Nine Months

WOW! How time flies! I can hardly believe she's nine-months-old. Every single day of the past nine months has been absolutely wonderful! Life just doesn't get any better than this!
Claire is constantly moving these days, so it's almost impossible to get a good picture of her. We do, however, have lots of videos. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out how to upload them myself. Hopefully Steve can help me get those loaded this week. In the meantime, you'll have to settle for these lovelies:
We keep the toys that Claire plays with most often in a basket in the living room. We pick them up every evening as part of her bedtime routine. And then every morning, she empties them all.

Talking to her toys...

Claire has never liked pacifiers - until recently. It turns out that they make great teethers. She never holds them in her mouth or sucks on them. She just chews on them.

Now that everything is properly spread out, we can play!

Claire spends a lot of time pulling up, standing and cruising around our furniture. Her favorite thing to pull up on and walk around is the ottoman.

The skinny on our girl:

Claire is 26 3/4" long (25th percentile). She weighs 16 lbs 2 3/4 oz. (10th percentile).

She went to the doctor today for her nine-month checkup. Everything about her is "perfect!" And I'm quoting her pediatrition. They did a blood test for iron levels, white blood cell count, etc. She is smack dab in the middle of the normal scale for everything. It just doesn't get any more perfect!

Claire's favorite game is "Where's Claire?" (our version of peek-a-boo). She will hold a blanket over her head or in front of her face while you ask, "Where's Claire?" After she's deemed that you've asked the question an appropriate number of times, she lowers the blanket and giggles. Then we play again.

Claire loves to dance. If she's sitting when she hears music, she bobs her head from side to side and sometimes waves her arms. If she's standing, then her dance is an all-out booty shaker. It's too cute!

Claire crawls anywhere and everywhere and climbs over anything in her way. She keeps me very busy. (Can you tell it's naptime right now?)

Her front two bottom teeth came in at the same time. She's drooling a lot these days, but I can't see or feel any teeth on top yet.

She says "DaDa" and "Mama" a lot, which, of course, we both love. She also waves and says "bye bye." She makes a lot of vowel and consonant combination sounds, but so far I haven't been able to distinguish any other words and certainly not any that have any meaning that I can tell. She has also started making a clicking noise with her tongue. We credit this little sound to Parker and Bryce (children of friends of ours) who have seemingly created their own language of clicks. Claire is ready to join the club, so look out, boys!

Claire tried some new foods this month: blueberries, blackberries, oatmeal, ham and pineapple, sweet corn casserole and harvest vegetables. She loved everything but the corn. We reintroduced beef, strawberries and green beans. She loved the beef and berries, but the beans made her gag. We've also been giving her squash again, but in small amounts and usually as a combo food. We will soon be starting a few table foods - overcooked veggies, mashed potatoes and overcooked pasta.

Claire is beautiful and happy and perfect! Happy 9th, Baby!