Nine Months Old

Elsa turned nine months old on Tuesday, and her developments in the last few weeks have been remarkable!

New skills:
• Waving. Elsa learned to wave a few weeks ago. And she doesn't just wave "bye-bye"—she is a waving fool, at anybody or anything, at any time. She especially enjoys waving to Belle, which is amusing, since Belle obviously doesn't wave back. It's kind of an uncoordinated, flappy wave, and every once in a while she puts her hand up to wave and then seems to forget why it's there. But it's a wave nonetheless.
• Pointing. Elsa now points at things that interest her. Items she has pointed at include Belle (of course), Elmo (of course), pictures hanging on the wall, and flowers outside. I think this has been her most exciting development recently, because it seems like her first real communication with me—she's finally able to indicate what she's thinking about, which I love. She also recently pointed at her stuffed Cookie Monster when it dropped on the floor and said "Eh," which I took to mean was her asking me to get Cookie Monster back. In addition, she often makes a "buh" noise when she points at Belle—so that's potentially her first word!
• Playing ball. I have no idea if this is normal for her age, but Elsa already seems to have talent in this area. She either rolls or throws the ball back to us nearly every single time, and seems to have pretty good accuracy for her age! Usually she rolls the ball back by hitting it with the back of her hand. At first I thought she was doing it accidentally, but she actually tries to position herself at the correct angle to roll it towards me, so now I've decided it's definitely intentional. Also, when she wants to hold the ball in her hand, she goes for it palm first, but when she wants to roll it, she always goes for it with the back of her hand, so there seems to be a clear plan in that adorable little head of hers. Throwing is also a relatively new skill (although lately she enjoys throwing just about everything, not just balls). Here she is playing ball with me:

Eating:
Elsa's been trying more table food. Her very favorite thing so far seems to be yogurt—she officially went crazy for vanilla flavor YoBaby yogurt. But she has also enjoyed scrambled eggs, watermelon, and avocado. We've also been trying the Stage 3 baby foods. She likes the Broccoli and Carrots with Cheese, but surprisingly, she seems to hate the Lasagna and Spaghetti with Meat Sauce. As far as feeding herself, Elsa still inexplicably refuses to even attempt it. She will feed herself large things like Biter Biscuits, but when I give her anything small like the Gerber puffs, she won't even try to put them in her mouth. Instead she just plays with them, and very intentionally drops them on the floor one at a time, giggling like crazy as Belle pounces on them. I've tried telling her "no," and that just makes her laugh even more. Not a good sign for future disciplinary attempts!

Sleeping:
This area still isn't going very well. She'll have a few weeks where she goes to bed pretty well, followed by a few weeks of nightly screaming bouts. Right now we're in a screaming stage. The past several nights she's cried inconsolably for almost an hour every night. I thought maybe she was napping too much during the day and therefore just wasn't tired at night, so yesterday I tried limiting her napping. She took nearly a two-hour nap in the morning, so I didn't put her down for a nap at ALL in the afternoon ... and she still screamed from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. that night, so I guess it's not that. She's currently getting three more teeth (two on the top and one on the bottom), so at this point I'm just going to blame teething pain and hope it improves soon.

Growing:
We had Elsa's 9-month checkup yesterday. She is now 24 pounds, 3.5 ounces (yes, still way off the charts percentagewise) and 28.25 inches (71st percentile, down from the 91st percentile at her 6-month appointment, so her growth has slowed down quite a bit since last time). I'm a little relieved that her height has slowed down, because lately I've been having visions of her growing up to be 6-foot-5 or something.

This weekend Elsa will be baptised, and Ellen, Dave, Carter, Grandma B. and Grandpa P. are all coming to visit. Elsa wishes everyone a happy Memorial Day!