9 Months Old!

Billa is 9 months old today! Only three more months 'til my little firecracker turns one. I never thought we'd get this far so fast, but time really does fly when you have children. And so much has happened in nine months! We've mastered breastfeeding, started babbling, recognize our name, laugh and smile and dance, and progressed from rolling, to scooting, to crawling, to pulling up and cruising along the coffee table, and soon, we'll be walking!

Sybilla took another step last night. She was trying to climb my legs to get at the food I was making for her dinner, which I then passed off to her daddy. We've been trying to teach her to follow us when we beckon, so Michael told her to follow him as he walked out of the room with her dinner. She stood there and you could tell just how much she wanted to follow him. Her little foot crept forward cautiously, paused for a second, and then she dropped to her knees and crawled faster than the speed of light for chowtime. Her Papa (my dad) can vouch for this!

In terms of breastfeeding, once I'd made it to 3 months, I wanted to go to 6 months. And at 6 months, I wanted to make it to 9. And now that we’re here, I'm hoping to make it to Christmas! Sybilla is still breastfeeding, but only in the morning when she wakes up and at night before she goes to bed. Occasionally I will feed her during the weekday if we're home. I stopped pumping some time ago, so we're doing formula for all of her other feedings. Costco has a pretty good price on Similac and one of those containers can last me about 3 weeks with her current drinking patterns.

Breastfeeding has taken on a whole new challenge now that she is more mobile; her newest thing is to switch from side to side while sitting. And when she gets really excited, its like she's playing the bongos. [sigh] I miss the days of laying down and nursing in bed, but there are apparently more interesting things to do than nurse. But as soon as the buffet closes she discovers she's hungry. Go figure.

Now that Sybilla has two teeth (no more have made an appearance just yet!) she loves to eat with her fingers. Peas, steamed carrots, mashed potatoes, Gerber Puffs, Cheerios, and overcooked noodles are the foods we've explored so far. I've given her small pieces of cheese and turkey (REAL turkey, not sammich turkey) which she has also loved immensely. I'm starting to get really tired of making baby food, so I'm hoping more teeth will appear shortly so that we can continue onwards and upwards with finger foods.

It also seems like Billa can't get enough to eat, which is really surprising, because the girl can EAT. Proportionally, I think she puts her daddy to shame with what she can consume. If she's going through another growth spurt, God help us! I just bought more shirts for her and I had to get the 18 month size. We weighed Sybilla against Cameron and Madeleine the other day. Cameron is 2 and weighs about 29 pounds. Madeleine is 4 and she weighed in at 35 pounds. My child has not even hit one year and she's 21, probably 22 pounds by now. Cameron's a big boy, and it blows my mind to think that my daughter is 16 months younger and weighs only a few pounds shy of his weight!

So that's the latest update in Billa Land! With the holidays coming, we're going to get our pictures taken on Sunday and we'll post those as soon as we get them. I'm trying to get a jumpstart on all of the holiday stuff especially since we're moving in just two weeks (!) and time will really be crunched as a result. So on that note, I bid you adieu!

Love,
K & Co