9 months

Marie is 9 months old today! She's officially been outside of me longer than she was inside, and that's just crazy.

Weight: 20 pounds, 4 ounces (80th percentile)
Length: 27 inches (25th percentile)
Head circumference: 45 centimeters (75th percentile)

Milestones:
-Marie is now a pro at crawling (which means she no longer rolls all the way across a room, much to my dismay), though she isn't nearly as fast as my neighbor's daughter who's the same age.
-She has started to pull up on things, including her crib bars, which necessitated the lowering of the crib a couple of days ago.
-Marie can feed herself some solids if the pieces are big enough and aren't too slippery. And if she has pieces of bread on her high chair, she'll shove them into her mouth faster than she can swallow them, so now we need to pace her with a couple pieces on her tray at a time.
-She's tries to drink out of a sippy cup while holding it on her own, but she needs help tipping it up.
-Marie met Santa Claus! She did really well with him, too. Especially after he gave her a candy cane in a crinkly wrapper.
-She celebrated her first Christmas! She wasn't really sure what to make of it, but she seemed to enjoy ripping the paper off a couple presents, at least.
-Along the same lines, she participated in her first nativity pageant as a sheep. (If you want to get technical, her costume made her look more like a bunny, but let's not split hairs here.)

Santa's hand is in front of his beard to prevent her from yanking it off his face.

Her pajamas have bunnies on them. I thought they were sheep. Whoops.

Opening presents!

Current likes:
-Splashing in the tub. She's enjoyed baths before, but now she loves them!
-Eating solid foods. She's eaten basically everything we've put in front of her, including bananas, chicken, pasta, ham, turkey, peaches, applesauce, corn, green beans, yogurt, and bread.
-Getting into everything. Nothing is safe around her!
-Playing with her toys, but especially playing with paper, receipts, and wrappers.
-Having freedom to crawl around. She isn't as content to sit on laps for long periods of time anymore.
-Grabbing (and chewing on) the strings from my sweatshirt.
-Playing with my watch or ring (while I'm still wearing them, lest you think I'm knowingly handing her a choking hazard and valuable and sentimental item just for funsies).

Hanging out in (and licking) the laundry hamper.

Exploring the jumper in a new way.

Current dislikes:
-Getting her bib put on. I think it might be because it pulls her hair a little.
-Getting her nose wiped or her hands and face cleaned after eating.
-Getting her diaper changed if I haven't fed her yet first thing in the morning.
-Being covered by the carseat canopy.
-Being left in her jumper if we leave the room.
-Falling from a standing or kneeling position and bumping her head. (Imagine that!)

She wasn't too happy after her nap. 

Nicknames:
-Girlie
-Sweetheart

Other odds and ends:
-Marie basically eats whatever we eat, so I've been trying to make sure we eat more fruits and vegetables ourselves (I've never eaten so many bananas in my life!). I gave her some baby oatmeal the other day and she wasn't such a huge fan, but that may have been because I made it too thick. (When it was runnier, she seemed to enjoy it just fine, but it also dripped everywhere, so I added more powder and then she figuratively turned her nose up at it.)
-Marie survived another road trip, this time to Arizona. She was fantastic on the trip down there and was still quite good on the drive back, though she was a little fussier. I didn't have many toys on hand, so I kept her entertained by handing her the trash from our lunch, including a water bottle, various wrappers, and an empty Pringles container. And then I kept cycling through those items as she got bored of them. It kept her pretty happy!
-We got into some bad sleeping habits while we were in Arizona for Christmas, because she slept in the same room as us and whenever she woke up it was easier to just feed her and go to sleep rather than to let her self-soothe. So the next couple days after we came back home were a little rough, but she's capable of sleeping ten hours without eating, like last night.
-I think she's basically settled into a two-naps-a-day routine, with the longer nap in the morning. Her morning nap is sometimes 3 or 3 and a half hours long, but it's usually around 2 hours.
-She could probably squeeze into size 3 diapers, but we've been putting her in 4s because we happened to have a box of those after we ran out of 3s. And they fit more comfortably, so, you know, bonus.
-She still doesn't have any teeth, but we suspect she might be teething because she's been drooling like crazy, runs her tongue over her gums, blows raspberries, and has been a little more fussy than usual. And I thiiiink I can feel something hard on her top gum (which surprises me, because I thought the bottom teeth are usually the first to come in).
-Marie does baby yoga, by which I mean she frequently engages in the downward dog position. Often on top of her wipes container or while nursing, these days.
-She rarely spits up anymore! A couple times a week, maybe, which is a big improvement.
-She jabbed her finger up my nose on Sunday, which gave me a pretty nice nosebleed. Guess we need to teach her to be gentle.
Marie says "mama" and "mamamamama" a lot, though I don't think she means me, by any means. She has said "dada" as well, but "mama" is the current fave to jabber. She also says "ba" and "ga".
-We've started putting her in 9 month clothes, though she still wears some 6 month clothes as well. And I may or may not have squeezed her into a 0-3 month sweatshirt to see if it still fit today. (It didn't.)
-She is sporting a mullet but I can't bring myself to spend 20 bucks on a haircut for her or to cut her hair myself. Also, her bangs are almost constantly in her eyes because clips don't stay put very well in her hair.

Pulling up on the ice chest and getting into mischief.

Just chillin' with Dad at Grandma Erickson's house.

See? Drooling. A ton. 

8 months

Marie turned 8 months old on Sunday!

Milestones:
-Marie learned how to crawl a week ago. Of course, my mother is taking all the credit for teaching her. Perhaps with some good reason, as there were definitely crawling demonstrations involved. (A plan for my mom to open her own private crawling school where she can charge a steep tuition may or may not be in the works.)
-We took our first road trip to California with Marie to visit my family for Thanksgiving. She hadn't been on a road trip since she was a month old, so we weren't sure how she'd do, but she's a champ! She didn't nap as well as she usually does, but she was pretty happy most of the way there and back.
-Marie can move herself from a crawling position to a sitting position and back again. We've found her sitting up in her crib after waking up from a nap a couple times now.
-She's starting to develop her pincer grip, which means we need to be even more vigilant about vacuuming.
-Marie can hold her own bottle, but she has trouble tipping it back far enough sometimes.

Current likes:
Playing with anything crinkly, rolling all over the place, getting into mischief, trying to feed herself, blowing raspberries, life in general. She is a happy baby!

Current dislikes:
Being hungry, being overtired

Current nicknames:
-Smiley
-Rollie Pollie Ollie

Other odds and ends:
-We used my parents' scale to weigh Marie and she clocked in at 20.5 pounds.
-The night before we drove back home to Utah, we spent the night at my aunt's house and I shared a room with Marie for the first time in a couple months. She is not a quiet sleeper! She wasn't fussy, but before she fell asleep she kept rolling around, slamming her legs down, and scratching the sides of the Pack 'n' Play.
-Marie has tried a bigger variety of foods, including various soups, pork fried rice, bread, cereal, peaches, and a sampling of ice cream (her daddy is a softie). Whenever she sees us eating something, she wants to partake as well. She still isn't fantastic about eating foods with chunkier textures, but it's a work in progress. And we've finally ordered a high chair, so it should be easier to feed her once it arrives. (Holding her on our laps and trying to keep our clothes clean is just a little tricky.)
-Diaper changes have become more challenging, as she tends to roll over once the diaper is off.
-Marie currently wears size 3 diapers and 6-9 month onesies.
-Still no teeth or any real sign of teething, which is just fine by me.
-Marie generally goes to bed between 7:00 and 8:30, wakes up once before I go to bed to eat, and then sleeps until another feeding before I go to work between 5:00 and 7:00. Yes, the long range in time makes it tricky to anticipate when I'll be able to head out the door. After the morning feed, she'll sleep for another hour or so.
-Lately she's taken to pursing her lips and exhaling heavily through her nose, which I think is pretty funny. She also gets this really serious look on her face when she's concentrating intently.
-She gets giggly right before bed, which makes it hard to put her down! Oh, we just love her to pieces!