Emmeline - 9 months

Well, Miss Emmeline has been out as long as she was in! I really can't believe it. She is growing up to be such a cute baby. Her biggest development this month is her appetite! She will eat anything, and I mean anything, that you feed her or put in front of her. I was a little worried that she would turn into a Cheerio, so we are working in a few other kinds of finger foods. Her daily food and milk/formula intake looks like this:

6:00 am Nurse
7:30 am 4 oz of fruit or applesauce with baby cereal with Cheerios after
8:15 am Nurse
10:45 am 4.5 oz. milk bottle and 4 oz. of pureed veggies or stage 2 fruit
1:45 pm 4.5 oz. milk bottle and 4 oz. of pureed fruit or stage 2 fruit
3:00 pm 4 oz formula bottle and puffs and cheerios
5:30 pm Nurse
6:00 pm 3-4 oz. of pureed veggies, an ounce of pureed meat, an ounce of avocado and an ounce of brown rice with diced peaches and Cheerios after
7:30 pm Nurse and bed
Usually she wakes to nurse between 2 am and 4 am, but sometimes she sleeps through.

Next week we are going to two 6 oz. bottles at daycare and upping her food some by adding some finger foods for her to have there. I think that I'll switch her over to stage 3 baby foods and chunkier home purees as well. I hope that she continues to be an adventurous eater!

Some milestones this month include incessant chatter. This child talks all the time! (I'm sure that isn't that much of a surprise if you know me.) She talks to us, to her friends at "school," to the dogs... all the time. She has really started to interact more with us, the kids in her class and, most hysterically, the dogs. Every morning she crawls over to the dogs and "hugs" them by pulling herself up to kneeling onto them and then flopping her head down on top of them. The grudgingly cooperate. The other afternoon she grabbed the other end of the toy Winni was playing with and started shaking it and laughing. I think she really enjoyed "playing" with her.

Emmeline also enjoys going outside, which is great because David and I do, too! Every afternoon she spends some time outside after we get home from work. The last few days we have gone to the track at Irondale Middle School to walk after she eats dinner and she enjoyed that (when she wasn't too sleepy).

She is developing a sense of humor as well. She laughs when we laugh, even if she doesn't know why. Also, she thinks it is super-funny to put her pacifier in your mouth. Much hilarity will ensue. Just don't try to take it from her, because that is clearly NOT funny.

Here are some items from the babycenter.com milestone chart. She is right on track developmentally, and slightly advanced in the social aspects, I think.

• Stands while holding onto something

• Jabbers or combines syllables

• Eats with fingers

• Bangs objects together

• Plays patty-cake and peek-a-boo (she doesn't do too well with the "roll-it-up" portion of patty cake, but she gets the rest)

• Says "mama" and "dada" to the correct parent (with absolutely no regularity, and sometimes not at all)

• Waves goodbye (or sometimes, if she is really feeling fancy, she claps goodbye)

• Picks things up with pincer grasp (oh, Cheerios, how much you have taught us)

• Crawls well, with belly off the ground

• Understands "no" and simple instructions (albeit she doesn't follow those instructions)

We do love her so!