9 months

My baby girl is getting so big.

The weekdays are tough for me because... well, I have to take her to daycare. Somebody else gets to spend this precious time with our little one. They get to watch her interact with the other babies, watch her crawl progress from tentative to confident, hear her laugh... I have less than an hour in the morning and maybe two hours in the afternoon to get in my mama time. So I try to squeeze every drop out of it. This morning M was playing on the floor while I finished getting ready for work (also known as the evil place that pays me). When I went in to get her dressed she was sitting amongst her toys dancing to the music from one of her battery operated toys while she delicately tapped out music  (i.e. loudly pounded) on her xylophone that she loves. It was adorable. I'm so grateful for those moments. I recorded this one on my phone and I was showing it to my coworker who has a 7 year old girl and a 10 year old boy. She sighed and said "I miss that! Enjoy it!" Oh, she doesn't have to tell me. I savor every moment.

Today M had her 9 month check-up. Kelly, the wonderful PA conducting the exam said that M’s practically perfect in every way. Okay, maybe that's not exactly what she said, but it was something along those lines. The big news from her appointment.... M can now start eating table food! I will no longer have to wait 3 days between different foods to watch for allergic reactions. Of course, there are certain foods that I'll still want to be careful of and others that she still can't eat quite yet, but this is great news for her developing pallet! So, for her first (mostly) non-restricted meal this evening, I made tilapia with squash and broccoli (or squaccoli :). She loved it! Since I've started to put food on her tray she's beginning to use her pincer grasp to try to feed herself. She gets a little frustrated if she's really hungry and isn't getting as much as she wants as quickly as she wants but I always have a bowl full on hand for such frustrations.

Yes, 9 months has come and gone so quickly. Before I know it, it will be her 1st birthday, and after that her 18th *shudder*. But I will continue to cherish every minute.

Signing

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Time goes too quickly! My last update had M crawling for the first time. That was only 14 days ago. Since then, she's pulled herself up to a standing position first in her playpen and then in her crib (causing me to move the mattress all the way down) and now on the gate that keeps the dog out of her room! It's just so amazing how quickly she catches on. She did take a header into the couch this morning. I felt so bad. Her little had was resting on the couch and the other was on the floor and the couch hand slipped off causing her little face to ram the couch. Luckily it was only a quick cry and no bruise or swelling :)

So, life speeds on with each new day. Sometimes I let the monotony get me down when I have to go to that job I don't enjoy instead of spending my time with M. I know I'd at least feel better about having to work if I were doing something that I enjoyed and was interesting! That is how I came to my new adventure. Since M was born, I've wanted to try baby signing with her. I learned a few of the signs that would be used everyday like mommy, daddy, eat, milk, and I started to try using them consistently about 7.5 months with her. Well, my sister had found a website she liked and forwarded the info to me. It's called My Smart Hands. It's a program developed by Laura Berg for parents to teach their hearing baby signs. She has a lot of great information for free, even an iPhone ap that I downloaded. Well, one day, I was perusing the website and their was a link to "teach". So I emailed for information. Long story short, I'm going to be an instructor! I am currently taking a signing 101 class online and will have to take a quiz first. Then I have to learn all of the Lesson 1 for Laura's program so that I can teach it proficiently. I'm excited! I'm going to have to find venues to host the classes and start marketing for my classes but it's something new and exciting and I'm learning a new skill! The only downside is that I will be still working my regular job and will be doing only a couple classes on weekends. Hopefully, if I can get a good start at it, maybe I can find a way to work part-time with this and another part-time job but be able to spend more time with M!

That's the goal anyway. Well, I better get back to practicing my signing before M wakes up from her nap!

Mobile M

We have a crawler! She's been getting herself into a crawling position for the last couple of weeks. At first, she would just go directly to her stomach and do her "air swimming" motions. Then, the week before last she started going... backwards. I called it her "moon crawling" because it was smooth like MJ's moon walk. But as of Friday evening, she crawled! We had to motivate her so we used toys, our cell phones and at first, nothing! But then, she saw it, and zeroed in on her target. One knee... one hand... the other knee... and other hand... she was crawling! And she reached her objective, the filthy dog toy! Well, I wasn't gonna stop her! She had her mind made up and it was dog toy or bust! It's the cutest crawl too, we've come to call it the M shuffle. And she does it like she knew the whole time how to do it, when just last week she was looking at her little limbs thinking, I know I can do this, but how? So now, she'll be moving up with the crawlers in daycare. *Sigh* they grow so quickly! *Sniff Sniff*

Other new accomplishments for M... she's sitting up in her crib! and if she's fine in there by herself, she just sits and looks around. Or she'll play with her blanket, or the crib bumpers. But if she's not fine by herself and she's ready to get up, she'll definitely let you know about it!

She's tried lots of new foods over the last couple of weeks including green beans, pears, peaches, pork and eggs! And none of them got a yucky face or got spit out! I think upcoming we'll try carrots, barley cereal, potatoes, beef, bell peppers, pumpkin, yogurt and possibly blueberries. The food adventure continues! As does the adventure I like to call "what's in M’s diaper?" as the new food brings new... shall we say, texture, to the number 2!

I'll leave you with that thought to ponder :)