9 months!

Holy crap, are you kidding me?! Ugh...I can't believe this kid is officially older than the amount of time I carried her. I just don't know where time has gone!

Alice had her check-up yesterday and all looks well. The poor kid STILL has a terrible diaper rash and of course the doctor was no help at all. I'm convinced there is something in her poop that is causing this since she can look pretty darn healed and then as soon as she poops she's freakishly red, swollen, and bleeding again. And it doesn't matter if she sits in it for 1 minute or 30, the result is the same. So we have orders to use hydrocortizone cream sparingly and hope that she "grows out of her sensitive skin". Ugh! I refuse to stand idly by while the doctor does nothing, so Matt and I have decided to seek a second opinion probably from a pediatric dermatologist. I just cannot, and will not put up with this for another three months. So we'll see how that goes.

Everything else went well. He's not concerned with her lack of crawling (yes, there is still no crawling here yet. She is quite the master of rolling and pivoting though. She certainly can get where she wants to go.) because the average age for crawling is between 9 and 10 months plus it's not an official milestone since lots of babies never crawl. She did, however, get up on her knees and rock for the first time ever this week. She's been attempting to get on her knees for ages now and I think I finally figured out the reason she's never done it, she wanted something on her knees. So I put some pants on her and sure enough she got right up no problem. Silly kid. Now she'll do it w/o the pants, I think she just needed to see that she can in fact do it. I keep telling her that there is a better way to get around than rolling or physically pulling herself across the floor, maybe she'll figure it out soon.

She had her official weight and height check yesterday as well. I knew the little monster had grown by leaps and bounds, but I didn't think she gained as much as she did - she's up three pounds (from 18.4lbs to 21.6lbs, around the 90th percentile) and she's gained 2.25 inches (from 26.75in to 29in, around the 95th percentile). It's a good thing we put her in her new car seat a month ago because she's officially outgrown it! It looks real nice in our brand new mini-van too (Did I mention that? We bought a brand new Toyota Sienna - yes, getting my license is in the works. Mention it and I'll kick your butt).

So what has Alice been up to you ask?

It's SOOO nice to not have to lug that damn infant seat around anymore. Lugging 30+lbs of car seat and baby awkwardly in one hand is enough to make anyone rejoice the day the carseat can finally stay in the car.

She's finally figured out the walker - kind of. She now knows that the thing can move and that her legs move it. Most of the time she ends up scooting backwards across the living room though.

She's quite the drinker. I'm SO glad we skipped the sippy cup and went straight to a real glass. Alice gets a HUGE kick out of feeding herself and and even bigger kick when we break out the baby glasses. Gotta love my mother-in-law for suggesting shrimp cocktail glasses, they are just the right size and super easy for her to handle.

She's really enjoying dinner more and more these days. I'd say her official favorite food is mushrooms - blech! Mommy hates them, but Alice can't get enough of them.

We also discovered another baby food she despises (the first being peaches, yet she likes non pureed peaches) baby spaghetti. I can't say that I blame her though, the stuff smells horrendous.

She has a couple favorite toys of the moment - a "baby tad" (it's a learning frog toy by leap frog that I'm pretty sure we inherited from Matt and Lori's girls) that talks when you press shapes on his bib is one that comes to mind right away. Alice will pull out the toy basket and search and search, throwing other toys all over the place until she comes across her baby froggy. The kid is so in love.

She also likes anything that feels good on her gums - go figure, eh? One of her favorites is not actually a toy but a luggage tag. It's one of many non-toy items that have ended up in the toy basket. And yes I know it's not the best thing for her to be chewing on, but what kind of a mom would I be if I didn't let my child live on the edge every now and again?!

While we're on the subject of toys, like most kids she also loves anything that lights up and plays music (no dad, that doesn't include drum sets). I happen to think her coolest toy of the moment is this piano (that I think is also from Matt and Lori). You can adjust how loud certain instruments are with the sliders just like a real mixing board. Alice seems to think it's best played with her nose though.

One of my FAVORITE things she started doing recently is giving kisses on demand. It's so cute when you ask her for a kiss and she'll lean in and then eat your whole face.

This kid is a talking machine! She says countless consonants and she has a handful of words she says as well : mama, dada, kiky (kitty), baba (bottle), hi, and yay.

She also just started to understand what certain words mean (or at least she appears to anyway). Her most recent being "no" and "bottle". This kid may not be crawling, but she sure is bright!

Like I mentioned before, she shakes her head "no" all the time now, but she's getting really good at waving hi and clapping (and saying yay) too.

She had been going through some sleep regression, but that seems to have subsided. We had her sleeping on a boppy for a while and once I removed that she's been sleeping much better. Matt went into her room the other night b/c she was crying in her sleep only to find the little stinker sleeping with a paci in her mouth, and one in each hand! Now that she is off the boppy she is able to find a paci in her sleep and put it in her mouth so I don't have to do it anymore. THANK GOD!!

In the spirit of remembering the last 9 months I thought I'd post this pic when my lil babe was just a tiny thing. We finally loaded the pics that were taken with our camcorder to the computer and this was one of them from her first visit to Grandma and Grandpa Bathje's house.

Mommy and Daddy love you our sweet baby girl.