Today Olive turned nine months old. I have a photo session this afternoon and the weather was a bit chilly so her nine month photos aren't anything too special. We didn't go anywhere or do anything too neat and I only took a few so as not to be too distracted from my work.
Since Olive turned 5 months old she's been developing by leaps and bounds! Now at the close of her eighth month she has added so many neat skills and experiences to her list. She continues to be a bit ahead of the curve with both motor and cognitive development, for the most part. Of course that's neat but I don't try to focus on it since, as you know, every baby is so different and the rate at which they develop as babies does not have much bearing on their cognitive abilities as they age. If anything it's maybe a bit more challenging. She was mobile earlier than many babies her age. Most people seem to think she'll walk soon which will be a challenge for me for sure! I expect that walking at say, 10 months, is much different than walking at 15 months... At 15 months I would expect there to be more understanding of words and boundaries and requests and rules than at 10 months. But I guess we'll see! And maybe she won't walk soon anyway. Who knows?!
Olive's crawl is basically perfected at this point. She crawls everywhere including up and over the dog.
She stands whenever possible with the help of furniture, toys, me, the dog, etc. And will walk along said things until she reaches the end, just as she was when I wrote her 8 month update. She cautiously reaches for the ground to sit. She has only fallen a from standing a couple of times.
I always mention her pincer grasp but it continues to amaze me. Last week she picked up a kiwi seed from Tyler's finger and ate it. wow.
Olive's tooth count is up to four. Last week Tyler suspected some molar action but we don't peek all the way into her mouth too often so I can't confirm. She continues to have very little teething difficulties so I haven't felt the need to peer too far into her mouth.
Sleep continues to be an odd area of Olive's life. For the most part she is still a one nap baby. Luckily they're a little longer than they were a couple of months ago. As you most likely know Olive has needed a great deal of assistance from us to get to sleep. This began as a colicy issue and probably became a large issue because of that. She needed movement and that need stuck as the colic left. We have slowly started tweaking her sleep "routine". We stopped using the ball the bounce her to sleep a couple of months ago. We really should have stopped that earlier but just as it became a pattern for her it did as well for us. You might even say it was a crutch... It was almost guaranteed to work.. so why change? Dropping the ball (ha) didn't post as much of a challenge as I had expected but she has still relied on nursing, some movement, and pats on her bottom side to drift off to dreamland. Last night I wasn't much in the mood for all of that and Olive wasn't either. After nursing she didn't want to be in my arms but didn't seem to want to lay down. So I left her standing in her crib. After a bit of fussing (not crying!) she rocked herself to sleep! Today we had a similar experience during nap time. It took quite a bit longer (and I honestly didn't have much hope with it being light in her room) but after a bit of fussing and talking to herself I peeked in to check on her and found her curled up and sleeping. Wonderful! :)
Olive has been saying "mamamamama", "mom mom" and other variants of mmmmmm's for a while. This month she began some "nanana" which was nice to hear. She plays back and forth with sounds occasionally and communicates with a little grunt when she wants some attention or wants to say hi.
She waves constantly. When coming and going and sometimes in the middle of being with someone. She waves to people and to the dog. She waved to our bedroom chandelier a few days ago. It must be nice to have an increasing repertoire of ways to communicate.
During mealtimes she is a pro at holding her little glass independently.
I can't wait for Christmas. Olive is such an explorer. I can't seem to trick her with rotating toys. We both can't wait for her to get a few new things! She likes things that shake like maracas or containers with things inside. She likes to pull books off of shelves. She still loves to eat books. She also really enjoys those little safely outlet plugs.
Olive had her first cold during the past month, I believe. She has a little stuffy for two or three days and had one night with a fever. She has yet to have any sort of medicine in her little body. For possible teething pain we give her homeopathic teething tablets and we've given her gripe water in the past during colicy/gassy times. I recently purchased some infant pain killer and fever reducer to have on hand.. just in case. She has not yet had any immunizations either. For the most part she's pretty pure and that makes me feel very good. :)
She has always been such an alter and social baby and that part of her personality is continuing to strengthen. She is curious to find the source of sounds and to see who is coming and going. Olive looks for the dog and grunts or growls her to grab her attention. She loves to find tiny things and still has an interest in strings. She's developing a bit of separation anxiety but nothing too extreme. Olive often checks in with me while exploring or doing something new. She almost always has her fingers in my mouth while she's nursing. Today she spit up on my hair for the first time. Overall, she's pretty great. :)
I should get back to editing photos! Here are some of today's snaps of baby O:
Don't forget to check out Olive's photo blog if you haven't already! :)
