Lamens Family: 9 Months Old

9 months is one of those big milestones to me as Lucy's now been with us for as long as she was growing inside me. Time is going by WAY too fast!

Our BIG girl's 9 months check up stats:
Weight 23 lbs. 5 oz. - 97th percentile (3 lbs bigger than Ella at this age)
Height 29.5 inches - 96th percentile (exactly the same as Ella)
Head circumference 17.9 inches - 90th percentile (1/2 inch bigger than Ella)

Have I mentioned how sweet and smiley Lucy is!? I mean, we see it on a daily basis, but people comment all the time on what a smiley, happy baby she is. She continues to be super social - she constantly makes eye contact with strangers and gives them big smiles and always, always wants to be in on what's going on. She does a cute little lean or will wiggle her way to where she can see what's going on and be part of the action.

She's a pro at doing an army crawl but can't seem to manage getting that belly off the ground to do a more traditional crawl! She has no problem getting what she wants across the room - it just takes a little crawling, rolling, pivoting, inching, and scooting to get it. She's able to sit up by herself from a laying down position.

She is stubborn and determined (must take after her sister). Little miss will rarely open her mouth to eat any sort of purees, rice cereal, or anything that is soft or mushy (maybe it's a texture thing??). Every once in awhile she'll surprise us and eat a whole pouch since I continue to offer purees to her most days. But more often she won't open her mouth to let a spoon near her mouth. However, she'll gladly feed herself and enjoys trying to put noodles, cheese, fruit, puffs, mum-mums, peas, rice cakes, crackers, avocados, turkey, spaghetti or any other "real" food in her mouth. I guess it's sort of nice that we can just bypass the "spoon feeding" phase, but she's still not getting the amount of solid foods most other babies her age are getting because not much actually makes it in. Lily (yes, Lily still exists) loves hovering under her high chair and does a great job on clean up for us - at least Lily's earning her keep this way. Lucy is certainly on her own time table and schedule.

She's started making more pronounced babbling noises - "dadada" and "nanana" are favorites.

Her top two middle teeth just cut through in the last few days! Those ones are big guys and I'm sure so painful. She's had some hard nights/naptimes that I attribute to teething, but for the most part it doesn't seem to bother her too much. She also gives the best slobbery kisses on our cheeks - Ella's somewhat terrified of her kisses because of those "sharp, sharp teeth!"

She is our "touch/tactile" baby. If she's fussy or having a hard time sleeping, she's most easily soothed by us petting her head or back. She will sit frozen still if we give her a back tickle and just enjoy it. She always has to be holding one of my fingers while nursing and will flail her arms around until she finds a finger to hang onto. She's been pretty cuddly lately, and will snuggle and lay her head down on my chest when she first wakes up in the morning and when she's going to sleep - love it!

After bath curls!

She's wanting to stand up a lot more to play with her toys but isn't too stable on her own for very long...

She was entertaining us at dinner one night with her facial expressions and tongue tricks...

Love her little dimple :)...

Excited to get her hands on her sister's princess dress that was left out...

I feel like she's starting to look more and more like a little girl rather than a baby...

Easily entertained by laundry baskets...

We just moved her to her big girl car seat...

She has an intense fascination with the vacuum - she gets really excited and starts flapping her hands wildly when she sees it. She loves touching it and inspecting it up close...