Dear Miss 9 Month Old

Dear Miss Anika, You are 9 MONTHS old! How is it possible?

This past month has been a big one for you.

You met Santa and his elves. You helped us cut down a Christmas tree and decorate the house for the holidays. You learned how to wave hello and bye bye. You eat every food I give you by yourself, but you still get mushed up food at Mrs. B's house.

Oh, and You are walking! It started out with a couple steps here and there, but by your 9 month birthday you were taking 5 steps in a row (wobbly).  You get better and better each day at walking. Sometimes I look over and you are just walking from the chair to the tv table or from wall to stairs, etc.

hahaha

You wear 9 Month clothes. You weigh 16 pounds and 13 ounces. You are 27 inches long. The doctor at your 9 month apt. said you were perfect from head to toe.  Mummy already knew that :)
She could tell how active you are from our short appointment and said for a baby with your activity level, your small weight gain is perfectly normal.  She also asked if there were any athletes in the family.  I think you will be very athletic. You are saying dada and what sounds like dog and you say the "sounds like dog word" when you see Piri...but I'm not sold on that one :) your dad is though. I think you are still just mumbling but he swears you are saying dog. hahah

You still get a lot of attention no matter where we are!  It really is quite crazy.  People of all ages, men, woman and kids just love to talk to you. People will be walking by talking on their cell phones and stop to talk to you and then they will be on their phone saying "Oh Betty, you should SEE this baby I am talking to" People take photos of you with their cell phones as well. Sometimes people ask and sometimes they don't. I usually just ignore these people, but YOU DO NOT! You smile and talk back, especially if a camera is put in your face. Your dad is thoroughly embarrassed by all this attention. I am kind of embarrassed writing it. Nona said that you get lots of attention when you are with her too and she said it never happened like this with me or your uncle or cousins. I think Nona is saying you are cuter than  I was :)

We are SOOOOOOOOOO blessed to call you ours. I really look at you with aww most days and just cant believe you are all mine (and daddy's).  You are absolutely perfection from top to bottom and from the inside out. You know I am not a mushy mom, but you really are something.

You are still nursing and your night time sleeping isn't what it once was, but most nights I don't mind with where we are at. You go to sleep without a fuss in your own crib. SO easy, but sometime in the night you end up in our bed and you generally wake up there in the morning because I am too tired to bring you back to your bed. I don't mind this and when  you are hogging the bed or bothering me, I DO bring you back to your crib.  Sometimes you keep touching me in bed, and I hate that! I just want to say "STOP Touching me" haah. I know that sounds mean, but I am just trying to sleep in peace you see :) I still love you!  You had your first bug this past month. You got over it VERY quickly though and never even acted sick. I wouldn't even have known you were sick if you didn't keep throwing up for 11 hours AND you cuddled with me a little bit. I got you to watch a little bit of Curious George on tv the day you were sick. BUt, most other times you have absolutely No interest in TV.  I certainly don't mind. You love to play with your toys and look at books, BUT You wont sit still for more than a minute for me to read to you. I hope one day you want me to read to you because you have LOTS AND LOTS of books I would LOVE to read to you. You figured out how to rock yourself in your rocking chair. You climb the stairs from Bottom to top all by yourself.  We are teaching  you to come down safely since you learned how to go up. You love to help me load the dish washer and put laundry in the dryer. I think you will continue to be my helper. You love to pull all the toilet paper off the roll and take the safety locks off the bathroom cabinets. You stand outside the shower while I wash my hair and just watch and wait your turn. It is so cute. Then I bring you in and wash you up. You go pee on the potty almost every morning. I sit on the big potty and you sit on your little potty right across from me. We are Not potty training, but its very laid back and no pressure. Since I have to potty and you have to come with me anyway, I figured why not? You also brush your teeth the same time as me every morning. You LOVE to brush your teeth! Doing the same things together in the morning keeps you next to me and out of trouble :)

I am so proud of the little girl you are. You do throw little fits when you get something taken away that you want or when you want more of something that is all gone. We are working on sign language for you to communicate with me instead of screaming at me, but Im not great at remember to sign.

I LOVE you Miss Anika so much!

I want time to SLOW down though!

Here is a video of Anika walking...but its not great.  She can walk a lot further than this shows but she is still quite slow and most of the videos are long and would take too long to load...but here is a teaser :)