9 month update

On February 3rd, Lydia turned 9 months old. She is quite happy about that.

One of her favorite things to do, still, is pppttttptptptptpt - and she is getting quite good at it!

She also LOOOOOOOOOVES her sister. Seriously. When Eden is in the room, Lydia's face lights up. When Eden leaves the room, Lydia often starts crying. Lydia laughs at Eden even when Eden isn't being that funny. Such a great thing to observe.

Recently, she learned to drink from a sippy cup. Although she needs a bit of help getting it at the right angle (if not, she just sucks lots of air), she is quite good at picking it up, getting it to her mouth, holding on, and getting something out.

She is also getting better at pulling herself up. She now is standing in her crib every morning when I go in.

And she can even pull up on your pants to ask to be picked up.

The new position is looking at me while I cook - and I like to think of it as baby jail.

(And, no, I am not sure how that right sock came off, but my guess is that she took it off to put it in her mouth.)

We'll be going to the doctor this week and will post updated stats. Things that are new:

• She is eating more and more solid foods and had her first "meal" of red beans and rice the other night.
• She is, for some reason, no longer drinking from a bottle consistently. She likes to play with it, sure, but when it comes to drinking she will take a few sips then act like she forgot what to do. Thankfully, Marie and Dolores can still get her to take a bottle most days at PDO.
• She is still not sleeping all the way through the night every night, but we have had a few long stretches - slow and steady.
• She is crawling all over the house and will follow voices - it is to the point where if you leave the room for more than 10 seconds, when you come back she is in a completely different place.
• She is really wanting to stand up and thinks she wants to walk. Perhaps a walker is in her future.
• She will finally let us put a bib on her without it coming off immediately.
• A while back, Ashley stopped using the "itz-been" to time nursing. Itz been sitting on Lydia's side table as a clock for awhile. Although Lydia is still only getting about 1 bottle a few days a week, we're sure it may start to increase.
• The word from L's PDO teachers is that "she's a good baby." When Ashley asked what babies do to be good babies, they said, "She smiles a lot. She doesn't scream a lot, and she does what she's supposed to do."

[Editor's Note: Since the summer, I have really been trying to pick the best picture out of similar ones and not posting so many pictures. As you can see, I'm not doing such a good job of that some days :) ]