9 months old

Here is what Reese is up to now:

Eating: Reese is still going strong with the nursing. In fact, she is kind of reverting with the bottle and not taking it as easy as she had been. She is down to about 4 milk feedings per day and eats 3 meals of solids. We are starting to offer her more finger foods like shells and cheese (left over from what Dono doesn't eat), cheese, soft apples, steamed carrots, green beans, crackers, tortilla chips (that was her idea when she snatched it off the table herself), cheerios, and meat sticks (baby food variety). She does really well and really likes feeding herself. She still gets one tub of stage 2's for morning and lunch, then a tub and some milk and cereal mixed for dinner. She is doing so much better with her sippy cup too. She has figured out that she needs to tip it up a little to be able to get her water out so it is nice that we don't have to do it for her every time now. (We do still have to do it sometimes though).
Enjoying Dono's leftover mac and cheese.


Talking: Reese is saying mama now! Yeay! I don't think she knows what it means but I still love hearing her say it.

Speaking of mama: Reese is a total mama's girl right now. If she doesn't see me, she is usually perfectly happy with someone else. But when she realizes I am there and she is not in my arms, DRAMA. Tears, reaching, more tears. Home girl knows how to get what she wants.

New business: Reese learned how to play peek-a-boo yesterday and it is adorable. She puts a toy or tag blanket on her head, then brings it down over her eyes, then we say, "Where's Reesie Poo?" and then she rips that toy/blanket down and smiles so big as we say "There she is!!!!!!". She is so proud of herself and I love it. Also, yesterday I decided to test out her walking on her own and I got her to take probably 5 steps unaided to me repeatedly. So then we showed daddy and Donovan, and Donovan loved it and thought it was so cool she could take some steps on her own. Then of course he wanted to get in on the action so he walked like a Frankenstein to us with his arms out like Reese, and we all clapped and said "Look, baby Donovan is walking too!" The things we do so our kids don't have to go to therapy later in life. Anyways, back to Reese. She even performed for my parents as we facetimed them to show them her moves. Today we practiced again with her walking about 4 feet from Tom to me and back again. We did it for probably 10 minutes straight and she loved it, but she wasn't very good at it today. She was trying to walk diagonally so she was doing a lot of diving into our arms. But it was fun anyways. I think she will be walking by 10 months, if she can get her confidence up. She is definitely steady enough and she knows how to fall gracefully so she is close. She usually just holds on to one finger on one of our hands now so it is much better on our backs then two hands. It is so cute just walking side by side with this tiny thing, holding her hand like I do with Donovan now. She just doesn't believe in herself enough yet. Tom and I will both be walking with her and she is so steady that we both wiggle our fingers out of her hands so she is walking by herself but after she takes max 2 steps and realizes we left her hanging, she lowers herself to the ground and starts crawling. (That is how we got her to walk back and forth to us, by pulling our hands out when she is walking to the other person). Yesterday she took 2 steps by herself, unprompted from the ottoman in her room to her dresser, but that was the first time she has ever done that and she didn't do that at all today. So she will be walking soon hopefully so our back can get a break and she can be happier.

High chair hijinx: With Donovan, we never even had to strap him in his high chair one time. We didn't even pull them through the seat cover. Reese is the exact opposite. A couple weeks ago I watched her basically try to throw herself over the side of the chair while she was reaching for a bowl full of tortilla chips. I had to grab her legs to keep her from going overboard. So then we decided that she was to be strapped in at all times. Only we didn't have them super duper tight so the little Houdini would twist and wiggle herself out of them anyways and get whatever she was reaching for on the table. And almost launch herself out of the chair in the meantime. She is so crafty. She puts her foot on the side of the chair and pushes until she can get the other foot up and she is almost standing in her chair. What a turd. So anyways, Tom tightened the straps but she still wiggles and tries to get herself out so we are never far when she is in that highchair.

Reese still loves Petey, Donovan and is still being wrapped when she goes to sleep. Still taking just 2 naps a day, at least one usually over an hour and a half. Since I started this new job she has a routine bed time, which is 8pm. Sometimes is later sometimes it's earlier but the vast majority of nights she is in bed by 8. It is wonderful. She is our little sweety pie and we are so lucky she is in our family.

(editor's note: I actually wrote this post last night to allow me more sleep tonight so change the days of when she is doing things appropriately- I only say this because of the big event she had tonight!)