Nine Months

One of the things that people always told me while I was pregnant turned out to be true: The nine months that you spend pregnant will seem to take forever, but the first nine months of your baby's life will go by in a flash. It's amazing how true this is.

I can't believe how long Lily has been with us, and yet at the same time it's hard to remember what it was like to not know her.

Quite a bit has changed around here lately, so I'll jump right in!

Lily turned nine months old a whole week ago, and I'm kinda glad I'm late writing this post because of all the new things she has learned in the past seven days. It's like she hit that milestone and suddenly figured out how to do a bunch of new things! I'll get to that later, though. First things first:

At her nine month checkup last week Lily weighed 19 pounds 2 ounces and was 28 inches long. Month after month I'm grateful for a healthy, growing girl who has been free of any major or minor illnesses. She's doing so well and I'm so thankful. And she and I both were very happy that this trip to the doctor did not include shots, although now those four she'll have at twelve months are looming.

Eating: Our big change in eating this month has been the introduction of table foods. Actually, I just started making this a part of her regular meals this week. Lily is on the same food schedule as last month, but now I'm trying to replace some of her baby food purees at lunch and dinner with table food. She still has her oatmeal with applesauce or another fruit for breakfast and she still has cereal in the evenings, but lunch, dinner, and snacks have a little more variety. So far we've tried mashed potatoes, cooked baby carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, and a little bit of chicken. She seems to like all of it, but her favorite by far has been the tomatoes. (Of course, they are fresh from her granddad's garden and are particularly delicious!)
I have found that she likes real table foods better than the stage 3 baby foods even though she loved the stage 2 purees, which is just as well if we can just skip over a step. For example, she really likes to eat (steamed) broccoli from our plates, but she hates it out of the baby food jar.

Over the past month Lily has gotten really good at feeding herself some finger foods. She really goes to town with the little Gerber snacks (Puffs and Lil' Crunchies), Cheerios, and pieces of toast, and she enjoys eating fresh bananas and strawberries very much right now although she can't pick up slippery things by herself quite as well.


Lily still nurses about 3-4 times a day and I've introduced a sippy cup of formula once a day. She also has little sips of water and sometimes juice (she's still not crazy about it) here and there with meals.

Sleeping: I'm so glad to report that sleep has returned to our house!


It's not unusual for Lily to wake up once or maybe even twice a night, but we are just so relieved to have gotten past that awful stage we were in a little while ago that you won't hear us complain. She has started sleeping through the night again pretty often, which is a huge relief for all of us. Her nap times are now very regular -- around 10 AM and 2 PM, for about an hour each. Bedtime is still between 7:30 and 8 PM, and we start the day between 6:30 and 7 each morning (still an adjustment for her night owl mommy).

Milestones: Now for the fun stuff! Honestly, if I had written this post on time a week ago, I wouldn't have much to say in the way of big milestones. In fact, I had just been talking a couple of weeks ago about how Lily was nowhere near crawling. She really wasn't. She's still not crawling, but she is so much more mobile lately. She will pull herself all the way forward onto her hands and knees to get a toy, then she either rocks back onto her bottom or falls onto her tummy. Sometimes I think she is right on the verge of taking off.

On the day that Lily turned nine months old, she said her first word! She was in her high chair right after breakfast and she dropped the toy she'd been holding. I was on the phone with my sister, but I said "uh-oh" to Lily and she repeated "oh." We did this three times and I was pretty sure she was trying to say it. Later on in the day I tried it again and heard her say both syllables, plain as day. So, "uh-oh" is her first word! I think she is really close to learning "mama" too.

For months I've been trying to teach Lily to clap her hands and wave bye-bye. I don't know why, but they both clicked this past Sunday while we were at my mom's. In the same day she picked up both of these new skills, and it's really cute to watch her little hands move with purpose. I also use the signs for "more" and "all done" every time she eats, and today I felt like she was really trying to do the sign for more.

All in a week's time, my big girl has learned so much. This stage is a lot of fun and we're really enjoying it. As always, we're so thankful for the opportunity to be her parents.