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.