Nine Months Old

Nine months has a lot of meaning to me.  It's the last month of single digits in babyhood and she has now officially been out longer than she was in.  It's a mystery to me how quickly time has gone.  I feel like I was just waddling around waiting to meet her last week, but it also feels like a lifetime has passed since she was a newborn.  I would give anything to hold that sweet, precious infant again, but my heart also explodes with happiness watching her grow.  Parenthood makes me feel all the feels.

Likes:

Puffs

Purees

Harrison

Her newfound ability to explore

Dislikes:

When Harrison takes a toy from her; we're still working on that whole sharing thing with big bro. 

Schedule:

Harper gets three to four 6oz bottles a day, with the occasional midnight snack, and solids in between.  She takes a good three hour nap in the late morning and if the stars are aligned will take another hour nap around 5pm.  She goes to bed around 7:30, has a bottle more often than not in the middle of the night, and then wakes up between 7-8am. 

Features:

Her brown hair is starting to lighten, but is becoming thicker.  She is in size 3 diapers and wears 6-9/6-12 month clothes.  We are starting to question if she will ever get teeth, but her gummy smiles are pretty darn cute so we aren't in a huge rush to begin the nightmare that is teething. 

Milestones:

Crawling?  Harper is sort of crawling.  It's more like she is half crawling.  She can pull her body in whatever direction she wants to go, but is not moving on all fours yet.  

Clapping, sorta

Can hold onto something and stand briefly 

Goes from belly to sitting (ok, once, but it counts)

Firsts:

Says MAMA!

Wedding

Challenges:

That work/life balance thing I mentioned last month is still a struggle.  I desperately want to be the best mom and the best at my job, so I'm working really hard to dedicate specific time to both.  I'm learning that multi-tasking is not beneficial in those roles and it's ok to take time for just family and for just work.  Advice welcome. 

Thoughts:

Her personality is starting to show and it's so incredibly amazing and interesting to see the differences between Harper and Harrison.  Harper is always content, takes her time to do things, and is cautiously curious.  I can't wait to see her soul shine through more as she gets older (😭 + 😊) and look forward to many moments of laughter with her.