Nine months

The theme of this month was mobility, and as such, it was much harder to take pictures of this girl. I was trying to take approximately the same pictures every month for comparison’s sake, but this month I gave up. It’s impossible to get her to lie still on her back for even a second. At Eleanor's doctor’s appointment we found out that she weighs 17 pounds, 14 ounces (33^rd percentile), is 28 inches long (67^th percentile, and almost 42% of the way to my adult height), and has a 17 inch head circumference (27^th percentile).

The month started out with Eleanor learning how to sit up from a laying down position. We would walk into her room after naps and she would be sitting up in her crib. Shortly thereafter, she learned how to pull up on things and we would walk into her room and she would be standing! We dropped her crib down after that. I was fairly convinced that since she was pulling up to stand, she would never crawl, but sure enough, around 8 and ½ months she started crawling. She’s still a little uncoordinated and pauses every few seconds to attempt to stand, but mostly she is getting where she wants to go, which tends to be to the nearest thing she can pull up on. Just about the day she officially turned 9 months, she started cruising on furniture. So as you can see, she’s very mobile now. All that’s left is learning to walk, and I could be wrong, but I’m predicting she’ll learn to walk sometime after she turns 10 months old. 

She is also starting to learn how to wave, but only to her dad. Eleanor starting using consistent sounds this month for things she wants. For example, she looks at Chris and says “da da da da” and when she’s attempting to climb into my lap she says “muh muh muh muh.” The only other sound that is fairly consistent is when she wants milk she says “na na na na” – not sure where that one came from (possibly from eating a lot of banana?). Perhaps the most interesting change this month is that she seems to love animals. Whenever a dog or cat comes by, she starts crawling over to them and making frantic noises until she can pet them. I’m really not sure where that came from, but animals definitely interest her.

Things that have stayed the same this month: still only two teeth, and still sleeping through the night, though only at home. We've traveled a bit this month and when she sleeps in the same room as us, she ends up waking up multiple times and not going back to bed. I think she thinks its morning and time to play when she sees us. She still doesn't love the sippy cup, but is getting more receptive to it and better at holding it. 

Eleanor at one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight months.