Haven is 9 months!!! (3/4 of a year!)

This month has been the fastest one yet!!  She's definitely grown up so much this past month, I think moreso than any other month!  And she's officially toddling around, so I think I can no longer refer to her as a baby, but have to call her a TODDLER instead! CRAZY!

Here are her 9 month stats:

Weight: 21lbs, 0oz (as of 9/30/10)


Length: 30.5in (as of 9/30/10)

(Venily was 19lbs, 9oz and 29.25in at 9m)


Haven's updated growth charts:

Clothes size: mostly 12m & 18m (I still put her in some 6-9m dresses as well)

Diaper size: 3

Shoe size: 3 or 4 still (some 3's are too small, some 4's are too big!)

*and a new measurement to document hair growth*
HAIR LENGTH: longest top pieces- 1.25 inches
longest bottom/back pieces- 1.5 inches (and these are the fullest on her head and get super curly when she's sweaty!!!) :)

Here's what Venily's hair looked like:  She had much longer top hair strands, but also a bald spot in the back- and her swirl of course (wet & extra swirled in pic below)! :)

SLEEPING: Oh, where have I gone wrong, lol?!  Will no longer put herself to sleep, for naps or at bedtime!!  I have to nurse her to sleep or hold her and pat her back and then put her in her crib carefully! :(  If I try to put her down drowsy but awake, she stands right up and yells and cries!  That was always the problem I had with Venily (though Venily NEVER put herself to sleep since day 1).  I was so hopeful for Haven!  I attempted sleep training one day... that didn't go over so well.  I will try again though someday soon, maybe after we pop all these teeth through!  I SHOULD do it next week while Jason is out of town doing work b/c he does not handle it very well... I will ask her pediatrician about it on Wednesday!

Haven also pushed her bedtime to much later, usually around 10pm now, sometimes even later.  For some reason she gets a huge surge of energy after Venily goes to bed.  She wants to walk around and play!!!  When she does go down though, she usually wakes up between 4:30 and 5:30 to nurse and then sleeps until around 7:00- 8:00am.

2-3 naps a day, though lately she is fighting her morning nap!  In the summer it's hard to get on a solid schedule since we are always running around places!  Unfortunately, the girls rarely nap at the same time anymore!  But on the now rare chance I get them to, I feel like the most amazing mom in the world! :)

EATING: Still breastfeeding throughout the day- 5 times maybe?  I have no idea, I'm going to do a 'day in the life' soon and will keep track!  Still eating 3 solid food meals and some snacks. We are usually doing 2 "real" food meals a day now, with one meal of baby food or baby cereal, sometimes all 3 "real" food meals and no baby food!  This week she has just started to refuse her baby food.  She'll eat a few spoonfuls and then start spitting it out when she doesn't want any more!  She thinks baby food is for babies and that she's a big girl now!


But she LOVES anything she can eat with her fingers!  I gave her her own spoon and bowl of oatmeal a few days ago to eat all by herself for the first time and she went NUTS!! Thought it was the greatest, funnest thing in the whole wide world!  She did pretty good with spoon feeding herself.  Stupid me, forgot that we had SUCTION CUP BOWLS though!!! haha.  (we've been using the suction cup one since then and it goes a LOT better).  She also ate it with her fingers as well.  She ate 2 BIG bowls of it, and was literally trying to eat every last speck!  I should do this every day, but it's just such a mess and she is only supposed to get a bath every 2-3 days (though almost impossible to wait that long in summer)!  So we are trying to do it on bath days from now on!

She is also getting too smart for her own good when it comes to food.  If she wants something that I'm eating, I used to be able to give her something of hers to eat and she'd be fine.  Now she knows better and wants what I'm eating!!  Oh well Haven, you ended up with one of those crazy moms that wants you to eat healthy all the time, haha!  (You'll thank me when you're older!  ♥ )  Seriously though, I'm a slight bit more relaxed with Haven than I was with Venily.  With Venily I'd almost have a panic attack every single time someone so much as gave Venily a piece of white bread!  It still gets me a little panicky with Haven, but I can breath through it now! :)  But sorry Haven, no candy, chocolate, Popsicles, salty, over processed or otherwise unhealthy food until you are 2, and only then in moderation!  People can judge me as they will, but I handled it fine with Venily and will do so with Haven too!


I still haven't found anything she won't eat!  I actually go out of my way to try and find things too!  Onions, peppers, boiled egg yolks, broccoli, spicy vegetarian chili... you name it, she literally eats anything!

Drinks from a sippy cup, from a regular cup (I even give her her big girl Tylenol in the little cup now), and from a cup with a straw!

PLAYING: Her push toys are still her favorite (or anything that CAN be pushed).  She loves to be standing while playing with anything!  And she loves pushing them through the house!  She is also really into books right now.  And will happily play with all her books and is so captivated while I show her pictures and tell her what everything is!  I make it a point to read to her every single day (she also listens in on Venily's books, but Venily usually picks really long books).  We are currently working on naming animals and what sounds they make, since that is her favorite thing!!  She knows what a duck, dog, and kitty are!  Paper is also an obsession of hers!  She can detect paper from a mile away and will shred it to pieces and eat as much of it as she can, given the chance!  Her absolute favorite toys though are her ducks!!  Her face just lights up when she sees them! :)

She also loves songs and dancing!  Her favorite songs are "Pat-a-cake" and "If You're Happy and You Know It" because she likes doing the motions!  And she loves dancing to music.  She can dance better than I could ever dream of!  ♥  Nothing is better than hearing a song and watch her break out into her booty shaking dance!  ♥ ♥
Naming body parts:  Haven loves when we work on naming body parts every day as well.  She can point out teeth and sometimes eyes (especially on dolls).  She likes pointing at different things on my face while I tell her what they are.


Loves playing peek-a-boo and burying her head and popping back up when you ask where she is!  ♥



APPEARANCE: She continues to get longer and thinner!  EVERYONE comments on how tall she is!  And when people guess her age they usually guess around 18m!  haha!  We are still waiting on more hair! (see hair length above).  Eyes are still blue (YAY!)... hoping we are past the possibility of changing point! ;)


TEETH: 2 bottoms still, and all 4 of the tops are really swollen and ready to come through soon! Her right lateral incisor is almost through, hoping they all come quickly!  They don't bother her too much until nighttime! :(  We've been doing Orajel, cool teething rings, chewing on ice pops in the plastic, and Tylenol!


SPEECH: She is definitely verbal like her sister!  Her favorite words as of right now are "this" and "that" (referring to pretty much anything that she points to, lol, Jason was eating one day with his shirt off and Haven came over and pointed at his nipple and says "THIS?"  She's so funny!!), "duck", "Dada", "teeth", "more", "hi", "Mama", "ball", "dog" and she also can say "eat","up",  "kitty" (kkkkk), "ick", and will attempt to say other words!

-signs:  
*previous-"eat", waves, claps, does "so big", gives high fives, pats her legs for "pat it", puts her hands up to be picked up, points at things she wants or when asked where something is
*new- "water" (she made up her own sign for it, she waves her hands up and down like she's splashing every time she sees water!), and she copies me for "all done"/"all gone" (which I made up a sign for, I have no idea what it actually is, it's the same I used for Venily though, haha!) 
*working on- "roll it" and blowing kisses

MOVEMENT:  Crawls up on all fours most of the time, rarely now she'll drop down to an army crawl still and make me laugh!  She is FAST too when she wants something, especially if she knows I'm on my way to get it away from her!  

 

Can walk across the room all by herself now too!!!!!  I have counted her take 24 consecutive steps in a row now!  She looks like such a big girl walking, I know it won't be long before she is walking more than crawling!  She can also walk all around while just holding onto one of my fingers!  She also climbs like crazy!  She can climb all the way up our flight of stairs, and is always climbing up on anything she can!  I had thought I had a pretty good arrangement to keep her in my living room, but that too did not last long, she just climbs over the whole thing now!  She can not be contained, lol!

She will walk without holding onto anything to transfer from object to object.  And will take off walking after pulling up on things.  Also, able to stand up in the middle of the room now without pulling up or touching anything!

PERSONALITY:  She is very silly and LOVES to laugh and make other people laugh!!!  She is a very content child, but she gets very frustrated when she can't do something.  Before she was mobile she was getting VERY frustrated, but now is a much happier little girl again!!


If I am holding her or if someone else is holding her and I am not in sight, she is very happy.  However, if someone else (including Jason sometimes, lol) is holding her and she sees me, she cries for me.  Makes me think I should let Jason (or someone else) watch her more often so she overcomes some of that, but it causes me physical pain to even think about being away from her, lol!  I have been away from her for probably a total of 7 hours since she was born (and all of those hours were her Dad watching her)!  Wait, no, my sister did watch her for an hour one time, though it was at night and she was already sleeping in bed for the night... haha.

OTHER:  
All her constipation issues cleared up, thankfully!   

I wish we had our central air hooked up b/c Haven still gets really sweaty!  She wakes up from her naps drenched in sweat, even if it's not that hot.  And when I nurse her, I look at her head and see that her whole head is covered in beads of sweat! 

Haven is able to follow simple instructions like "Go get your ball" or "give your baby a kiss".

*********

AT 9 MONTHS...

Haven's LIKES:

*Walking!!!

*DOGS- and all other animals too!  She CAN'T WAIT to go to the fairs!!


* Toy ducks! :)

* Cardboard toy pieces- puzzle pieces, game pieces, Venily's flashcards

* Still loves her BIG sister more than anything!!  ♥

*Eating big girl food

* Pushing toys around the house


*Water, sand, dirt, grass, sticks, leaves, flowers... anything outside!!

*Getting into everything and breaking out of Mommy's barriers!  She learned how to open up the screen door today too!

Haven's DISLIKES:
* Not being able to communicate something to me.  I can see her little face get so frustrated, as if she's yelling "Why can't you understand me?!"

*Teeth coming in! :(

*Sleeping... there is just TOO MUCH TO DO!!

HAVEN/ VENILY COMPARISON: (Venily's 9 Month Update)



Pics: Venily at 9 months!