Abby - 9 months

Dearest Abigail,

Well, little girl, it's been nine months!  It's crazy to think that now you have been alive for longer than you were in my belly.  And you are only going to get bigger. You have grown so much these past nine months and it amazes me every day to see you and your smiles and adorable personality and think that less than a year ago you weren't in our lives yet!

Overall this has been such a fun month. You can officially crawl now which we are both so happy about. I've decided I don't know why people say they don't look forward to having a mobile baby.  It's so great! You are much much happier being able to move on your own and I will take a happier baby any day.  You don't have to scream when I move away, you can just follow (though I admit, sometimes you follow and scream). You don't seem to ever get bored crawling around and exploring every corner of the house over and over again. It seems like it is new to you each time with how excited you get.  Even more than crawling you love walking along furniture, walls, toys, or whatever you can get to work for you. You still very frequently ask for Mommy's hands so you can walk around the room.

Along with becoming more mobile, you have perfected your ability to pull yourself up to standing on pretty much anything and hardly fall down. You can purposefully go from standing down to crawling, you can go from crawling to sitting, and you very easily change directions while crawling.  It's so fun to watch you.

You love pulling yourself up on the bookcase where all your books are and then pulling them all down. You absolutely love playing peek-a-boo and riding on Dad's shoulders. You do not like your door jumper. At all. Good thing we got it for free. You think the vacuum cleaner is fascinating.  You are so bouncy when you get happy and excited. You do cute little dances with the music at your little activity table. You have the most adorable toothy smile. You are just too cute.

You are finally starting to get some hair too! And it is coming in blonde. You still have the dark little tail in the back of your head that is the last remnant of your newborn hair, but the rest is all blonde. Your eyes have turned into such a pretty color, not brown, maybe hazel-ish?

You still love to talk and jabber away.  And it is still da-da-da-da constantly.  When you are cruising around you talk softly to yourself as though you were chanting. It is adorable.

You love meal-times, though you make the funniest noises the whole time. You are getting so much better at picking up foods of all sizes and have tried pretty much everything. Today at lunch we had some millet and you surprised me with how well you were able to pick it up. We are teaching you to drink from a cup (hoping to skip the sippy cup), which is going really well.  Though sometimes you decide the cup is just a place to rinse your hands off. 

This month has also brought the more unwelcome increase of your separation anxiety. It amazes me how little it takes for you to get so upset, me turning my back sometimes sets you off. And I think it is the reason your sleep has become worse. That and your new ability in the past couple of weeks of standing up in your crib. I leave, you get super upset, you stand yourself up and it just seems to make you even more awake and you cry even more. You used to go down so easily for naps, but this past week you've had more than one day that you never did fall asleep, even with me leaving you in there for a while.  In fact, right now you are crying instead of taking your morning nap. Baby girl, why do you have to do this? Your sleep at night has also gotten more difficult. You have still been waking up twice per night, but always go right back to sleep after me feeding you. But you have started doing the same thing that you are doing at nap time when I put you back down. We've got to figure something out! You and us both need our sleep!  Maybe you just need some more loving at nap times and night time.

And we sure do love you. So very much. Thank you for the added joy and happiness you have brought into our lives.

I love you.

Your Mamma

And because we have too many cute pictures to choose from, here are some more from this past month!

Abby kissing her twin in the mirror.