Katherine is 9 months old!

Ok again I am super late and this time I do not have any photos because my camera died and I can't find the charger - think I left it in the US when we were there!!!! I also left our SD card reader in the US when we were there so I have no way of downloading anything. So frustrating. All my photos are stuck. Anywho, here is a pictureless update and I will try to take a lot of pictures with my phone and iPad for the next update.

Oh my! The time is flying by! We are so close to the 1 year mark, it is hard to believe.

Katherine turned 9 months old on November 19th and here are her monthly stats and updates.

Stats:
Weight: 9.6 kg (21 lbs 3oz) 75%
Height: 72 cm (28.5 inches) 75%
Head: can't remember

Eyes: People, can you believe it... her eyes are turning GREEN!!! Nooooooo!!! Over the last month they started losing their blueness and getting more and more grey and green. I think this girl will not have her Mlommy's eyes after all!! So sad!!

Eating
We are still on the 4 hour schedule as before and it is going great. Katherine is loving her solids, but she is not really ready for a lot of texture when she is being spoon fed. She does well with chunks when she sticks them in her own mouth or when I do that, but I think she associates spoon feedings with smoother stuff, so we get a lot of gagging when there is an occasional chunk in her food.

Sleeping
Nothing new. She has become surprisingly predictable in her napping habits. It may be the age or maybe it's because of my efforts. She consistently takes a nap at about 10am and another one at 2-2:30. Each about an hour long. I am loving it. Hope this lasts for a while. Night time sleep is as good as ever. She goes down to bed at 7pm and wakes up between 6:30-7:30. If she wakes up early I just leave her there till it is time to officially get up. At least that way she still gets some rest. And she never cries in the morning either so why change it.

Milestones and Randoms:
She is changing so fast it is seriously super hard to keep track of all the new things she keeps doing almost every day...

About a week after she turned 8 months she started lifting her bottom off the ground whole on her belly. She would push herself on knees and elbows and rock back and forth. Perfect launching position for crawling so we knew that was coming soon.

At the same time she also got really good about pivoting around on her belly every time she wanted to change direction of where she was rolling. She would move herself around in a circle till she was facing the desired direction and start going right where she wanted to. So clever!!

Then when she was rolling around she would pause while on her side in what looked like side plank yoga pose and just hang out and take in everything. It looked like if she went just a little more she would push herself up to sitting completely. She really liked doing that, I guess it allowed her eyes to be mch higher than any other position so she had a better view of the world.

And then about 2 weeks in to the month she started army crawling! Oh my and she was sooooo fast at it!! She would push herself forward using her toes and elbows and get to whatever she wanted in a perfectly straight line, instead of rolling to it. I watched her crawl across a pretty good sized blanket right to a pile f toys she wanted. It was amazing. Then another time she rolled from the door of our bedroom into the bathroom (and went on to grab the trash can - of course because that is yucky and I wouldn't want her to...) Both times I just sat there mesmerized and couldn't believe she was doing it. The sand thing is, every time I pulled out the camera to record it she would stop and absolutely not want to perform for me.

She is also really good now about waving 'hi' and 'bye bye'. It's fun to watch her wave at babies at the playground.

Also soon after she turned 8 months she started saying Da Da Da which I think is REALLY unfair since I am the one who is staying with her all the time. Yet the only time she seems to be saying 'Ma' is when she is whining about something. Not 'Ma Ma' but 'Aaaaa Ma!' in a whiney complaney voice. But her 'Da Da Da' was very clear and distinguishable.... Not fair!
But then later in the months she all of a sudden broke out with the perfect Mamama so it's all good now.
It is so cool to have a little conversation back and forth with her these days.

But I think the coolest part of the last month was seeing how she totally developed into a little person with a mind of her own and that she is understanding her surroundings, making connections and getting curious about stuff. For several weeks now she has been pointing to things around the house or in the direction where we are going. She loves light fixtures and will point to them as soon as we walk into a room. I have been showing her what a light switch does, pointing to it, flipping it, light coming on or off... She loves it. She is pointing to all kinds of different things now.

She also loves examining her toys and whatever she can get her hands on. She will play independently for a really long time taking blocks out of a bucket, tossing them around, looking at them closely and trying them with her mouth.

She is so much fun these days. She loves playing peek a boo, rolling around on the floor with me, she sticks her hands in my mouth and laughs hysterically when I pretend to be chomping on her fingers. I am loving this stage!