Tuesday, December 22, 2015

A Letter to Elise at 9 Months

Elise, my sweet girl, this month has been amazing and so much fun! You are the sweetest little baby and bring so much added joy to our family. I love your little two-toothed grin. Carter and I like to joke that all you want for Christmas is your two top teeth, but I've gotta be honest, I love the look of your smile with just your bottom two teeth. I'm continually amazed at how happy you are all the freakin time. You can skip a nap, be late getting fed, get stepped on, whatever, and you don't let it phase you. You rarely cry and are easily distracted with laughter. You have been and I'm sure will continue to be the perfect addition to our family. You make my heart feel so full and it's crazy for me to admit this, but you make our family feel complete.

It has been so much fun to watch you become mobile this month. You went from rolling and pushing everywhere to crawling a couple knees forward before falling. Your first little partial crawls were on December 6th. December 8th you got 2 knees forward while trying to get to Carter, no surprises there as you LOVE him! Now you can crawl all over the place and pretty fast! Wednesday the 16th you were starting to make it a little further crawling. Then that night daddy ran with you and Carter in the stroller so I could run speed work. You guys made it home before me and daddy called when I was on my way home saying you were going to town crawling. I was shocked when I got home to see in a matter of hours you had gone from maybe crawling 5 knees forward to going down the hallway! It was crazy! Then the next day you were even faster, pivoting and turning. I love that you will crawl over to me and put your hands on my feet when you want me to pick you up. I love you so much! You can go from sitting to all fours and then crawling. You can also go from all fours to sitting. This is all new territory for us as your brother didn't crawl until 11 months and it looked much different since he was so much older. You like to stand and when I go to put you in a sitting position you straight leg it and won't let me put you on your bottom. Just yesterday you started pulling up a little bit. I was in the shower and you crawled all the way into the shower over to the step up into the shower and pulled up to your knees to look in at me.

You still love water. In the bathtub you try to drink the water and when I go to wipe your face with a washcloth after a meal you grin excitedly and stick your tongue out to lick the washcloth. I crack up every time because when you see me walking toward you with a wash cloth you start wiggling your hands and legs in excitement. You also wiggle your hands and legs in excitement over your brother. You love him and laugh just looking at him. One of his favorite games right now is to run around the house while you chase him crawling. You'll get to the doorway of a room and peek around the doorframe at him. Then when he runs up, he'll see you laugh and take off running again. It's the absolute cutest!

I have been shocked by your huge appetite and what a big eater you are! For example, one day at lunch you ate an entire sweet potato, half a banana, and half an avocado, along with some puffs. With how much you love to eat, it was no surprise that you really enjoyed your first Thanksgiving. Turkey was a big hit! First foods this month were: plum (11/25), plain whole milk yogurt (11/30), Cheerios (12/1), acorn squash (12/5), broccoli (12/10), blueberries (12/15), kiwi (12/18), and chicken (12/20). We haven't found anything you don't like but you definitely have your favorites. Your go-tos are butternut squash, avocado, sweet potato, and bananas. You really liked blueberries and chowed down on them but I didn't want to give you too many since they were new. You tend to prefer things you can feed yourself and are awesome at doing just that. We rarely feed you anymore. Pretty much only when you fuss because you can't feed yourself as fast as you would like to be eating. A few times this last week I didn't cut up your banana and just let you go at it. You did an awesome job and even got less messy than when I cut it up for you! You are also a bit of a food hoarder. I constantly find food stored in your mouth after a meal. Before I put you down for a nap or bedtime I have to check your mouth for any food you may have been saving for later. It's pretty hilarious and makes me think of your Uncie Taco as he did that when he was little.

Like I said earlier, you are a flexible baby. If you have the chance you take a 1-2 hour morning nap. But lately you've been sleeping until 8 am and aren't ready for a nap until 10:00 or so when we are heading out for a playdate or are on an outing. In those situations I try to get you to nap in the carrier. Sometimes you nap for 30 minutes to an hour in it, other times you just skip your morning nap. Most days you at least nap for 30 minutes. Then you take a nice 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon when Carter naps. You used to wake up before Carter and we got some one-on-one time then but lately you've been sleeping longer than him. I miss that special time with you but I absolutely adore watching you play with your brother! At night you go down around 7-7:30 and sleep until 7:30-8. Sometimes you wake up around 3 or 4 to nurse. Other nights you sleep until 5-6, nurse, and go back to sleep. Occasionally you sleep all the way through the night.

You have a well check on January 6th so I'll add your measurements then at a bit over 9 months. I get comments all the time that you are little or petite so I'm curious to see where you fall percentile wise. People tend to guess you are a few month younger than you are. But you wear 9 month and 12 month clothes. When I pulled out the 12 month clothes I got sad to think your first birthday is approaching in a few short months! I tend to prefer 12 month pants because they don't ride up and expose your legs when you're in the carrier. 12 month shirts are mostly a bit long and we usually have to roll the sleeves. It seems like you have long legs, maybe you'll get that from your Opa!

There are lots of little random things I love about you. When you wake up from a nap sometimes your hair is sticking up all crazy on one side or in the back. Since its blonde it's hard to see unless you are looking closely! You also wake up from naps so happy and will lay in your crib playing for a while before you call out to get up. Your thigh rolls are adorable and it's so cute that you've discovered them. You like to reach down to play with them in the bath or during a diaper change. Sometimes you accidentally scratch yourself which looks painful but you don't seem to mind. It was cute to see you with Addison at Carter's birthday party. You kept reaching for her and screech talking to her. You like to make loud noises now and I'm always cracking up. When we're somewhere where you can hear your voice echo it just eggs you on! You like to play with your Uncie J's beard and you like to look at Christmas lights. You have no problems with Santa and will just chill on his lap while we try to convince your brother to join you. You got a bad diaper rash at one point so we let you crawl around diaper and pantless when we were at home. It was so cute to watch your naked booty crawl! You don't babble or talk so much as just screech loudly a lot! You crawled over to the shelves at the library and selected a book to check out for the first time today which was neat! You picked out Do You Love Me? by Joost Elffers which turned out to be a pretty cute book. Christmas is going to be so much fun with you. You are already crawling underneath the tree, pulling ornaments off to chew on, and ripping bows off presents. Carter is quite concerned about these behaviors and will take a present from you saying it's not yours and hand one of yours to you instead. He helped me wrap them and remembers whose is whose. I've been planning to wrap your presents in tissue paper but I'm not sure that's necessary with how I've seen you going at the presents under the tree!
Now on to daddy:

On the move! Man this sure is a fun time when you start learning new things so fast. One night we realized you were putting a knee forward, then three days later you were crawling up and down the hall! I feel like it happened so fast! And then just tonight, you were pulling up on things!

You are such an easy going baby and always so relaxed. So far, you have been much better at traveling than your brother at this age, and that is greatly appreciated! Yesterday we went to Silver Dollar City to and from same day, 6 hours of driving! I thought for sure we would have trouble coming home, starting our drive at 7pm, but after maybe 10 minutes of singing from your mother, you were out like a light. You woke up a little while later, nursed, and were content to just sit there for a little bit until you fell asleep.

You simply adore your brother still and he feels the same way about you. It is so fun to see you two together. I cannot wait for Christmas, you are just old enough to really get a lot out of it!

Love you baby girl!

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