Three Quarters of a Year!

A week ago Katie turned nine months old.  In just two more weeks she will officially have spent as much time on the outside as she did on the inside!  She's a total joy to have around and our days are filled with many fun and exciting times with this cute squishy little girl.

Kitty Katkins is doing all sorts of things to show that she's moving up in the world.  Two weeks ago she figured out how to pull herself up on the couch so she can stand and look around.  Once in a while she will be a bit daring and take a few steps along the couch.  She's clearly more comfortable cruising along me or her daddy if we're laying on the floor.  

She even has a thing for sorting toys.  She's our first baby to actually show an interest in taking blocks out of the sorting toy and dropping them back in.  Most of the time she just tosses the blocks, but she will try to put them back from time to time.

Not long ago she discovered that she can crawl over people to save herself a few extra crawling steps.  Now obstacles are just minor speed bumps to the Kitty Kat.  I'd say at this point she has mastered crawling.  She can move across a room with relative ease.  Gone are the days when I can put her down in one room and expect to find her in that room a few minutes later.  She will happily crawl around the main level of the house exploring and tearing things apart.  

She now has four teeth.  The top two teeth are rapidly coming in while the bottom ones are only slightly above the gum line.  Fortunately for me, she's only interested in biting her spoon when we're I'm feeding her.  She's quickly growing bored with pureed foods and has recently begun to refuse to eat off a spoon for anyone but me.  It seems that Katie wants me and me only to be the one who feeds her.

Her current favorite foods at the moment are cheerios, pieces of bread and puffs.  She's very interested in what we have on our plates, but she's really not ready to try eating most table foods.  I have been mashing up some of the fruits and veggies.  We've tried pastas, but she doesn't quite understand the concept of chewing just yet.  We are making a move towards texture.

She still has very little interest in taking a bottle or a sippy cup.  She can drink water from a glass if we hold it for her.  If I need her to take a bottle occasionally she will take it, but she makes it clear that she's not thrilled about it.

Sleeping is a bit of an issue these days.  She had about three weeks where she didn't sleep well at all during the night.  Now she has developed a habit where she doesn't want to go to sleep until she has been held and rocked for a good while.  Some night it takes close to an hour to lull her to sleep.  While I love holding this little chunk of a girl as she goes to sleep, I do wish she could go down for the night as easily as she goes down for her morning and afternoon naps.  I just worry that her nighttime routine will be a hard habit to break a little further down the line.

Katie is trying to talk a bit more.  She will say "Hi Dada!" when Bryan says hi to her.  She says Mama and Madeline and Ellie are convinced that she says yeah and ok among other things.

Two weeks ago when she had an ear infection they weighed her at the doctor's office.  She was already over 19lbs at that visit.  I can't believe she's that big already.  I knew she was heavy, but I didn't think she weighed that much.