9 Months!

Holy cow!  Really?  I mean, really?!?!  NINE months?  Wowzers.

It makes me so sad to think about how quickly she's growing up.  Sometimes I just sit and watch her after she's fallen asleep on me and look at how big she is, all stretched out, no longer fitting on me like the tiny newborn we brought home not that long ago? Talk about making a mama emotional! 

I'm not sure how much Riley weighs right now...I'm guessing somewhere around 18.5lbs.  I do know that she's taller than our kitchen garbage can, and that when she pulls herself up to it, she's able to bite on the lid.  Gross!  But that's what we're into these days...EVERYTHING!  Riley is such a handful.  She's in Shirley's water bowl more times than I can count, and even took the bowl out of the stand a few days ago and dumped it on the carpet.  She also now drinks the water off her hands after playing in it!  Yum.  Other favorite things to put in her mouth these days are the potting soil from our houseplant, any shoe she can find (including those still on our feet!), paper, the little plastic covers where the bolts are on the toilet...yeah...basically anything she finds that is gross goes in her mouth.  

Sleep...well, we've talked about that.  I know it could be much worse, but it could also be much better.  We'll get there.  She's eating one real meal a day (dinner) and then lunch occasionally.  I've been bad about being consistent with lunch. We've been working on eating Puffs, and she's finally not gagging, so I think we'll start introducing table food sometime soon.  She's still wearing size 3 diapers and is wearing 9-12 month clothes.  And she has 5 (almost 6) teeth!  {Which has made nursing a bit more uncomfortable, but still doable.}

She's crawling 'normally' most of the time now, but still drags her one foot sometimes, especially on the tile floor.  I'm amazed at how much she's cruising now.  We even got an old push-toy out of the attic and she's all over the place with it!  Riley is totally happy in the bathtub, or standing on the side and watching Gavin take a bath.  I'm excited to get her in swim lessons soon.  She loves the water.  Every now and then, she'll do something that looks like she's waving, she kisses on demand, and still attempts to clap (but it looks more like 'roll it up' from Pat-a-cake.)  She's amazing.

 

Riley LOVES bugging her big brother.  It's just the beginning, I know, but I'm so tired of hearing, "No, Riley.  You can't have that.  Riley, NO!  Mom, Riley's bothering me.  She's taking my Angry Bird.  Riley, stop!" Over and over and over and over again.  It's nonstop!  We've had a lot of conversations lately about sharing with Riley, being thankful he has a sister, yada yada.  All clearly over the head of an almost-four year old.  Ugh.  

We got her a new convertible carseat (thanks, Aunt Rosi!) and will be putting it in the car soon.  I've been stalling because I like the option of taking the whole seat out if she falls asleep, but lately, she's not staying asleep once the car is off anyway.  I guess it's time.  

And just for fun...this is what these photo shoots really look like these days...

 

Happy 3/4 year, baby girl!