put the bean to bed.

But we all had such a great time and loved getting away and having nothing to do but take care of the bean and lounge around.

And we're definitely looking forward to taking our "little mayor" on another trip soon!