9-10 Month Update

I would estimate more than half the population of the world finds babies adorable and infinitely interesting. They don't mind when a doting parent gleefully whips out their phone (remember when it was their wallet?) and scrolls through endless pictures of their baby and prattles on about what they’re doing these days.

I've never been one of those people. I've always been the person who was like, "Oh, yeah, cute," when someone shows me a picture of their baby. I put on a forced smile and usually change the subject.

But let me tell you. That is so not the case with my own baby.

Remember when I said I wanted to maintain my identity and my interests and still be me even after I had my baby? I didn't want to be one of those people who only talks about the child in question?

I still want that, but it's getting harder to maintain. Because so much of what I do anymore is watch Lily, study her movements, observe her amazing development. And I love every second of it.

Listen, not everyone is made to be a parent, I know. But I wish everyone could witness and experience the sheer miracle of how a human being becomes a human being. Of course, that would also involve them having the time to do that, so not being overwhelmed with work, and having the interest and means to educate themselves on development, so time and internet access or a copy of the trusty “What to Expect - the First Year.” 

There is so much we take for granted as basic human ability that I have now had the privilege of seeing in development. Something as simple as holding an object in your hands. We have photographic evidence of the first object Lily held - a black and white rattle when she was just a few weeks old. We are so far past that now, but every now and then, we look back and see how basic her abilities were in the beginning. When she was able to start holding her head up. The first noises she made, Besides crying of course. The first smile. The first giggle.

The ability to roll over is a major milestone for babies. I have a video of myself encouraging Lily to roll further than just onto her side from her back. Then there was sitting up on her own, which I know I lamented about in the last entry. Once those two things were mastered, it was only a short stop away from rolling onto her front and pushing herself up to sitting in one swift, fluid movement. 

You think crawling would be the next step, once Lily got used to putting weight on her hands and knees, but not so. One morning some months ago she was in our room with us, and she used a drawer on the side of our bed to pull herself up to a standing position. We went through a few weeks where all she wanted to do was stand, but she didn’t always want to pull herself up. A lot of the time, she wanted us to do it. We would prop her in front of a futon or a coffee table, but she would lean backwards towards me if she knew I was behind her, her way of saying, “Hey mama, lift me up!“ I’m a sucker. I lifted her up almost every time. 

But there’s this thing the doctor gives you to make you extra paranoid, a nine month ability checklist. I guess not every doctor gives it to parents ahead of time, but ours figured she should so we would know some of the things Lily should be able to do by nine months. That way we could practice them with her instead of being surprised by the checklist at the appointment. Seriously, some of these things you would never think of on your own. Like Lily poking at a piece of cereal in a clear bottle. Why would we ever put a piece of cereal in a bottle?

Based on that, I knew I was going to have to let Lily pull herself up on her own more regularly. It was hard to not help her when she was asking for it, but it didn’t take long before she got the hang of it. Now we can’t keep the girl down. She never wants to sit - we have to walk around holding her hands up as she toddles all over the house.

And since I started writing this, that’s come to mean mostly towards stairs. All she wants to do is climb them. Constantly. Which is its own kind of crazy because, as anyone with single zone central air knows, it’s hot as heck on the second floor of our house, and that’s where she wants to spend the majority of her time. Not sure why. But we’re constantly toting her up and down. She loves to attempt to climb the steps (obviously with one of us right behind her). We let her do what she can - if nothing else, it exhausts her.

Which brings us to…

Sleep

Lily has always been an amazing sleeper. We’re always grateful for that, particularly when we hear people talk about their kids only going for two hours at a time. 

At some point in the last few months, Lily stopped taking her 5:00 nap. One day we tried to lull her to sleep in her stoller, and she wasn’t having it. After a few days of this, we tried to bring it back, but then Lily didn’t want to go to bed on time.

“On time” is still 7:00 for the most part. There are some days when her schedule gets really thrown off and she ends up with an afternoon nap that’s later than 2 or 2:30. (Recently, she fell asleep at 4 and didn’t wake up for over an hour!) Sometimes we have family over, and Lily is very stimulated by the company. She might stay up until 8:30. At first, we thought, “Well, she went to sleep later, so she’ll wake up a little later,” but this is not the case. 

Wake up time is usually 7:30, but sometimes it’s as early as 6:30. Occasionally she gives us a little scare and stays out til 8:20. No correlation from when she goes to sleep. In fact, more often than not, if she goes to sleep at 8:30, she’s up at 6:30.

Whatever. We get solid sleep. Not complaining.

Getting her to sleep at night is a bit tricker these days, though. Since she’s been able to pull herself up, she will NOT lay down in her crib. The second we put her down, she pulls herself up and stands there, smiling at us under her paci like she’s so proud of her abilities. This was especially problematic when she started it. She would fall frequently, and the back side of her crib is a solid headboard since it converts into a full size bed eventually. We couldn’t leave her alone in there for fear she would hit her head on it. Jon would lay her back down, and she would climb back up. He would do this over and over, 50 times or so, until she literally didn’t have the strength left in her arms to pull up. 

But we did realize that if she doesn’t take that third nap, she is exhausted by 7. Sometimes it’s a struggle to get her there. Which means when I nurse her after dinner, she passes out on me. That makes it a lot easier to put her down! Granted, it’s not recommended that parents do this forever, but it’s what works for us for now. Eventually, we know this won’t happen. And we did have a day last week where we put her down while awake and she only pulled up 10 times or so. We don’t worry too much that she’ll go back to being able to get to sleep on her own one day because she could do it before. And she does manage it in the morning sometimes if she does wake up too early.

In terms of napping, we don’t put her down for that either. *shrug* We still lull her with a walk or a car ride. In fact, we’ve planned some of our errands recently around her nap time to ensure she doesn’t get over tired.

What’s with over tired being a thing, anyway? Why can’t babies just sleep when they’re tired? A revolutionary idea, I know.

The Value of Experience

Obviously we’re often still stuck in the house. Yay global pandemic.

But we have been able to have a few cool experiences for Lily.

First of all, shame on us, we did visit close friends (after screening for proper quarantine procedures, of course). They have two kids - one who’s 2 ½ and one who’s only a few months old. Lily actually interacted with both of the kids in an adorable way. I loved seeing her fascination with other small people, particularly the 2 ½ year old. She must have been thinking, “What?! There’s a small person who can walk and talk?! What’s that about?!” 

We mentioned the interactions to the doctor at Lily’s 9 month check up, and she was amazed that Lily could interact. Apparently kids don’t usually do that until 2 years old. So I can’t lie, that made us feel good about our kid. And it made me wish she could have even more interactions with other kids to build on the foundation that’s already there. *le sigh*

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On my mom’s birthday in mid-June, we went to a very small local zoo. They have a few goats and llamas, peacocks, nothing too exotic. 

But it did not matter to Lily.

Almost as soon as she saw the goats and deer, she started making all kinds of cool noises she had never made before, namely enthusiastic “ooh!”s. She chattered away the whole time we were there. And her increased “vocabulary” kept up from then on. I firmly believe this new experience at the zoo opened some new neural pathways.

It makes me want to give her new experiences all the time, but right now, that’s not possible. Honestly, our days are very samey. It’s not a bad thing, not too terribly boring, but I would love to see her getting to do more. We let her lead us around the house as much as we can. We try to find new things to do here. We let her point out stuffed animals she wants, objects like her music box. We left a few cabinets in the kitchen sans child proofing so she can explore them. Sometimes we let her empty out one of our clothing drawers. We have an 8 ½ foot inflatable pool we’ve put her in a few times. And it’s all fun, and she loves it all.

But on the mornings we do venture out and have breakfast at a sparsely populated restaurant, she loves to smile and sometimes even wave at new people she sees. She’s fascinated by them.

I wish we could do more. We’re trying to find things to do that can maintain distance. 

Anything to see her smile and giggle.