Milestones

We're having a lot of 'firsts' and big things happening around here lately, so many in fact, that it's a little challenging to keep up with them all. Thank heavens for digital cameras and other technology that keep up with dates and times til I can record them in the baby book. :)

In the past month or so, Preslie has...

* Started pulling up...before she got the hang of crawling. She would do some combination of booty-scoot, belly-flop and roll to get wherever she wanted...and to get where she wanted to pull up. The pulling up led, of course, to cruising. Now, she goes everywhere and is into everything. She also finally got crawling down pat, too.

*Got her first tooth. It's the bottom right tooth on the middle front (I can't think of it's technical name right now). The one just to the left of it is just about to make it's appearance, too.

*Said Mama and Dada...with Mama being first, of course. :P I don't think that she really equates me with 'Mama' but who knows? She will get angry or impatient and stomp her foot and yell, 'MAMA!' That gets attention, let me tell ya...but I don't think she's really calling me. But maybe...we'll see. She also blabs and coos and laughs a lot. Her new word right now is 'bock'. I haven't figured out just yet what 'bock' means or what or who she's talking about when she says it...but she says it A LOT.

*She started taking a bath in the big tub. I mean, she's been out of her baby tub for a while but we were using a bath seat type thingy in our big tub. She decided that she was too big for it ( by trying to pull it up and tip it over...repeatedly), so we're now splashing free-style. She loves it. Her daddy, the resident bath giver, is still struggling a bit with it because she is hard to wrangle when she's dry, much less soaking wet. :)

*Got her first haircut! Yes, already. I have gotten that question about a hundred times. She has a double crown and where the two locks of hair meet in the front, it made a tail that hung down into her eyes. Since she also decided that she wasn't into wearing hair bows, headbands or barrettes to keep her hair out of her face, she got her bangs cut. My cousin, M, who is a hairdresser and the mom of a little one, cut it for me as I was too chicken to do it myself. :) It was just a little bit and she looks so much better...as in, you can actually see her face now.

Before

After

*She went to her first party. My cousin, M's baby girl, Z, just turned a year old and they had a blow out for her big day. Preslie was thoroughly unimpressed by everything but the ice cream and toys. :) Yes, I let her have a little taste of vanilla ice cream. It was her first party, not an every day thing...though she loved it and would surely eat it every day if I gave it to her.

*Has just about stopped eating baby food. I still have a fair amount of homemade cubes in my freezer but my girl has decided that baby food is for, well, babies. She only wants to eat what she can put in her mouth by herself. I'm salvaging some of the purees by mixing them with rice or pasta (because making baby food takes time and energy...I'm NOT throwing it out) and she'll tolerate that if I feed it to her BEFORE I put anything on her tray that she can feed herself. I see lots of dicing and slicing in my future.

*She lets go of things (toys, furniture, me) and just stands there. She looks around and acts like she's going to take a step and then just reaches back to hold on or sits down. She's going to be walking before I know it...and I have mixed feelings about that!

*We had our first outing to the park. The weather here has been unseasonably warm and we were able to go out and meet some friends there recently. She was totally overwhelmed and just watched everything...which is just what I expected. :) Mama had a good time actually being with adults, though, so we will definitely be doing that again SOON.

*And the most random thing: She's started crawling in her sleep. Yep. She'll whine and cry, so I check on her and she's crawling around and fussing WITH HER EYES CLOSED. It would be pretty funny if she weren't crawling into things and bashing her head and waking herself up to cry in earnest. What in the world?

My baby girl is growing up SO fast! I can't believe she's 9 months old. Time is absolutely flying but it's an incredible ride and we're loving every minute of it!