3/4

Macie turned 9 months old yesterday.  She has been on the outside longer than I carried her inside.(She was born over two weeks "early" so she had a head start on life!)

She is no longer a skinny baby, struggling to maintain her weight.  At her well-check today she weighed 19 pounds, 10.5 ounces.

She is a mover. She speed-crawls through the house, finding and picking up all the teensy-tiny specks on the floor.  She pulls up and cruises around furniture so not much is out of her reach. 

She loves books, but finds paper books much more fascinating than board books.  If we can draw her away from those, her favorite books have pictures of babies or animals.  I enjoy reading her books that we saved from when the older kids were babies and toddlers.

She sleeps through the night or wakes up once to cuddle and nurse. (And on a rough night, sometimes she wakes up two or three times.)

She has three teeth and two more on the way.

She loves to eat.  We've practiced baby-led weaning from the beginning so she prefers to feed herself. The only food she has turned down is turnip greens.  She loves chicken, avocado, applesauce, carrots, green beans, oranges, beef, banana, chicken and rice soup, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, tomatoes, eggs, Cheerios, and bread. The recommendations have changed since my older kids were babies so Macie also enjoys a thin spread of natural peanut butter. Her absolute favorites, though, are pasta with meat sauce and broccoli!

She loves the bath but doesn't like to get dressed afterwards.  She loves music.  She loves, I mean loves, the vacuum cleaner.  She loves to screech and hear her own voice. She says "ma-ma" and "bye." She waves. She has a temper and doesn't like to be told no.  She doesn't like to sit still for a diaper change. She doesn't like her car seat straps. 

She is 3/4 of the way to a year!