Leaps and Bounds

For the GPs, who haven't seen their grand-daughter for three months.

Little M isn't quite so little anymore.  At her 9 month check-up, she was still 95% for height.  Although she is a little skinny minnie at only 17 pounds.  Here's how else she is growing:

Physically:

• She can pull herself up to a standing position, walk with assist, crawl, and stand on her head.
  
• Her hair is long enough to get in her eyes and ears.
  
• She loves to clap her hands.  She used to clap other people's hands, but since she discovered that her hands can do the same thing she kind of dropped the other act.
  
• She slaps and bangs everything.
• She's got a ticklish neck, back, and arms.  And she loves it!
• She loves to dance to anything; music, the washing machine, Mom's voicemail . . .
• She loves to scat, and knows "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Smoke on the Water".
• She is learning to go potty in her potty chair.
• She's taken to nursing upside down, with her head plastered to the ground and her tippy-toes thrusting her bottom up to the sky.
• She has six fully emerged teeth, four on top and two on bottom.

Emotionally:

• She is still the happiest baby ever.  You can wake her from her deepest sleep and she'll greet you with an outrageously wide smile.
  
• She loves her monkey bedmate.  She likes to give him a big squeeze of a hug before stuffing him into a ball and rolling over and tucking him under her while she sleeps on top of him with her bum sticking in the air.  Sometimes their arms become so entwined that it takes some time to separate the two in the morning.  Sometimes she won't even let me take her out of the crib without him.  And she loves to wake up in the morning and tell her monkey bedmate all the dreams that she had while she proceeds to poke his eyes out.
• She will reach out to people who reach out to her and let them hold her for a few minutes.
• She may not be the snuggliest cuddliest baby, but she does love kisses!  She just learned to give them on her own accord and can even give them on demand.
• She likes to play hide-and-seek her own way.  She never liked the game before, but one day she threw a sheet over her head.  She lay there huffing and puffing, arms outstretched on either side of her.  Finally, she pulled the sheet down with gusto and laughed at herself for hiding herself so cleverly from Mommy and making her squeal at her reappearance.
• She likes to laugh.  She has a real engaging laugh.  And she laughs at Mommy.  A lot.  Even when Mommy isn't being funny.
• She's learned to share.
• She's learned how to throw temper tantrums.  She will cry as if deeply offended or hurt if things aren't going her way.  On the other hand, she is easily distracted!
• She can push chairs around, with or without wheels, with or without an occupant.

Mentally:

• Through her supra-segmental therapy and sign language, she knows the following: wake up, sleep, night-night, bye-bye, more, all done, play, sing/music, eat, milk, change your diaper, book, hear/listen, knock, blow, bubbles, airplane/fly, duck, fish, dog, cat, baby, cow, snake, monkey, bird, car, clock, Mommy, Daddy, cupcake, stay there, where, who, and ready, among others.
  
• She consistently signs milk, more, and all done.  She knows the difference between eat (when she gets solids) and milk (when she nurses).
• Her first word(s): all done.  She can now say all done, Da-da, and milk meaningfully.
• She thinks she is superstrongwoman to be able to tear apart tissue paper.

Habits and phases:

• There was a period where she would grab her left foot and inspect it to make sure it was in proper working order by rotating the ankle.
  
• She never was much of a toe-sucker.  She might nibble every once in a while.  But she's much more inclined to grab her feet and slap them together.
• She just developed the habit of crossing her ankles together when she is sitting or lounging.
• When she is nursing or on the bed, she has to be standing on her head.  There is no other way to nurse or hang out on the bed, in her opinion.
• She likes to grind her teeth and jut out her chin so her bottom teeth are sticking out prominently.
• She is still gnawing on everything in sight, with a disastrous penchant for paper.  But when she sees Mommy's fingers heading towards her mouth, she's learned to promptly spit out whatever she is masticating to avoid an irritating and sometimes painful finger sweep.
• She used to hike her right leg up when she nursed but gave that up in favor of handstands.
• She's learned to sleep in until 6am at the latest, stay up until 7pm, and skip her afternoon nap.
• She still shakes her head like Stevie Wonder when she is tired.
• She still blows raspberries constantly.
• There was a very short time where she thought it great fun to mimic our coughing.  She still might every once in a while if the mood suits her.

She can imitate:

Dinosaurs, a drowning person, Freddy Kruger, and creatures of the deep.

She also sings like a bird, gnaws like a rat, and scrambles like a sand crab.

Future occupations:

• Dentist or oral surgeon--she likes to inspect our mouths and has succeeded half a dozen times at extracting our tonsils manually.
  
• Drummer--she loves percussive music and she bangs, slaps, and hits everything all the time.
• Receptionist or fashion writer--she loves paper, computers and keyboards, and shoes shoes shoes!
• Military--she can do pushups, thinks military crawl is the only way to get around, and knows to go for the eyes.
• Gymnast/tumbler/acrobat/stuntwoman--always pushing the edge in how her body twists around and can go head over heals when upside down.
• Human exclamation point--not sure if this is an occupation but if anyone can turn it into one, she can!  If you don't know what a human exclamation point looks like, it looks a little something like this:

Only the eyes are usually a little wider, the mouth a little "o"er, the body a little straighter, the arms a little stiffer, and the toes a little pointier.