ada charlotte {9 months}

Miss Ada,

9 months old! You've been out longer than you were in! It's pretty mind blowing :)

I feel like your personality really exploded this month. I've always felt like you have a personality, but I guess it just gets bigger and bigger as you do 😊 You have become quite the busy-body this month, too. You're still not crawling, but every time I turn around, you've managed to move a good distance to get to something you shouldn't be playing with. You never hold still -- you're always looking all around, most of all if someone is holding you. Idk if it's just because you're a baby or if it's because you are your daddy's daughter, but you are one curious girl :) I sure love you!

Stats

You weigh 17.2 pounds (33%) and you are 27.75 inches long (54%).
I think I've officially put away most of your 0-3 month clothing (but just most of it). You wear pretty much all 3-6 month or 6 month clothing now, with a few 6-9 month items that are too big haha :)
Still in size 3 diapers.

Notable events

My uncle passed away this last month, so that gave you a chance to meet Aunt Brooke and Uncle Ryan a month earlier than you were supposed to since they came out for the funeral.
You met your cousin Tilli on her blessing day.

We celebrated Dad's first Father's Day with you on the outside! It was a mostly uneventful day, filled with lots of naps for all of us (I think more naps for Dad than for anyone). But I just hope you always love your Daddy so much, because you got SUCH a good dad. He adores you so much :) I hope you always feel so lucky to have him.

Tricks/Milestones

You started waving at the beginning of the month! It is stinkin' adorable. You do all sorts of waves, and most of them are a bit wonky, but you are definitely waving in response to people waving at you.

You started saying "mama," but the jury is still out on whether you know that it's my name. I think you do, because you often say it when you're wanting my attention.
You started noticing all the specks. If there's a tiny piece (we're talking like size of a peppercorn) of styrofoam on the ground, you find it. When you're sitting in your seat at the granite countertop, you try to grab at all the speckles in the pattern. Literally any teeny tiny piece of anything, you try to grab. You're really working on those fine motor skills!
It's actually been a while, but you are no longer spitting up large quantities like you used to! Whether this is due to you getting older or you sleeping better, I'm not sure, but once you started sleeping better, you started eating better and spitting up less.
You're also mostly burping yourself now. I mean we still help you out, but the burps come much more quickly, and often when we're just holding you up under your arms -- not actually "burping" you.
You've figured out how to roll over in the tub without drowning! Thank goodness, because you were always trying to roll before but you didn't know how to do it without putting your face in the water.
You got your first haircut this month! I just trimmed the back because you were starting to get a mullet 😂

You've started to lift your arms out of the way when we reach for you -- aka you know we're trying to pick you up, and you accommodate. You still don't really reach out to anyone, though, like if I'm holding you and your dad comes to get you, you won't reach out and lean over to him (and vice versa, if he's the one holding you).
You are mimicking like crazy and it's adorable. You'll copy sounds (like we'll go back and forth saying ahhhhh in different tones and you'll always copy the sound and the tone), you'll stick your tongue in and out, and my personal favorite is when you shake your head back and forth over and over and over again :)
You can smoothly transition from sitting up to laying down.
You're kiiiiiiind of scooting. But mostly just rotating.
You are still NOT holding your own bottle, getting on your hands and knees (other than when we lay you down for a nap . . . you always do it in your crib!), or crawling.

My favorite things

You seem to be seeking and giving lots of kisses lately, and I love it!
I still love getting you up from naps. You are just always beyond happy to see me and it makes me feel real good :)
You started doing this hilarious panting/hyperventilating thing. You scrunch up your face and then breathe in and out super duper fast. It's especially funny with the way your gums look right now (no teeth yet, but your gums are no longer new baby gums).

You occasionally do a little duck face, and it's super funny and adorable.

For a few weeks this month, Dad's car was out of commission so he was using mine and we were therefore stranded at home. We go on stroller rides around the neighborhood every morning, but I needed more diversity than that, so after your first nap, I decided we'd walk the one mile to the post office to buy some stamps. Well it turned out that Art City Days was just starting, and there is a splash pad right in that area, so we explored the booths that were being set up and we spent a few minutes playing in the water (just on the edge though, since we were both in clothes). It was so fun to do this out-of-the-ordinary thing with you! We liked it so much that we went back again the next day :)
I love when you look up and back at me, like if you're sitting in my lap or riding in the stroller. You'll just look up at me with a huge smile and it is to. die. for!

Random tidbits

You are still napping and sleeping through the night like a CHAMP. Seriously. I've always loved you, even when your napping issues were driving me to literal insanity. But now that you take great naps and then you spend your wake periods super happy and smiley, I think I love you even more! It just fills me with happiness literally every single day when you take good naps :)

Despite your good naps, you were INCREDIBLY FUSSY for the first two weeks of this month. I had no. idea. what was going on. I thought maybe you were teething, but you never got any teeth. Maybe it was a growth spurt because you did grow about 3/4 inch in the last month. All I know is that you would start to get fussy about an hour after waking up, and then you would spend the next two hours super fussy. I had to constantly go to you to try to help you be happy, but even when I was there, you weren't happy. There were so many times when I would hold you to try to console you, and you would still just cry and cry. And then, out of nowhere, you stopped being fussy, and now you are pretty perfectly content during your 3-hour wake periods, even doing a lot of play on your own. Like I'll often be near you doing dishes or doing my hair or something, but you are mostly content to play on your own. It's night and day different from the beginning of the month. Who knows, maybe you were just getting used to the newest schedule adjustment.

Because you were so fussy for a while, I had to find ways to distract you. Most often I would take you on walks (2-3 walks/day!), but even when you had a toy in your hand while we on a walk, you could still be fussy -- a double distraction wasn't enough sometimes! Another thing I did to distract you was to have dance parties. I would turn on the iHome and we'd just dance to whatever came on shuffle. You always like our dance parties :)
You still have no stranger danger and you also still don't show preference toward me or dad -- you're perfectly happy with either of us at any given moment. You just love everyone!
You love to put paper and cardboard in your mouth. You were fussing in the car one day, so I gave you a piece of thin cardboard (thicker than cardstock, thinner than normal cardboard) to chew on. At one point I was pretty sure that you had a bite of it in your mouth, but I didn't think it was a big deal and I couldn't do anything about it from the front seat. Well, about an hour later, you spit up a quarter-sized piece of cardboard. Whoops. 🙈

You've decided that rolling every which way during diaper changes is the best thing ever. It makes things so difficult!
You've started throwing toys away from you when you're done with them, especially when you're in your chair at the bar.
You started seeming bored of some of the toys you've had for several months, so I started giving you different non-toy items to play with for a bit. Some of them include a spatula, a plastic spoon, a hanger, a tampon (first in the wrapper, then out of the wrapper 😂 ), a plastic ruler, wipe containers, and cellophane from a bouquet of roses Daddy got me.

You seem to be mostly done with eating our fingers, using burp cloths as toys, and obsessing over anything with a tag. You still do all of these things occasionally, but not with the frequency that you used to.
Your hair is growing in all over! I can now put your hair in little ponytails without it looking ridiculous :)

2.5 months ago vs. lately

We fed you lots of new things this month, including things like banana peppers, olives, and meat. You eat everything we feed you, and the only thing you have ever spit out was a raspberry. I'm hoping this means you won't be a picky eater! Bananas are still one of your favorites, and you definitely love all the bites of sweet things we give you -- as evidenced by your high-pitched screams when the treat is all gone. You definitely make it known that you were not done with that! 😂

You also fed yourself a few things in the last week! Cheerios and strawberries (cut up). I think you really liked feeding yourself, but I kept having to get pieces that had fallen into your seat or something since your motor skills aren't perfect yet :) It's so funny and adorable to watch you feed yourself though. Oh! You also fed yourself crackers this month. Guess it's time to try more baby-led weaning!

Not only do you love food, but you also love water! Or the straw we use to give you water. We're not quite sure which one it is that you really like, but whenever we give you water from the straw, you start hyperventilating with happiness 😂
You kind of love being washed off after a meal. I think you mostly like getting your tongue wiped off 😂
You love eating grass. I try to make sure you don't get any, but you're really good at getting a handful of little grass pieces and getting them in your mouth. Once they're in there, I try to get them out, but I always end up gagging you and causing you to spit up a whole bunch. So now I just let you eat it if you get it in there. You're still alive :)
You also started drinking the bathwater. When you're on your tummy, you stick your tongue in the water like a dog 😂

You always always always want to stand up. If we're both sitting on the ground facing each other, you are always leaning all the way forward until your hands are in my lap, and you're not satisfied til I've pulled you into a standing position. It's pretty cute :)

Love always,

Mama