Amber turned 9 months the last week in June.
Her stats:
Wt: 18 lbs 3oz - 50%
Ht: 80%
She started crawling on Father's Day and has gotten progressively faster at it! The game has certainly changed around here now that she is mobile. She was hesitant about crawling on the tile which helped contain her in certain areas of the house. However, a few days ago she realized the tile was not bad and now crawls on any surface!
2 days ago she started pulling up to standing! I mean she has only been crawling for 2ish weeks! And, to top it off TONIGHT, she crawled up onto the fireplace!
We are in trouble!!! What a totally different child from Nathan. If you remember, Nathan never crawled so we could leave him in 1 place and he would stay there. I am not used to having a fast crawler around. Yesterday I put the 2 of them in the play room while I started lunch and Amber crawls into the kitchen and under the table to eat the crumbs on the floor from breakfast.
Here is the little mover at 9 months. She is such a beautiful baby! I love all of her facial expressions, laughs and squeals! She is a much more personable baby, as she smiles, laughs and interacts with people so easily!
I have not taken enough pictures of her crawling so this is the best that I have to show.
She is a very happy baby! She has quite the little personality. She talks very loudly and it into everything. Her favorite "game" is to take any toy her brother is playing with and chew it. He is not a fan of this game and we have started dealing with working on sharing and not "harming" your sibling, even if she takes your favorite ducky!
She is doing much better about sleeping during the night. She usually will sleep from 8:30pm to about 5:30am, when she wakes up, drinks a bottle and then goes back to sleep until about 7:30.
She is still a bad napper, but that is partly my fault because I never got her on a good nap schedule.
With Nathan, my whole day revolved around his nap schedule, but now since I have 2kids, Amber odes not get the day revolved around her. Some days she takes to naps, other days she takes one.
My least favorite day is when they are on TOTALLY opposite nap schedules os I don't even get 5 minutes to my self without one of the awake. But, at the same time, when they are on opposite nap schedules I get to spend time with each child individually and I love that time.
She is not a good eater unless she is feeding herself. We can not get her to take more than 1 or2 bites of baby food. However, if you give her chunks of bread, apples, eggs (or broccoli!) she will happily feed herself. She does not actually eat that much of it, most of it ends up in her lap. I am not sure how to get more solids in her, since she does not eat much. She is still dependent on her bottles. At least she is experimenting with a plethora of different foods. She loves to gnaw on apple slices and I give her those most frequently because they are the easiest to clean up.
I have a feeling that she is going to be walking before we know it!
It amazes me how different 2 siblings can be at such an early age! They are quite opposite, although they do have some similarities. The biggest difference between them is just the age at which they accomplished gross motor skills. But I guess it is to be expected that the younger sibling will catch on sooner since they have an older sibling to watch. They both like to be outside and to swing! We spend a lot of time during the day swinging! They both love their cribs, as they sleep well in them and enjoy just playing in thier cribs. We never use their cribs as time-out or as a punishment, so they only have positive views of them. I guess that they feel safe in there?
They both are water babies too! Now that it is summer we have the pool blown up and in use most nights! Amber will just splash....however, tonight she tried to stand up on the side and nearly fell out onto her head, that girl!!
They both are at fun ages right now but I am still learning to appreciate all the small things! Some days I feel like all I do is clean up their messes and deal with meeting all their needs. I find it hard to find joy in those days, but as the Steven Curtis Chapman song says "Do every little thing to the Glory of the ONE who made you", and I am really trying to do that, with the Lord's help of course!!
Other days, it is easy to see that I made the right decision to only work part-time so I can relish all the little laughters, smiles and memories. On those days, the seemingly mundane tasks are enjoyable.