More "Miss"-cellany

I can't believe Miss is nine months old. Where did the time go? It seems as though the past nine months of her little life have flown by so much faster than the nine months I was pregnant and waiting (and waiting!) for her to arrive. She is now crawling at lightning speed, easily pulling up to standing, and doing the "look Mom, no hands!" move in trying to stand on her own. She is starting to cruise along a bit as well. She has gotten three more teeth (for a grand total of six) and is sleeping through the night consistently.

She is eating three solid meals per day now and has a good appetite. She is also very opinionated about what she does and doesn't like. She has moved from just fruits and veggies and a little bit of oatmeal to dairy and proteins. Her new favorites are cottage cheese and turkey. She loves them so much in fact, she really can't be bothered with vegetables anymore. I have to mix almost any vegetable she eats with cottage cheese in order to get some good carbs in her! The exceptions to this are sweet potato and sometimes zucchini. She does still like fruit, but her favorite for breakfast now is toasted O's cereal covered in yogurt. This is quite messy, but she loves it. She is beginning to get bored with pureed or mushy foods that need to be fed to her on a spoon and wants to do everything herself. In fact sometimes the only way I can get her to eat mushy food is to let her have her own spoon so she can "help," or give her something to eat with her fingers and sneak spoonfuls of food in between bites she feeds herself. Feeding her is truly an exercise in patience!

She is showing some funny new facial expressions. Ben says she is starting to be just like me in this regard. She now crinkles her nose quite a bit, which he says I do all the time (I didn't realize this) and she sticks her little tongue out when she's concentrating, which I definitely do all the time! She also does a cute little full-body wiggle when she gets excited, which I have been known to do also :) She makes a funny little fish smile, where she half-smiles and sort of sucks her cheeks in at the same time. Don't know where she got that one, but it's adorable.

Miss is becoming more and more vocal and likes to make lots of new sounds. She makes some funny growling and grunting noises now and her vocal inflection is very expressive. She also has said her first word, "Ma-ma" of course. I love it. I have been working on a few ASL signs with her and she definitely understands many of them - "milk, eat, more" though she has yet to definitely make any of them yet. There was one time I was pretty sure she signed "all done" and another time I think she signed "milk" but it's a little hard to tell, so maybe not. Either way, she is definitely getting more and more communicative.

We are really looking forward to celebrating the holidays with her for the first time this year. Her first Christmas should be a blast and I have had such fun shopping for her. I can't believe that thoughts of her first birthday party have already begun to creep into my thoughts from time to time. It will be here before I know it!