9 Months!

Piper Jayne is 9 months old! It's amazing how much your life changes so dramatically and so many times in the first year of a child's life! Matt and I have often talked about how, in the first several months, you wait with anticipation for all the little changes - first smile, first laugh, etc. But once you hit about the 6 month marker, it's like there is something new every week! Since I was a bad mom and skipped month 8 (I blame my work and travel schedule!)- there has been a LOT of change in our household!
Starting with official stats, our little poop monster is now 18lbs 3oz, and 28 inches long. Those stats put her in the 45% and 50% categories for weight and height, and she's dropped a bit (in percentages) since her last appointment but the doctor isn't worried. As of March 25th she's officially crawling - and EVERYWHERE! Nowadays she's ALL over the place and into everything which has been adjustment for mommy, daddy and nanny Chris. She's also officially "talking" these days - gone are the high pitched noises, squeals and blabbering, she's now saying "babababa" and "dadadada" - of course Matt likes to think she's saying "dada" but I know better!
She's been pulling herself on just about everything for some time now, and took her first steps (assisted of course) this past week. It's only a matter of time...

She's moved on to size 3 diapers, but still fits in clothes from 3 months to 9 months - it just all depends on the outfit! It feels like every weekend the last couple of months has been spent in part packing away outfits, toys and play things that she's now too big for. Our basement looks like Babies R Us threw up in it! We've started trying to teach her baby sign language - and she certainly knows that "all done" means and tries to repeat it back to us when she's done eating. Speaking of which, she still isn't a big eater but will sit for a few minutes at each meal in her high chair and eat a few bites before refusing to open her mouth anymore and shaking her head side to side! But of course, if mommy or daddy is eating something, she's all over us like white on rice to get some of it! At this point, we've stopped keeping track of all that she's eaten because she'll eat just about anything solid (i.e. REAL food - not baby food). She still wants absolutely nothing to do with mushy baby food!

Her smiles are contagious and she continues to brighten our days. Our favorite time with her is morning PAJAM (Piper And Jen And Matt if you didn't know already) time, right after she wakes up and before Matt and I start our days. We lay in bed and make silly faces, noises and act all goofy (not hard for us) and make Piper Jayne giggle and smile. We'll eat it up as long as she'll let us - because we know the day will come when she would rather sleep in than hang out with us!