Lightly Dappled: 9 Months of Hazel

Dear Hazel,

You are 3/4 of a year old, and I am late on writing this. It has been a BUSY month for us and I am trying to keep up! You weigh about the same as last month at 18.6 pounds and XXinches. You're still wearing the same size clothes, and you have 6 teeth (4 on top, 2 on bottom)!

You are eating more variety and REALLY enjoying it. You've added blueberries, pears, banana, and chicken and you've liked everything including the things you didn't like before. We also bought you some puffs to start eating textures and get you ready for table food. You are so cute and precise as you pinch each little bite. Small pieces of banana and pear are fun but challenging because they are so slippery. Sometimes I sprinkle some rice from my dinner onto your highchair and you enjoy eating that one piece at a time too! It also makes it easier to have family dinners around the table.

We've been working on sign language as you eat using the signs for eat, more, and all done. Just this past Monday and Tuesday we've seen you make the sign for "More"! At first I thought it was a flue and you were just playing with your fingers, but we've seen you do it multiple times, and it makes me so proud to see you communicating in a way that we taught you!! Although, I have to say that your normal version of "more," which involves banging your hand on the tray, is pretty effective too.

Your crawling skills have improved and you hardly ever army crawl anymore... It's up on all fours for you! And even that isn't acceptable to you so you pull up on things as often as you can. You can walk along objects as long as you're holding on. You are a daredevil though, and frequently let go to test your balance! Needless to say you've done quite a bit of falling down this month. Now you've figured out how to sit back down from standing, but for a while you would get stuck there until we helped you or you came crashing back down.

Another cute thing you learned was how to cross your fingers. For two days straight you practiced crossing them and it is one of the most precious things I've watched you do.

You have been quite the traveler this month making your way to Mexico for your first international adventure to celebrate Thanksgiving. Then last weekend we made a rather last minute and speedy trip to Denver, Colorado for your Aunt Cara's Graduation. While we were there you got to meet your Aunt Karen, Uncle Dan, and Cousin/Aunt Sarah as well as some of momma and daddy's friends from school (and I forgot to take any pictures with them!). You also got to experience your first good snow! Saturday we spent a lot of time walking around Denver while big fluffy flakes were falling. Part of the time you were riding with mom or dad and sometimes in your stroller. You didn't get to play in it, but I still think you appreciated the spectacle. It was fun being an urban family for the day, walking, walking, walking. You did well on most of the flights we took this month except for the one coming back from Denver... you were awake and fussy on and off through the whole flight and then when we started our decent you started screaming, throwing your head back, uncontrollably. No amount of shushing, singing, bouncing, pacifiers, toys, boobs, or anything else at our disposal would pause the wails. So we waited. And I cried a little bit with you. Yikes, girl!

You met Santa TWICE already. He came to visit your school and you were not very happy with him. You didn't cry, but your face was saying "I don't like this!" But once we took you off his lap, you grabbed his finger and gave him some smiles. Then, when we were in Denver, we were riding the elevator in our hotel and it stopped on a random floor and when the doors opened Santa and one of his elves were standing there to get on! He rode down and took a picture with us in the lobby! He's a good guy, and I'm glad you're starting to warm up to him.

The day after we got back from Mexico, I moved all your clothes into your laundry bin next to my suitcase, but didn't do the laundry right away. But after a couple days I did a load and when I went to move it to the dryer I found my saline spray in the washer and a lot of cardboard pieces.... and everything was LINTY. More lint than I had ever seen! Turns out I washed an entire mini notebook with your clothes!... and I have a sneaky suspicion that YOU were the one who put those items in your laundry.

You're becoming more of a momma's girl, preferring to be with me more than most other people, including your dad. He's not convinced you like him very much, but that doesn't stop the two of you from having some pretty good times together. He put a pickle up to your lips very early on this month (when you still didn't like apples) and we didn't think you'd like it, but we were completely wrong. You latched on and couldn't get enough and sucked the seeds right off the top and put your teeth to good use chewing on it. He let you play with a baby guitar while we were at Target recently, and you liked it so much he couldn't bear to take it away from you again... so it will be under the Christmas tree next week. He really had fun clucking his tongue with you. You each sounded like you were talking to a pony but you were just clucking back and forth and smiling big goofy grins. He appreciates all the little bonding moments he can get out of you!

As always, we are smitten beyond measure with everything you do and are.

Love,
Momma