Tuesday, February 7, 2017

9 Months Old: Claire McKenna

Claire turned 9 months old a few weekends ago (on 1/28).  It has hit me now {a little hard too} that we are on the downhill slide of her 1st year, it’s seriously flying by!  Between 6 and 9 months we’ve had lots of changes.  First off, she is crawling.  She just started this the day before her 9th month and is still slow moving but she’s certainly on the move.  Before she figured crawling out, she went from pushing up onto knees to barrel roll to get to where she wanted to go so it’s not like it’s a totally new thing to have her on the move but officially crawling is exciting and we all sit around coaxing her to do it daily.

She’s also figured out how to pull herself up onto furniture, toys and in her crib.  Which is something she definitely likes to do more than crawling right now.  One thing she has figured out better than I recall Annie doing was managing to find her way back down.  When Annie first started pulling herself up in her crib, we’d have to go back and lay her back down.  Claire has figured out how to set back down from standing but we’ve still had a few nap battles since she can now stand and refuse to nap a little easier than before. 

Which brings me to napping – she actually is pretty easy to put down but she isn’t one to nap on the go.  We can’t put her in the car or stroller and anticipate her to doze off, it just doesn’t happen.  I’ve heard other moms say their 9-month old’s don’t nap much at all during the day but my kids have always needed their naps and they are totally different kids without them so Claire has tied us down to being home a lot more so we ensure she naps, but that’s just fine, it’s cold out and we don’t all need to be out at once most of the time anyways.

She’s also eating real table food and loving it!  In fact, baby food was even more short lived than it was with Annie, she refuses to eat it and will turn her head and scream if we even try to come at her with a spoon.  I’m all onboard too because that means we can eat our own dinner with a small bit of peace and sorta quiet while the 2 kiddos feed themselves.  We don’t all sit at the table together often but when we have, it just feels like we are pivoting to a new stage, having dinner all together and having instances where I cook ONE meal for everyone to eat is…well…awesome!

We are pretty sure she is saying ‘dadda’!  When we concentrate on her saying it, she’ll say ‘dadda’ back to us.  No ‘Ms’ in site so not looking like mama will be coming out anytime soon but that’s okay because the 2.5 yr old has the non-stop-Mama-calling down pretty good so it’s being made up for.

She loves to play peek-a-boo, playing with hand puppets, playing in her ‘baby fort’, taking baths, watching/playing with her sister, watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, loves her Puffs, being held, and tearing every single book off her bookshelf {every.single.night}.  She’s still a very happy baby.  Although she does have some incredibly fussy moments but it’s usually when she isn’t feeling well or is overtired, which are understandable and it makes it easy to tell when something isn’t right with her.
The 'baby fort,' Annie has one that is much bigger so Claire got her own fort for Christmas
Aaron usually puts Claire down at night as Annie is particular about mommy time before bed but every now and then I get to sneak in and switch with Aaron and put her down at night.  In which the last time, I was rocking her in her dark room in my arms and she was so still, just drifting asleep and I realized how these still times with her in my arms are fleeting.  I don’t rock Annie to sleep in my arms at all anymore and haven’t for what feels like a while so I’m trying to soak in the time that I can still rock Claire.  It’s both sad and happy feelings.  Sad that my baby is growing so quickly and happy because I’m excited to see what she’ll be like at Annie’s age as a talking toddler and knowing all the fun and new things I get to watch her experience yet ahead.  6 months was my favorite baby age with Annie, 9 months is hands down my favorite with Claire.  She’s everything you think of when you think of the word ‘baby’ right now, it’s a really fun stage to be in.  

Sisters