Nine Months!

Miss Ayla is nine months old today! What a big girl! This past month, she's started to look more and more like a little girl rather than a baby. Where did our little chunky monkey go? I was lucky enough to be home everyday this month to witness all the new things that she now knows how to do:

• She waves "bye-bye." It started out as an out-of-control arm fling, but she's starting to tone it down a little bit.
• If I hold out my hand and say "give it to Mommy," she places whatever she's holding onto my hand. Letting go of the item is another story...it's 50/50 on whether or not she'll really give it to me. When she does, I make a huge deal out of it and thank her...she gets a real kick out of this "game" and will do it over and over...and over again.
• She claps when we ask her to...cool thing is, we say it in Chinese. Tell her "pie-pie-so" and she'll happily clap her hands.
• She points at things...this is very new as of just a couple days ago. Earlier in the week, she would basically "point" with her whole hand, but now she can do it with just one finger. If we ask her where Kody is, she points at him...she does the same if I ask her where Daddy is. When asked where Mommy is, there's no pointing...just a blank stare. :(
• She clicks. :) Yep, she figured it out one day on the way home from the grocery store...I heard her back there just clicking away with her tongue.
• She's done this for a while, but I don't think I've ever mentioned it--she does this long blink that's so sweet. It's almost like a little flirty thing. I love it.
• She fake cries...squints her eyes and acts like she's in total distress which instantly stops as soon as she's picked up. Lil stinker.
• She's great at picking up little pieces of food and feeding them to herself.
• She's on to me--she has discovered the cute little bows I've been clipping in her hair for the past couple of months. Darn it. She was completely oblivious to the fact that one was always sitting on top of her head until one day she randomly reached up there and grabbed it. Now, even if there's not one there, she raises her hand up ever so slowly to her head to make sure.

Taking her bow out......and chewing on it.
She's still not crawling, but she's getting so close. She'll rock on her hands and knees and every once in a while, it looks like she's trying to move but then she just stops. She has become a lot better at moving around from a sitting position...twisting, reaching, leaning, etc. She has figured out how to sit up from a lying position. It's so weird going into her room to get her once she's awake from a nap and seeing her sitting up. For not being able to crawl, she can sure get around by rolling and squirming...in a matter of minutes, the living room looks like it's been hit by a tornado. What in the world is going to happen when she's actually mobile?Her legs are becoming much stronger...she likes to stand up against the couch or just by grabbing onto a couple of our fingers. When she's standing like that, I can't help but think how big she is and how quickly she has grown. Honestly, I swear there's some fast foward button that's been pressed.
We have a talker on our hands...we have a feeling she's going to be like her cousin Haylee, who doesn't seem to stop and take a breath. Ever. We left my parents' house yesterday afternoon at about 3:30 and she babbled all the way home and kept going until about 6:30. For not knowing any real words, she freaking talks a lot. "Mama-Dada-Nana-Baba-Bwuh-Bwuh." When she's quiet, I think there's something wrong. Basically, the only time she's quiet is when she's sleeping or listening to Dave Matthews...she just chills to Dave...it's pretty awesome.

The eating situation has improved, which is a huge relief for the worrisome mother that I am. We took an over two-week hiatus from pureed baby food because she was hating it so much. Since then, she has tried lots of different things. Her favorites are bananas, cottage cheese, string cheese, KRAFT cheese, yogurt, and bread. We're working on more veggies and fruit. She likes avocado but only if I put it with a spoonful of banana. Weird. Steamed carrots are a no-go...we tried them twice and both times she threw up everywhere...once, right on poor Kody who proceeded to eat it. Ugh. I'm trying to re-introduce some baby food...we're on day two and so far she's been okay with it. I know in the next several weeks, she'll probably be done with all baby food, but in the meantime, it's a way to get her to eat things other than cheese and bananas. Plus, right before she went on her little food-strike, I stocked up on it. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but since she's been eating more "real" food, she has been drinking a lot more formula. She's up around 30 ounces everyday. Maybe it's just a growth spurt?She is on such a great schedule right now...she wakes up around 7:00am, takes two naps, has three meals, five bottles, and is in bed around 8:00pm every night. Give or take 20-30 minutes, she stays right on schedule. It makes our lives sooooo much easier to know what in the heck is going on from day to day. And I'm proud to say that she no longer needs to be rocked to sleep for her naps. For a while, that was something we really had to work on. I will admit though, a couple times a week, I'll snuggle with her at bedtime and let her fall asleep on my chest. Really, that's probably my all-time favorite feeling. There's just nothing like it. I didn't know I could love like that. It's overwhelming...but in a good way...a great way. It's amazing to be able to sit there with a whole life in my arms, feeling her breathing on my neck, and staring at her sweet little face. What a crazy feeling to know that to her, I'm the most important person in the world (besides Dean, of course.) I know I always say how fast time goes, but I've really been struck so hard by it lately. I watched some older video clips of her and I can't believe it was only a few short months ago that she was that tiny. I don't want to suddenly wake up one day and find a grown person and not even know how we got there. So...I'm going to keep taking hundreds of pictures of every little seemingly unimportant thing. I'm going to keep taking videos of the exact same things that I just took hundreds of pictures of. I'm going to keep snuggling with her for as long as she'll fit in my arms. I'm going to keep covering her with kisses. I'm going to keep loving her more than life itself.