9.5 Months

It's a little blurry, but I can't believe I caught this picture. This captures so much of Finley's personality at this age. The spiky soft hair that she rubs to get to sleep, the eight teeth peeking through that sweet smile, the squinted eyes when she laughs, and that nose wrinkle. Oh we just love that nose wrinkle!

Stats at her nine month check up:
weight: 20 lbs (75th percentile)
height: 29 inches (75th percentile but she was wiggly so they think she is actually taller, usually 95th percentile)

She army crawls on her tummy like a champ, picking up all of the dog hair and dirt from our hardwood floors on her clothes along the way. She has now mastered sitting up from crawling, which is so stinkin cute. When Grayson and I wake her up from naps now she is sitting up ready for us, which Grayson finds hysterical. She is happy when she wakes up and laughs and smiles when we come in to get her.

She just started pulling up to her knees on things, but not to her feet yet. I'm sure it's soon. Her favorite spot to pull up is the potty. Nice. What is it with children loving the bathroom? And yes, I only refer to the "toilet" now as the "potty" with a three-year-old in the house. Justin especially liked this vocabulary choice when we went with a realtor to look at a couple of houses in town and I was exclaiming, "oh this is a nice potty", "oh, two pottys would be nice". Ha. And no, we're not moving. Not right now at least, but probably at some point in the next 4 years ;)

Back to the baby. She likes finger foods. Most favorites include any sort of carb like cheerios, puffs, crackers, pancakes or waffles. She also likes chunks of pears, cooked apples, bananas, peas, carrots, corn, ground turkey and deli turkey. She loves yogurt and still eats a healthy amount of jarred baby food too, along with baby oatmeal in the morning.

She was nursing 4 times a day, morning, noon, afternoon and bedtime, but lately has become highly impatient and distracted. After a whole week of only wanting to nurse here and there and getting bottles here and there to supplement, it looks like she might drop down to nursing 3 times a day, morning, before nap, and before bed. We'll see.

She has started saying "mama" and "dada" and is getting more consistent about saying it right to us instead of just babbling it when we are in the room. She loves bath time and never cries when Justin pours water over her face.

Overall she is a happy little baby, as long as she gets her naps and is fed on time (aren't we all that way?!). She is also decently compliant on obeying our "no touch" wishes as she is into everything now. She still adores Grayson and echoes squeals when Grayson squeals first. She moves her whole body in excitement when she hears Grayson running down the hallway and squints and giggles when Gray runs into her room. She has started noticing Maggie more too, maybe because Maggie has started noticing her more that finger foods are being thrown on the floor. Thank goodness for a dog to clean up meal time messes!