Avery Turns 9 Months

Avery turned 9 months on January 10th.  I was waiting to update everyone until I had Avery's 9 month stats from her doctor's appointment, but unfortunately she was sick at her 9 month appointment so we had to reschedule for next month. I'll send a little update then. For now though, I think she's growing well and is absolutely perfect (but I may be a little biased...hee hee). 

Speaking of growing, while she was at the doctor for being sick with an ear infection, she did get weighed and she weighed in at a comfortable 20 pounds 3 ounces. I checked a babycenter percentile calculator and they said that weight fell into the 50th to 75th percentile. We'll see at the actual appointment. 

As far as I know though, she seems to be doing great. She's eating like a champ. Now she's eating almost any and all table food. Of course we break everything up into tiny bits, but she can pretty much each anything. A normal meal will have bits of fruit, some protein, some veggies and some carbs and then also purees of fruit and veggie. She is also still nursing 4 times a day. We are weaning that down to about 2 a day though and as I type we're pretty much there, but a few weeks ago at 9 months we weren't so I don't want to jump the gun. 

Avery is sleeping through the night, however she still seems to get irritated by teething and will wake up from her naps or at night without warning. Oh goody. She's sweet, but she sure doesn't seem to like to sleep consistently. An "ideal" day would have her waking up around 6 or 6:30, taking a nap at 9:30 or 10am, sleeping until 12pm and then going down for another nap at 3 or 3:30, sleeping until 5 and going to sleep for the night around 8pm. This happens occasionally, and usually her morning nap is better than her afternoon nap, but when she does take a good afternoon nap (2 hours or more) it's awesome.  

She is still a sweet girl and her fussiest time seems to be right before dinner unfortunately as I'm trying to scramble everyone's meals together, but other than that, she is rarely fussy. The other day at the grocery store, she had just had lunch, after a great nap and was the most smiley baby I had ever seen. She was hamming it up and smiling and waving at everyone. It was adorable. While she doesn't seem to have separation or stranger anxiety (except for Santa), she isn't always handing out the smiles to everyone. She can sometimes just be super mellow and just sit quietly in a stroller observing life around her. 

Avery has starting wracking up tricks these days and it seems to be fast and furious. She started crawling just before she turned 9 months, but now it's more like a sprint crawl than just a slow meandering crawl. 

She's got some strong will too. For example, she seems hell bent on crawling into our bathrooms and pulling up on the toilet seats (gross I know). I have to be eagle eyed to keep her away and have gone so far as when Connor goes potty, I have to shut the door so she won't come in and crawl around the toilet. Anyway, the other day, she was crawling in the hall towards the bathroom and I said, "Avery, no sweetie. You can't crawl around the bathroom." She looked up at me and literally starting crawling faster than I had ever seen her crawl to the open bathroom door. She was trying to make a run for it. That little dickens!! I grabbed her of course, but it was really funny. She's already a little sassy. Oh no. 

She also is cruising so well now. She can make laps around our coffee table and pull up on just about anything, including a flat wall. We haven't seen her take any steps just yet (well maybe one or two here or there), but she's getting more and more confident every day. She is also doing pretty well with push toys, which I remember Connor struggling with even after he learned to walk since they move pretty fast especially on a hard wood floor. Oh goodness. 

She still doesn't have any words, but she likes to screech and she'll say "Ma, ma, ma" or "Da, da, da." I don't think she is meaning to speak to one of us though. Man, at dinner, when she's not getting fed her baby food fast enough, she'll screech so loud. Connor often says, "Avery stop" which just adds to the volume. Anyone want to come over for dinner? Ha!

One of her cutest skills these days is waving. If you wave at her or say, "hi Avery" or "bye Avery" she'll wave. Man is it cute. She mimics movements too. If you put your hands up and down she may try it or one day I was putting my head to the side and she would do it too and laugh. 

Well here are some recent pics of our 9 month old baby girl and some recent videos. Enjoy!

Sweet Avery at 9 months old!

I'm sassy and sweet.

I'm cute, but boy do I drool. I'm a shark with 8 teeth! 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom.

I can crawl and get my sign now. This is fun. Destruction, here I come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtIuullV5ww&feature=share&list=UU7PBoSNM5PePPzZTaIocn2Q
This video is from the first day she learned to crawl. Man, to see how fast she goes now is amazing. She started crawling on December 27th. Jeff had guessed she crawl before the end of 2012 and man, she just made it. Ha!

http://youtu.be/H0viFwAEe_I
Avery waving and cruising. 

 http://youtu.be/_NCbsOm_TlU
Avery walking with a push toy. In this video she isn't walking very straight, but normally she's pretty good with one of these things.