Our Beautiful Mess: Baby Lucy at 9 months

Baby Lucy is now 9 months old and is such a blessing in our lives. She has grown into the happiest, sweetest, little playmate for both Matthew and Emma. She thinks they are both hilarious and they love doing crazy and whacky things to make her laugh. She is Matthew's number one fan and always delights in seeing his face pop into view. One of her favorite games is for me to hold her while chasing Matthew around the house. We will run from room to room and when we come close enough behind Matthew, Lucy will reach out and try to pat his head while he squeals and flails about. It sounds ridiculous, but all three of us are in stitches by the end. I think Lucy looks forward to Matthew coming home from school just so we can play this game. She is growing up so fast and I can hardly believe my tiny little baby will be a year old before I know it. I am really going to treasure these next three months in the "infant stage" because once these babies turn a year old, they seem to blossom into kids very quickly. But for now, here is a brief update of Lucy's growth and development at 9 months.

Growth:

Still chunky as ever, Lucy weighs about 24 pounds. She has a few extra chins on her, but who doesn't love a chubby baby? Her hair is also starting to get longer and I love that I can easily put it up in pigtails in order to keep it out of her eyes.

Motor Skills and Speech:

Lucy is also officially mobile! She is slowly crawling about the house and is quickly becoming quite the danger to herself. She is loving electrical outlets, sharp edges, and the metal vents. I am going out of my mind trying to protect her from bumping into anything hard or sharp - and I know it's only going to get worse as she gets quicker! Her absolutely favorite activity is pulling up to a standing position and side stepping her way along while holding on for dear life. She is getting better about flattening her feet out when she stands and not curling her toes. I think she'll be walking pretty soon here.

Lucy loves to clap, especially in response to music. She loves Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, This Old Man (still a favorite), and It's A Great Big Wonderful World. Along those same lines, she also loves to bop and dance to music. I love it!

She can give us enthusiastic "high fives" and loves to wave and blow kisses.

She has four words in her vocabulary - "Hi", "Daddy", "Mama", and "Bye". Her favorite word to say his probably "daddy". She is going through a daddy loving stage and Paul is eating it up. It's pretty cute because she gets excited whenever my cell phone rings because she thinks it's Paul. I rarely talk on the phone except when Paul calls and when he was on a trip last week, Lucy and I would Facetime with him in the evenings. Now, Lucy expects to Facetime with Paul each and every time she sees the phone. When it rings, she starts waving and saying "Hi Daddy!" So adorable.

Teeth:

She still has no teeth despite the fact that I swear we were going through a bad teething phase for a few weeks. She would cry on and off as if she was experiencing intense pain. I made good use of the gum gel and ibuprofen but nothing seemed to help. Then, one day she woke up better and that was it. But still no teeth. Emma had four teeth by now, but Matthew was toothless until he was well over a year.

Sleep:

Sleep is all over the place with Lucy, but still mostly bad. She has slept through the night a handful of times since birth but for the most part is still quite difficult to lay down at night. Once asleep, she normally wakes up at least once or twice during the night. Sometimes she goes right back to sleep, and at other times she is quite hyper and wants to play with her zombie-like parents. She is finally starting to like her crib and we have gotten better about using that versus having her sleep in bed with us.

Food:

Baby Lucy will eat anything. This is both a good and a bad thing. It's great that she is so willing to try new foods in order to expand her little palate. However, it's pretty terrible that she will eat anything she finds on the floor. Almost everything goes into her mouth. When she finds something on the floor, she will grab it, sit back on her fluffy little bottom, and inspect it carefully with her fingers before inevitably opening her mouth as wide as she can and shoving the item inside for a taste test. However, of the actual food she has been eating lately, we have discovered that she adores avocado. She will demolish her own bowlful of guacamole. It's a terrible mess to clean up after, but I wholeheartedly approve of her love of avocados. I still haven't sold Emma on them although thankfully Matthew has finally converted.