9 Months Old

9 months old, or aka the clingy stage!  For the longest time, I was just an 'ordinary' person to her.  Zero excitement when I would pick her up from daycare or coming back from our vacations, it was actually kind of embarrassing how she would cry and throw a fit about leaving daycare to go home with me!  I was really looking forward to this day when she would cling on to me… well here we are...and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be either!  I feel like I’m walking around all day with a baby wrapped around my leg and I’m dragging that leg behind me as I walk.  I sure do love her and love to feel wanted by her but it’s also exhausting!  When she clings on and I start to get a little tired from it, I try to just remind myself that I’ll look back and think this was such a short time and how someday I’ll wish I had these precious days back so for now I’m going to appreciate the clinginess as best as I can!

   

She has taken a few very brief steps on her own, so brief that I’m not really counting them yet but one of these days I know she is just going to take off walking.  I can’t tell if it’s a few months out yet or days away.   I’m guessing we are still a little ways out yet, although she has assisted walking down to where she is basically running down our halls, her balance is still pretty wobbly yet which makes me think it won't be quite as soon. 

This month she has become very drawn to Charley.  Charley is so good with Annie, Annie crawls all over her as if she is her personal jungle gym and especially loves to choke Charley by grabbing onto her collar.  Poor Charley just takes it.  The licking is out of control.  As soon as the licking starts, I separate them.  Let’s just say I caught some open mouth kisses between the two that made me gag and grabbing for a wet wash cloth to try to clean Annie’s mouth out.  Charley usually ends up behind the baby gate as I just can’t get Annie to leave her alone.  Lately, they've played tug-a-war and it is pretty cute, Charley gives her dog toy a little tug while Annie is holding onto the other end and that sends Annie into a ROAR of laughter.   Annie has this unhuman-like grip for a baby; it’s actually pretty freakish how strong she is sometimes.

Right before her 9 month bday, her two top teeth appeared!  Barely popping thru the gum, we joked that all Annie wanted for Christmas was her two front teeth!  Unfortunately though, at her 9 month appointment, we found out she had a first ear infection, in both ears, which my mommy intuition had kinda wondered if she did.  Let’s hope we can avoid those in the future.

This post is already a half a month late, and I’m going to try to stop there and save some to tell you about for her 10 month post.  Happy 9 Months Sweets!