A Great Day for Up!

I loved that book as a child, and as today Sarah went to a book themed birthday party, I thought it was a fitting title for this post (pictures from the party with be forthcoming).  Sarah has become remarkable adept at pulling herself up onto objects - most of the time they're stationary, though she's had some issues with trying to stand holding onto the base of a carseat (it rocks) or a stroller (it rolls).  Normally this isn't an issue as she's never out of eyesight... except when she's in her crib at night.  This morning when we went to get her out of bed she was standing and holding onto the edge of her crib, and when I went to get her after her nap she had also pulled herself up.  As we hadn't lowered the crib mattress yet, this was quite easy for her, and yet quite precarious. I've learned in the past 9 months that what gets done is often what Sarah dictates that we must do RIGHT THEN, so this morning instead of going to the gym or folding laundry, we spent time lowering the crib mattress.  I just put her down for the night now, and she missed her afternoon nap today (and we paid for that tonight) so it will be interesting to see what position we find her in in the morning.  I suspect the position we'll find her sleeping in tonight is the same as always, on her tummy, legs tucked under herself, tush in the air.

In other news, we've moved onto protein in her diet.  One of the advantages I've found with making her food is that texture doesn't seem to weird her out - I've read that babies who are on jarred baby food have a harder transition to table food since their food is so smooth, while food that I make is always a bit lumpy, irregardless of how long I run the food processor.  So at lunch today, T.J. ordered grilled chicken from the kabob place, so I decided to try to give her some piece of chicken that I tore up into small bites.

 

As evidenced by the pictures, she really took well to "real food" (even though it had a bit of kick to it... apparently she also likes spices).  It is becoming easier to feed her now - even though it's much messier as she prefers to try to feed herself, I don't need to mash up or puree everything.  At the aforementioned birthday party this evening, I was able to just rip off pieces of banana or pull of bits of pizza and give them to her to gnaw on.  I was worried about how we were going to travel with all of her homemade baby food, but the last couple days have shown me that as long as I bring some veggies, she can really make do with whatever I can find.

Little Baby, Big Head

Andrews girls have big heads.  And I guess I have passed that gene on to my daughter.  I thought she was getting so tall, but she's only grown 1" in the past 3 months - up to a whopping 27" long (as TJ pointed out, that's 6" longer than she was when she was born!), which is in the 36 percentile.  She now weighs in at more than a bowling ball - 18 lbs, only the 31st percentile, but though I forget the exact number, her head circumfrence is in the 57th percentile.  Go big head!

In other words, I'm going to have to start babyproofing sooner than later.  At my parents house for dinner tonight Sarah will now crawl across the floor to a table, and pull herself up on the table, regardless of the height (or the sharp corners).  Just looking around our family room right now I see chairs that are unstable, tables that have sharp corners, books and game systems just waiting to be pulled on top of a little head, and plugs that are just asking for little fingers to be stuck into them.  It's amazing how differently I look at a room or anything now when viewed from the perspective of a month.  I may not care about germs - a binkie falls on the floor I am a firm believer in the 5 second (ok, 10 second) rule, but large heavy objects are a different store.

9 Months

Last week someone said to me isn't it strange that Sarah has been outside of you for as long as she was inside of you?  And I responded, not quite.  And though technically 40 weeks isn't until another 8 days or so, I feel 9 months is somewhat of a milestone.  We got her a leapster table a couple weeks ago off Craigslist and in the few weeks since we've had it, she can now pull herself up to a standing position using it, and grab across the table to the "instruments" that she likes best, when before she couldn't reach.  My mother and TJ commented this morning how tall she's gotten, so I'm quite excited about getting her measured tomorrow, though I suspect this means she's nearing the end of her infant car seat.

In other developments Sarah has graduated from creeping to crawling.  And she's fast! If she sees something she wants, she's off and ... crawling?  Unfortunately she has not yet discerned the ability to realize that she can't keep crawling once she reaches the edge of the couch or our bed.  We've added more and more solids to her diet, which makes keeping her busy at restaurants much easier now that I can just rip off a piece of bread or some rice and feed it to her.  Though she is starting to develop an independent streak, where she wants to feed herself.  I'm not sure I'm ready for that mess yet.

No talking yet - but she's great at imitating snorting.  For some reason she no longer laughs, but curls her upper lip and snorts.  Perhaps her teeth get in the way.  Or perhaps the baby cold that she's passed to everyone else in the family continues to rear its ugly head.  I suspect we'll get a mama (or more likely a dada) sometime this month.  I'm excited except I read on some message board it's so much harder to ignore a crying baby and let her put herself back to sleep when she's not only crying, but she's crying for you.

As this blog is for my own records, I'll probably post again tomorrow with her weight, since I know her Grandma and Ppa are always concerned about their little peanut!