Month 9

Holy crap. Sadie has been out of my womb as long as she was in it. Was I really pregnant this long? That seems awful. I don't ever want to be pregnant again! (jkyesido)

YOU GUYS. SADIE IS SO MUCH FREAKING FUN!!!!! She is so interactive. She laughs allllll day long. Hysterically laughing and clapping all day. She's started dancing and waving and had suddenly become very snuggly when tired. She wants to play and hang out with me all day long. And it is my favorite thing in the world. Her personality is bursting through, and she is hilarious. I always told Nathan when I was pregnant, that this baby felt sassy. And sassy she is! Sassy and silly and sweet. I think this months crazy photoshoot accurately displays that. It's getting so hard to get pictures of her sitting still. But I love her crazy personality pouring out of each shot.

The month started out with Sadie crawling everrryyywhherreee, and being all kinds of happy that she can finally move. Everyone was telling me, "Oh you don't want her to crawl! That makes everything harder!" But it has made my day a million times easier. Sure I have to keep a closer eye on her and there are more messes to clean up, but she's so happy! She will play on the floor with her toys for hours. She will explore the house all day. I love it. Before, she would cry after 10 minutes on the floor because she was so frustrated that she couldn't get where she wanted to get. Screw what everyone else says. Crawling is the best! She very easily goes from sitting to crawling, and back to sitting again. And she is picking up speed! She used to kinda crawl in slow motion. Not so much anymore.

She pulls herself up on anything and everything, including things that are not strong enough to hold her, which causes much stress in my life. But she feels so proud and she looks so cute when she does it! She also finds every tiny crumb on the floor and puts it right in her mouth. She loves to pull yarn out of our living room rug and put it in her mouth as well.

One day at the very beginning of the month, I looked in her mouth and saw that one of her bottom teeth had cut through! It was so excited! She hadn't even been fussy. I naively thought that maybe teething with her would be a breeze. Ahhhh, nope. The second bottom tooth started making it's way in, and she was not a happy camper. She cried and fussed and chomped on her hands and drooled everywhere and her nose was runny all day. It woke her up at night and she would go from happy to sad in 30 seconds. She wanted to be held a lot, and now that she could crawl, she basically followed me around and grabbed at my legs while crying. The little guy broke through in about 2 days, and then she was happy again. Teething is no joke.

I started giving her a bottle of formula here and there at the beginning of this month. We have several trips this summer, and I knew I didn't want us to be tied to a boobie schedule. She took to it pretty well. It caused some constipation to begin with, but we switch to gentle and it was fine. She still prefers boob which is fine with me, and I nurse her 2 times in a 24 hour period and she gets 3 bottles. It takes her like.. 30 minutes to drink 4 ounces, haha. She is so distracted! When she's nursing, she can only see my boob, but when she's drinking a bottle, she can see everything. And she wants to see everything. It's hard for her to focus. She likes to sit up while she drinks the bottle. It's funny. Toward the end of the month she finally started holding her own bottles. It has been a huge relief to have her feeding herself sometimes.

She started sleeping on her stomach this month. It might sound weird because I feel like most babies like to sleep on their stomachs, but Sadie never did. In fact, she would scream when she rolled over onto her stomach. Now she sleeps on it all the time. It's really cute. But it also makes me so nervous, because she sleeps with her face smashed into the bed!  Freaking girl.

This month I really started noticing that she is her own human, and not just a little baby anymore. That may sound strange, because obviously she is still a baby, but she seems to becoming more and more of her own person every day. She is becoming independent, although she is still very much a mama's girl and loves to be held and cuddled. She crawls where she wants to go. She points at things she wants. She reaches when she wants to be held. She also follows me around the house whining when she wants to be held. Or hits my feet or tries to climb up the couch when I'm sitting on it. She cries when you take toys away or say "no." She pulls down my shirt when she wants to nurse. She knows what a bunch of words and phrases means. She notices when something is weird. She laughs hysterically when things are funny, and waits for them to happen again. She has her favorite people, and it's funny to me to see the people she chooses to like more than others. She loves allll little kids, but she has responded the most to my nephews Carson and Kalvin. Which is interesting because they are both the same age. Something about 3-year-old little boys I guess? She has her favorite of my young women, and she has a few favorite friends of ours. It's interesting that she seems to like men more than women. Her favorite guy is our friend in our ward, Zane. We think it's because he has a big, bald head like hers. She does things just for attention. All her actions are deliberate, not just the cause of being a baby. If that even makes sense? Haha. She definitely has some attitude and is a tiny bit of a drama queen sometimes. She can fake cry like nobody's business. And I've noticed that if she gets hurts, like bumping her head, she looks at me first to make sure I'm looking before she starts crying. And If I'm not looking, she usually just doesn't even cry.

She loves to "talk" with people. If you start babbling at her, she babbles right back and she will do it as long as you keep going. She loves it! She usually pulls your face in for a kiss while it's happening too. She loves peek-a--boo! She loves to be startled. She is sooo ticklish on her belly and feet. She still loves music and singing so much. She loves to be outside and we try to spend as much time out there as we can everyday. She loves birds. We got to little ponds a lot and she will just watch all the ducks and geese for hours.

She took her EIGHTH flight this month. A flight for every full month of life, haha. She is a really good traveler. Although it could be a whole different story when she learns to walk. She doesn't seem to know how to sleep in on vacation though. Even when she's on her normal nap and bed-time schedule, she wakes up at 6am on vacation. Except when at my in-laws house! I don't know what it is, but we have been there for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Memorial Day. She slept like a dream during each trip. In fact, Thanksgiving is when she started sleeping through the night. Grandma Merkley's house is just magic I guess!

She loves solid food. I haven't found anything she won't eat. That includes prunes. We give them to her whenever she's constipated, and she loves them! Weirdo. She also loves little snacks like puffs and yogurt melts. Rtiz crackers are also a huge hit, so are cheerios. We still give her stuff of our plates when appropriate, and she is a good eater. She chews and swallows. She really loves french fries and ice cream, (I promise we don't give her those things regularly) but she also LOVES vegetables. Cucumbers and bell peppers seem to be her favorite.

She has started to fake laugh and it's awesome. When she hears people laughing, she will scrunch her face up and do a fake laugh. It's so funny! She loves to copy the sounds people makes. She knows the words kiss, night-night, ba-ba, daddy's home, kitty, clap, and wave. When I say "know," I mean she knows what they mean. Not that she can say them. Haha. She says dada, mama, and ba-ba. But she doesn't really know what they mean. She just likes to copy us.

We are just so obsessed with this little lady. Everyday it seems like she has learned something new. It's such an adventure being with her. We love her so much!