Becca at 9 months

Stats:
Weight: 18lb 7oz 40th%
Length: 27.5" 45th%
Head: 46cm 93rd%

Sleeping: She went through a phase where she would wake up at 6am. EVERY morning! We even got a big piece of cardboard and cut it to the dimensions of her window and put it in the window to make her room darker, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. She has started to sleep in more, and now wakes up around 7:15 on average. She gets 2 solid naps a day of between 1.5 to 2 hours. She goes to bed around 8:30 and usually wakes up once. The doctor has suggested to start diluting or just giving her water at night to break her body from being used to the calories at night so she will sleep through the night. I haven't tried it yet, so wish me luck!

Eating: We have her on mostly table foods now, and some of her favorites are yogurt, cereals, beans, crackers of any kind, toast, watermelon, mandarin oranges, and ground beef

Gross motor: Well, she has been crawling for 2.5 months now, so you can imagine she is pretty fast. She has also been pulling herself to standing since she was 7.5 months old.

I feel like I am saving her life constantly. She puts EVERYTHING in her mouth and is super fast. As soon as I set her down in the backyard, it seems like she instantly puts something in her mouth (a rock, dirt, sidewalk chalk, a fallen cherry, you name it). At church on Sunday I noticed she had something in her mouth, and it was a peanut she found on the floor! Alayna has even pulled things out of her mouth like little hair rubber bands that have fallen on the floor! Then, almost 2 weeks ago, I was filling the tub for the girls and Becca puller herself up to look inside the tub. Thank goodness I was right there (and I had feared this would happen so I've been cautious), she fell head first into the tub of water. I caught her just after her face had gone in so she coughed a bit.

Then at the aquarium this week, we were eating lunch and I was giving Becca some crackers and tiny strands of string cheese, when she started choking. Like actual, there-is-no-air-movement-through-her-throat choking. It was scary and has never happened to me before. Her body was trying to gag but she wasn't able to. Just as I was unbuckling her to start the back blows/chest thrust cycle, she gagged her food up and started vomiting and shaking and crying. I'm glad my friend was there to calm me down. Just goes to show that parents must be trained in those things, because I didn't feed her anything she's not supposed to have, she must have just had too much food in the back of her throat. I guess crap like that just happens sometimes, but I sure hope it never happens again!

She screams. SCREAMS. Like ear piercing, shrill, I can't-even-express-through-words-how-loud-it-is screams. She screams all the time, but particularly in her high chair or in the bath tub.

Talking: she has definitely said mama for a while now, and we can get her to say dada. If I ask her "where is dada" she will look right at him, and will do the same for mama and Alayna. I'm pretty sure I have heard her say baba (for bottle), too. She will also repeat her name back, which is SO cute.

Her personality has some out more and more. She is so sweet, and can be a stinker, too. When I'm changing her on the floor, she will crawl away, and when I tell her to come back, she will turn around, smile and look at me, then keep right on crawling the opposite direction. So hard to be mad at that! She also likes to play a game with her binkies. If you set 2 in front of her, she will put one in her mouth, then pull it out and put the other one in (as in, I have to taste each one just in case!) She likes to play pat a cake and 5 little piggies.

She is such a sweet girl. I adore her smile and getting to know her personality better. Hard to believe we will be celebrating her birthday so soon!