9 months

Out as long as she was in, now. Ivy is 9 months and 2 days old. Crawling all over and trying to climb onto furniture, and this evening she moved a small chair to the side in order to get to the electrical outlet behind it. Yep, we're in trouble with this one.
Here are her 9 month stats from her appointment on Tuesday:
Height: 28.5in (90%)
Weight: 18 lbs 8 oz (50%)
Head: 16.7in (20%)

Pretty consistent with last time. She continues to be a tall thing with a petite head. Luckily she's growing in a pretty good crop of hair to help balance things out a bit. Her flat spot is still there but Dr. Mann assured us it should resolve at some point.

Other 9 month news: She jabbers lots of sounds and giggles and laughs and squeals at all sorts of things. She loves silly noises, when we shake our heads, and when things fall down. She scrinches her nose and crinkles up her eyes when she's particularly pleased. She's ticklish and loves being thrown in the air. The higher, the better. She thinks it's hilarious when we stick out our tongues. She bounces to music, in perfect time. She bounces, actually, to just about anything. She gets very annoyed if I do not immediately pick her up when I get home in the evenings. And when I do pick her up, she buries her head in my chest for a quick hug, then bounces in my arms a bit, then promptly turns away to look for more action... She still loves to eat but is developing more preferences these days. These tend toward fruit, buttered bread, multigrain cheerios and pasta, and away from broccoli, cauliflower, and potatoes. She can chew just about anything with her two little teeth. (Who needs more than two teeth anyways??) This evening she was signing "more" for popcorn. She is sleeping a bit better (last night she slept from 11:30-7:30am. I can live with that) and is even napping in her crib sometimes. She prefers naps in the carseat; we are thankful for the loan of the larger Graco seat that lets us all benefit from this sleep-crutch just a bit longer.

As for the boy: No milestone birthdays this week but always plenty to say about him.

Quotes of the week-

"Let's play Jack in the hampster!!" -- requesting one of his favorite games wherein he pretends to be laundry in a basket, or hamper. Otherwise known as a hampster, in Jack-ese. Totally not correcting him on this one.

"Hold on, my knee is doing it's thing..." -- accompanied by a perfect, perfect imitation of the leg movements Nat does when his knee "does it's thing" and goes out on him.

He is startling independent in so many, many ways. He puts in and takes out his DVD's and always puts them away when done. He can choose and start and pause videos and minimize his windows on the computer. He took himself upstairs to use the toilet today and, finding the lights off, found his flashlight in his room and went ahead and used the potty all on his own. Comes downstairs, flashlight in tow, announcing, "I just went to the potty upstairs, where it's dark." He still likes the hall light and glow man on when he sleeps at night, though. He continues to emerge into letter awareness and can identify the letters that start a variety of words. Today he drew a bit of a representational picture, which he described as a bear in a cave. Its a really cute, very round bear, tucked neatly in an archway of sorts, with a face made of a bunch of dots. He seems to lean towards pointilism in his artistic style. His latest Hot Wheel acquisition (and thus his new favorite) is named Snoofy Snoofy Snoofy Nee. Don't you forget the "Nee" part when you talk about the car. He'll let you know! He is silly and wiggly and serious about chocolate. He's pretty great these days, that boy.

And now-- some webcam captured, unedited video craziness for you. Pardon the messy house but hey, this is what life with two kids under 3 looks like, people.

Playing with blocks this evening.


Ivy's first real crawling attempts, a couple of days ago..