Quick Stats
Weight: 17-18 lbs. (?)
Height: about 27″ (I don’t know on these–we’ll find out for sure at her appointment next week)
Clothing Size: 6-9 month size
Diaper Size: 3
Milestones Reached
- Pulls up to standing on pretty much everything, including in her crib
- Holds on to and uses furniture, toys, and/or people to walk (“cruise”)
- Can go from standing to sitting, from crawling to sitting, and from stomach to sitting
- Babbles in a way that more and more closely approximates actual language instead of just basic vowel-consonant repetitions
Physical Appearance
Her hair is now long enough to be put into a baby elastic (so cute!), and she just cut through a third tooth (this one on the top) a couple days ago, a little past her 9-month mark. Her eyelashes, which had always seemed to be inherited from her daddy (thank goodness!) have gotten markedly darker and thicker in the past month, with no signs of stopping.
What I Love About This Stage
I love the burgeoning sense of pride that Raven displays when she accomplishes some challenge that she has set for herself. The first several days she successfully pulled herself up in her crib (sometimes while still wrapped in her swaddle blanket), she gave out a triumphant laugh (which was also what tipped us off that she wasn’t actually sleeping in there). And if she really wants something, she tends to do everything in her power in order to reach it (or to use her cuteness to manipulate us into getting it for her) and when successful, she’ll often flash a smug little smile or let out a squeal of laughter.
I love what a good eater she is, too–we’ve never had issues with her throwing food, and she eats almost everything we give her with a hearty appetite, including the broth of a pretty spicy chili that I made one night and mixtures that contained mushrooms, beets, and asparagus. Even when she doesn’t love something, she can usually be persuaded to keep eating a few more bites of it anyway, and when we’ve been persistent enough, we’ve convinced her to like (or at least tolerate) a lot more foods than she did previously. She also doesn’t usually try and spit out her food either (and she’s actually never spit out food because of not liking it, at least not for me–if she spits anything out, it’s because she’s excitedly trying to talk to us while we’re putting the spoon in). She’s a great little eater, which I couldn’t be more pleased about!
She’s also gotten a little stranger-shy, which, while it has its downside, is completely adorable because she’ll bury her face into mine or Matt’s chest and just peek her eyes out occasionally to see if the person is still there. It’s so cute I could just die.
Challenges
Now that she can get herself almost wherever she wants, Raven will pretty much always choose to be right next to me or Matt at all times, which means she’s almost always underfoot while I’m cooking, blogging or grading at the computer, or trying to do housework. I wouldn’t mind so much except that I worry about her safety.
Also, now that she can easily stand herself up in her crib (and often prefers to stand or sit up in there rather than, you know, sleep and stuff), it’s become necessary to rock her to sleep during the day if we’re trying to put her down for a nap (whereas before, she would just roll over, stick her thumb in her mouth, and be out before too long). Luckily, she still goes down without fuss or trying to stand up and play when we put her down for the night (and will still sleep for 13-14 hours without waking!), but the naptimes are becoming a bit hit and miss.
She also seems to have developed this eczema-like rash on the hand that she sucks her thumb on, and there are a couple rashy marks on her cheeks too. Since I myself suffer from eczema and other skin problems (obviously, since I’ve talked about a bajillion times about my autoimmune disease), I’m not too surprised, but I do feel bad she’s having to deal with it so young. We have her 9-month appointment next week, at which point I’ll bring it up. In the meantime, we’ve just been rubbing coconut oil on it to try and keep it hydrated, and that has seemed to help a bit.
Things I Don’t Want to Forget
- The way that she’ll lift her legs straight out in front when you try and have her “walk” with you and she doesn’t feel like walking
- The fact that when she picks up small bits off the kitchen floor or the carpet, she actually won’t try to put them in her mouth but will instead just sit there quietly and observe them, occasionally trying to tap them against something else to see if it will make a noise
- How much she loves when you drum out a rhythm
- The way that she laughs and bounces up and down excitedly in her crib when you’ve caught her standing once again instead of napping (because she thinks that you’re coming in to rescue her)
- The hilarious habit she’s picked up of excitedly coughing right before you’re about to put in a spoonful of food. It’s not forceful enough to usually spit anything out (thank goodness), but it’s just this weird quirk that I have no idea where she picked up.
- How she’ll open and close her hands very quickly when she’s excited about something or when she wants something really badly (like for one of us to pick her up)
- How I still can’t believe how much she is absolutely obsessed with the movie Frozen. We’ll occasionally put on movies for her when we need to get something done (like the dishes or a meal prep) and don’t want her underfoot, and the ONLY movie that can hold her in complete and utter rapture is Frozen. It’s always been this way, for basically her whole lifetime. (Needless to say, we’re starting to get REALLY Frozened-out).
- The fact that she is now ticklish, a fact we take full advantage of while playing games like “This Little Piggy” or games where we “chase” her around to try and catch her
