Meg-9 months

My little Meg turned 9 months old yesterday! Hard to believe! We have been having a lot of fun around here and are looking forward to some Halloween fun this weekend! We are also looking forward to receiving our family picture proofs that we took a couple of weeks ago. The photographer said they were good....we will see! The night of our pictures I was rocking Meg to bed and I had one of those mommy moments where I was so full of love I just thought I would burst. I just wanted to squeeze her so tight so that I would always be able to feel how sweet she felt in my arms. I started to get sad thinking that I wouldn't be able to rock her forever and how I just wanted her to stay just like she is. After I put her to bed I went to the living room to get Brody so I could put him to bed and he was just being as goofy as can be and saying the funniest and sweetest things. As I was reading books with him that night I realized that I love the age he is just as much as I love the age Meg is. That is the great thing about parenthood. Each age is wonderful and special and so as I get sad about the passing of one stage I will look forward to the great things that are just around the corner!

Things to remember at 9 months....

• She is a very happy baby. Her face lights up when she gets around people and she loves to bounce up and down. She lets her hands go crazy. This is all especially true at church. She is a great distraction to the people who sit behind us!
• She has stood up unassisted a couple of times but does not enjoy this. She does love pulling up and cruising.
• There are only about two things that aren't safe for her to crawl to and pull up on and those are the two things she is obsessed with. She knows she shouldn't do it and as she starts to one of these shelves I will say, "Meg. That's not for you". She will turn around, smile, and just a keep on going! I don't recall Brody doing this!
• She thinks Brody is hilarious. She loves crawling on him and pulling up and checking on him when he is watching TV. They have been taking baths together and loves when he claps bubbles together and they splash her.
• She is done with baby food. I have continued to try, but she just wants nothing to do with it. So for breakfast we have some mixture of waffles, cheerios, yogurt, eggs, avacado, bananas, oranges, and toast. For lunch and dinner we do pasta, peas, carrots, and chicken pot pie. I tried hamburger meat the other day and that did not go over well. I am excited about trying new things and find it a challenge to figure out different meals all four of us can eat!
• She is becoming more interested in books. She loves this big ABC book we have that is touch and feel. She loves the ducks and the pictures of babies. She tried to give the babies kisses!
• She has not been very consistent with her sleep here lately. Some nights she does great and then other nights she is up and down a lot. I am not too worried because I know that she can be a good sleeper and that she will work on the kinks eventually! When she takes naps during the day she is usually down for a good chunk of time though!
• She loves music and has started really dancing to the Toddler Tunes on TV.
• She has two more teeth coming in. That will make 5. They are not coming in the proper order at all. Surely that doesn't matter!

And a couple of things on Brody......

• He is all about "the rules". And "the rules" are things he just makes up. He will come up with something that we are supposed to do and he will say, "But thats the rules" or I am playing a game.
• He has an excuse for everything. Not in a bad way always though. For example, He might take a toy away from Meg and I will tell him not to do that and he will say, "But that is very special to me" or "I am playing a game" or "That's the rules".
• He puts the word "douba" with everything. I don't know where that word came from or if it even is a word, but we hear it all the time.
• He has been doing really good with school and has been interested in trying new things which include working on drawing his letters, cutting things out, and more coloring.
• We have had a great bedtime routine for a while now that includes books. Brody used to HATE reading and now he loves it and I love it too. We check books out from the library and then we read two to four books everynight. He is currently on a dinosaur kick!
• Today he started playing in his room by himself. This is huge. He has always played in the living room or with me in his room and today he decided he could stay in there alone. He was in his own little world pretending and making up race tracks, etc.

I can't believe we will be celebrating Meg's first birthday in 3 months. Get your grass skirts ready....we are planning on a Hawaiian themed party. I can't wait to watch her tear up her birthday cake!!!