Happy three-quarters of a year!

Who is number one?

Caroline turned 9 months today. We celebrated with a trip to the pediatrician and a prick to her finger. Hey, its better than 4 shots at once! She was tested for iron (doing great) and lead (TBD... they send that test out). I know you're on the edge of you seats... so here they are--her stats:

Height: 27 3/4 inches (60th percentile)

Weight: 18 pounds even (that's exactly twice her birth weight) (40th percentile)

Head circumference: 17 3/4 inches (80th percentile)

Check out my fabulous new growth charts!

http://www.mybirthcare.com/favorites/babygrowthchart.asp

For those of you plotting her growth chart, she's not keeping up with her early days at 75th percentile in everything. Her weight, in particular, has gone down in percentile progressively over the past several months. Not surprising, really, because she's really lean. Her parents were both string beans in their youth, so she probably will be too.

So, what is Caroline like at the 9 month mark? Well, she's really a joy. She's so happy and playful. She is great at crawling- too good, in fact. Man, can she move! She's also quite adept at pulling herself to standing and getting back down without too many face-plants. She's starting to cruise along, holding on to things. I think we'll have a walker in a couple of months. She still can't really stand without holding on to something, so that's the next big step. She adores playing at her little tables with buttons, switches, lights and sounds. She can hang out there for hours. I think she's pretty much done with the exersaucer, which is unfortunate, because it was a great place to plop her when we needed to quickly leave the room. Now, we have to stick her in the pack and play or somewhere else. The living room is mostly baby-proofed, but its tough, with all of the electronics and wires and such.

She's babbling all the time. The doctor asked if she was repeating sounds, and I didn't think she was doing it much, but now that I'm paying attention to it, I see her doing it all the time. Mostly just the first syllables, like baba for bath or bottle. But I think we will have a talker on our hands, for sure. She also just started clapping about a week ago. It was too cute. Now she does it all of the time. She also points and wags her finger sometimes.

She's starting to learn some discipline. When I say "No," she definitely gets it, even if she does try to push her luck. But she's also a stubborn one. Especially with eating. When she doesn't want it, we have to do a lot of coaxing and bribing with cheerios and such. We'll get her to eat eventually, but at least half of the time it is a bit of a battle. Maybe she wants to live on breastmilk forever. But alas, I am thinking it is about time to wean her and have her on formula for the most part now, so we're working towards just nursing at morning and night. I, for one, am absolutely ready for that change!