Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Nine Months Old!

Natalie is now nine months old which is a little scary because that means we are only three months away from having a one year old running around our house.  This past month has been super busy with Cross Country meets, basketball games and of course the Thanksgiving holiday.

Her nine month appointment won't be until a week from next Monday so I don't have her official stats, but I can tell you that she is definitely still long and lean.  As I was rocking her to sleep the other night I looked at her face and body and she is looking less and less like a "baby" and more like a little girl.  It doesn't help that she has SIX teeth!  Two on the bottom and FOUR on top!  She broke all four on top during the same week that she had croup.  But we all survived and I think Craig and I are just about caught up on the sleep we missed that week.

She has graduated from the belly crawl to the full hands and knees crawl and when she is cruising around the house on all fours, for whatever reason, she hums to herself.  In addition to humming, although she isn't really saying WORDS out loud, she is mimicking the tone and inflection of our voices.  Sometimes when I'm talking with Angie, I call out her name in a singsong voice "An-ge-LI-na!" and sure enough, Natalie mimics the same singsong tone.  She is pulling up on everything but not really consistently "cruising" on the furniture.  If there is something down the couch that she wants, she'll just drop to her bottom and crawl over to get it instead of holding onto the couch and walking.  

Natalie's sleeping schedule has gotten better for the most part.  We added rice cereal to thicken up her baby food in the evenings and she began sleeping through the night.  But now she is boldly fighting being spoon fed the baby food and is instead much happier when able to feed herself solid food such as cheese, bread, puffs etc.  So I guess we're going to have to rethink her diet and how we can still get the same amount of food into her belly so that she'll sleep through the night.  

Her personality is developing more and more - she is still a relatively cautious child with new people and you certainly have to work hard to get a smile out of her.  But she is curious and always checking out what is going on around her.  She loves watching Craig's basketball games and she cheers (okay.....screams) after the crowd cheers.  She figured out how to make the kissing *smack* sound with her lips, but after a few days of impressing us with her new trick, she has quit doing it and has moved onto clicking her tongue.  

Here are a few things that she's been up to this month!
Riding on the Barbie four-wheeler at Nonna and Grandaddy's house for Thanksgiving.

My dad would make the "vroom-vroom" noises and Natalie would echo with her own grunts and growls.

She played with her cousin Alexander at Thanksgiving.

She has started this funny little nose scrunch and giggle thing.

The best picture of the three older cousins that we could get.

We've started giving her bubble baths because it's easier to get her clean with the tub full of soap than just putting the soap on a washcloth and rubbing her down.

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