9 Months

Dear Claire,

Today marks the day that you have been in this world as long as you were inside me. This thought is just crazy and as I was putting you to sleep tonight I thought about the first night we spent in the hospital. Lets just say I was panicky the whole time and didn’t sleep, daddy snored, and you just slept so quietly in your little cart. That was until I would wake up in a panic and tell daddy to turn on the lights to make sure you were still breathing. I was and still am such a paranoid mommy. I keep your breathing monitor on all night, during naps, and freak out if someone forgets to turn it on. You are such a deep sleeper and this month you have started taking 2 really long naps a day and best of all sleeping from 8 pm to anywhere between 7 and 7:30 am. It is so amazing. I didn’t even realize how we weren’t sleeping very much at night after awhile. I still wake up in the middle of the night to check on you but don’t go into your room anymore. You are so happy after a good night sleep and after your naps.

You are eating like crazy! You have two teeth on the bottom so you cant chew on hard things yet. You eat puffs and yogurt bites for snacks while on the go and waiting for mommy or daddy to feed you. You are eating stage 2 and stage 3 foods with real deal fruits and veggies mixed in. your favorites are bananas and pears. This month you started picking food up by yourself and that is something that is very important to you. We noticed you like to pick things up, put them in your mouth and chew. We are so proud of you. You are also getting really good at using the sippy cup. You are still taking about 3 bottles of formula a day, usually before naps and for sure at bedtime.

You are still enjoying Gymboree class and have really started to become a very active little person. You pull up on everything, try to walk around the couch, and are crawling very quickly! We had to block off the entrance to the living room so that you can’t escape and stick your fingers in the light sockets because they are your favorite things to get into. We tell you no or trying to redirect you but you just stare at us and smile. Your little smile is crazy cute and it’s so funny to watch you being sneaky. You love your learning table, crawl ball, babies, books, and chasing Winston. You still love jumping in your jump a roo and watching Mickey Mouse and Sesame Street.

You have started “talking” and yelling “dada”, “mama”, and “baba” all the time. We know you don’t know what that means yet but we are always talking to you like you do. You clap your hands and wave while saying something like “bye-bye”. You love mommy and daddy and have become cautious of other people. You even cry when we go out of the room.

Today on your 9 month birthday you got a new car seat! I can’t believe that you are getting so big so fast. We go to the doctor next week for your check up to see how big you are. I think you are around 19 or 20 pounds but we will see.

We love you little stinker,

Mommy and Daddy