9 Months

9 months in, 9 months out.

I still can't believe that this time last year I was still pregnant. It just blows my mind that Zoe hasn't been with us longer. She is the light of our life and it's hard to remember a time without her around.

She is crawling up a storm now and is easily moving from sitting to crawling and crawling to sitting. I kind of scoffed at the idea of removing everything she could grab besides toys at her level before but now I get it. Our bottom shelves are bare, our electrical outlets are plugged up, and I'm running the vacuum daily. She is getting into anything and everything and doesn't understand NO! quite yet. Or she does and she's giving us the runaround.

Before she was crawling, she was pivoting around on her tummy and sliding around on our hardwood floors. A month ago, Landon and his dad installed a sprinkler system and laid down new sod so our floors were a mess for a solid week. We must have missed some clumps of dirt that had been tracked in because while I was washing dishes on day, I looked over and saw brown gunk all around Zoe's mouth. I pried it open and yup, lots of delicious dirt was being stored in her cheeks like a little chipmunk. Over to the high chair she went where I leaned her back and started scooping it out with my fingers and wet paper towels. Yuck yuck yuck. She, of course, didn't seem to mind and has since tried to eat even more dirt. And cat fur. And cat food. Isn't it funny how babies can pinpoint the smallest speck of dirt from a mile away, crawl on over to it in a flash, and instantly pick it up and put it in their mouth? 

This past month she got her first tooth. All I can say is thank goodness for teething tablets. She loves those (we call them her happy pills) and chewing on just about anything except cold or frozen teethers. I think one or two other ones are beginning to poke through but it's hard to say since she really hates us sticking our fingers in her mouth. Can't say I blame her!

{'Do you like my new cloth diaper that I really didn't *need* but my mom said was too cute to pass up?' [I have a problem]}

The other day, she had her first real play date with a friend a few days older than her. I was shocked at how little she interacted with him since she's pretty much a ham around us. Instead, she happily played with a few toys and spent most of the time watching him play. It was pretty stinkin' adorable and I'm glad she's at a point now where she can kind of play with other babies and start to interact with them. This stay at home mama is all about the play dates.

Here are some fun statistics for the completely nonexistent baby book:

Height: 17.3 inches - She's our little shorty....
Weight: 18 pounds 13 ounces - ...And our little chunk.

Hair color: Brown

Eye color: Blue

Teeth: 0.5 (it still hasn't grown in much yet)

Words: Dada, Mama, Baba (she kind of runs them together though - dadadadada- and doesn't really distinguish between them so...maybe they're just sounds?)

Number of naps per day: 2

Sleeping: Bed around 6:30, Feeding around 9:30, Awake for a feeding more often than not around 3:00, Feeding around 5:00, Awake for the day around 7:00

Favorite food: Anything and everything. New things we've introduced her to recently for her to feed herself are salmon, teething biscuits, and those baby cheese puffs, along with the usual banana, avocado, and pureed baby food. Plus, she can feed baby food pouches to herself since she learned how to suck from a straw pretty early on. She still loves to eat!

Favorite toys: This set of bath toys that she chews on all day, everyday. 

Favorite activities: Running errands (seriously!), exploring the house by crawling, finding the smallest specks of crumbs and dirt to put in her mouth on the floor, and going on walks.

We love you forever, baby girl!

Lots of hugs,
Kayla/Mamamamama

P.S. The only pictures I got of her where the '9 Month' sticker was actually visible were super blurry. Like I said, she prefers everything in the mouth.