The 9th Month

I yoldin' Eeny's yand!

Well, here we are again. Another baby has passed her 9 month mark. I love this age. It's right before full  mobility, but still safe enough to put down in one room and be able to pee without total destruction in all other rooms.

It's funny. With Jack, we had the baby gate up. He was constantly trying to find ways out of the rooms we were in. Nina prefers to be right with us, enjoying the chaos as it unfolds. The gate is down probably 75% of the time.

 STATS: I don't have anything official until next week, but she's right around 20 pounds. She's crawling, cruising, and testing standing without assistance. She has taken single steps from pieces of furniture (ok, it was the toilet to the bathtub. I let my baby play around the nasty toilets. Don't judge. She's the second kid, it's called immunities!)

Silly face!

She eats....everything. She doesn't have time to be fed purees. She's too busy, too BIG. She'll suck a squeezy down on her own, but if you try to shove food in her mouth with a spoon she screams. I suppose we're doing "baby led weaning" although I prefer to say we're doing what feels natural. I hate that I have to classify how I'm parenting with a "movement". Nina eats what we eat, for the most part. I let her taste and try lots of different textures. With Jack, we did so many purees, and bland foods, it's no wonder he's a picky eater with a preference for PB&J and chicken nuggets. I can't definitively say that Nina won't be the same way, but we're at least going to try something different and hope that she'll at least try flavor.

We got things to do, Hartley Bear!

MY TURN!

As for sleeping. No, she doesn't sleep through the entire night. Most nights we have one wake up and then we bring her into bed with us. This works for us. I know not everyone agrees with bed sharing or cosleeping. I can't let my babies cry it out. Not going to happen (at least on purpose. I'm not denying that it works. It happened with Jack accidentally one night on vacation when we couldn't hear him). I believe that our natural instinct is to respond to our baby's needs. I'm thankful I'm in a position to not have to rely on a harsh schedule and we are able to go with the flow. She does have a "schedule" in that she naps about 2 hours after she wakes up, 2-3 hours after that, and then 2-3 hours after that it's bedtime. Lately, bedtime has been between 7-9. It's best on nights in which both kids are asleep around 8.

He loves her so much!

As for Jack, well...the binky fairy visited our house last night. This was not planned, but after a particularly difficult night of "find the binky" we gave up. He slept without it, asked about it the next day but didn't push the issue beyond a few minutes of crying. It wasn't forced, it was a product of circumstance. There was a lot of pressure from people to "have that thing gone...[insert ridiculous past date here as though you spend every day with my kid]." I'm glad you know my kid better than I do. He was using it for comfort. Now, because we've removed the binky from his mouth he's replaced it with his fingers. I'd rather have the binky, honestly, and it's why I pushed for the binky from the start. I didn't want a thumb sucker. I was a thumb sucker. So gross. Nothing like having slobbery hands touch you all day. Can't wait to see how many "I told you so's" I hear in the coming weeks.

I find that the longer I am a parent, the more my views on life change. Or evolve. Which is only natural I guess. Before I was pregnant with Jack, my goal was to breastfeed. I didn't have any idea about attachment parenting, baby led weaning, what being a TIME Magazine "REAL MOM" was, Ferberizing, etc. I went in expecting the absolute worst. We figured we'd have a high maintenance baby. He would cry, and be colicky, and we'd have to deal with formula, and diapers, and feeding, and choking, and the 9,432,123,543 other things parents worry about. What we got with Jack was the opposite. He was mellow. He was cuddly, he was quiet, he never put anything into his mouth. He loved his Zelda, his mommy and daddy, and his binky. He preferred when we didn't sing. We read the first 5.5 Harry Potter books to him until he went on a book strike. I didn't realize how much I loved nursing him until he weaned himself at 13 months. 

With Nina, we went into parenting not knowing what the hell we were doing. Her first poop, mere hours after she was born (Jack took a few days due to the jaundice) left us feeling like noobs. We had to call in the nurse because we had no idea how to clean girl parts. That should have been our first clue Nina was going to be a whole new can of worms. Which, duh, she's a different baby, there are bound to be differences. First, Nina was LOUD. Jack didn't discover his voice until last week (slight exaggeration, but he really was very quiet). She hit mobility MONTHS before Jack. She teethed before Jack. She crawled, on her hands and knees. Jack army crawled until he walked and only then did he perfect crawling belly up. Nina puts absolutely everything in her mouth. She tastes clothes. We were unprepared for this sort of baby. We got lax with Jack. Bad idea. Jack said "mama" first, Nina said "dada". And the biggest difference, and most difficult to deal with: Nina HATES, with a firey passion only reserved for needles and bees in this house, HATES the car. They are so opposite it's crazy. 

And the rambling time has ended. I have so many other meaningless things to write about. I just don't have the time. Right now, I'm simultaneously typing, nursing, talking to my toddler, and trying to keep Nina from spraying milk all over the computer because the typing is distracting her. See ya again in 3 months when I get around to the 1 year update!