~ 9 Months ~

Nine months in and our little Lola is changing from a baby to a child right in front of our eyes…

Sam reminded me of this pic the other day and asked if Lola still uses her swing. I sent her this back in response:

Whereas last month was all about happiness, this month seemed to be more about frustration. Lola suddenly became much more able-bodied – she can push herself backwards, reach and wiggle her way over to toys just beyond her grasp, hold herself in her sitting position even when playing hard with a large and heavy toy, and can even hold her bottle one-handed! 

But with all of these new skills comes the realization that so much more is possible, yet her muscles and body don’t seem quite ready to oblige. Never is this more apparent than when Lola tries to crawl. She’ll throw herself down so that she’s on her back, flip over with great force, pull her knees up, stick her arms out, and stares determinedly ahead. And then… well, that’s as far as we’ve gotten. 

Usually what comes next is Lola down on her belly again, laughing, kicking her legs, and waving her arms as if she’s saying “this is what I meant to do all along!” It looks like she’s happily swimming in place. 

To me, this is great development. We are so close to forward motion. But to Lola, after a few times of this, she gets pretty annoyed. And who could blame her? Watching her do this you can almost see her thought process – come on body, work with me here, why aren’t you moving like I’m willing you too???

Its not just the lack of brain-body coordination that’s frustrating her though, its also the tricky situations she finds herself in as a result of crawling practice. Here she is about mid-way through her afternoon nap one weekend:

And after a good 10minutes of trying to move forward but only ending up moving backward and backward and backward:

I know that she’s SO close to crawling and that it’ll likely come any day now but despite that, I still worry. Lola is 9 months now and she’s still not doing a few things that “they say” she should be doing: She doesn’t pull herself to standing, she doesn’t show all that much interest in trying out any vertical movements of any kind, she doesn’t babble using consonant-vowel sounds… 

But on the other hand, she does do a heck of a lot and has made new developments this month. She can now sit and play on her own for quite awhile. I mean, she checks in with us and sometimes requires our singing and dancing to be entertained but other times she’s totally captivated by her toys and trying out new movements and signing and making noises that she doesn’t need us at all. Its really cool to see her interact with her toys and her environment like this, she really explores and checks things out. Lola can’t get enough of this one elephant toy that she has. If you squeeze its feet, it squeaks loudly and she thinks this is the most hilarious thing of all time. She hasn’t quite understood that she can make the noise just by squeezing, instead she jams it into her mouth to get it to make the sound. Then she giggles and giggles and does it again and again. Cause and effect learning at its finest! 

This month Lola also started working on waving and clapping. She does neither consistently. Sometimes she might slightly wiggle her fingers in response to us adults saying “wave Lola” and waving our hands like lunatics for far too long a period of time. Most time she just stares at us with a look that says, rightfully, “You’re all lunatics.” And when we ask Lola to clap we usually say, “clap Lola, yayyyyy!!!” to which Lola will make a noise that sounds like “yaayyyyyy” but will not clap. I’m working on her saying mama and dada too but all that happens is I keep saying , “Lola say mama” and Lola keeps giggling in response as if I’m telling her the best joke she’s ever heard. Which I guess is a pretty sweet second best. 

Anyway, somewhere in my brain I do know that everything is just fine and that she’ll  meet her milestones in due time. And it helps that her doctor isn’t worried one tiny little bit either. We just went for her 9 month check up on her 9 month birthday and all is good. Lola is still a dainty girl, weighing in at just over 15lbs, but she is thriving. And what she lacks in weight she makes up for in personality and smiles. 

Despite her small size, I can see her maturing daily. She now largely enjoys her bottles on her own. She sips on them as she plays, abandoning it for a couple of minutes to explore something that catches her attention and returning to it when she’s done with the distraction. Also, we’ve taken her to a few restaurants, including two DINNERS, and she’s been a star, eating bread and babbling as if she’s keeping up with the conversation. Things like that. 

I’m so excited to see Lola become so grown up but its been a bit sad for me too… She’s definitely not my little baby anymore. Just before putting her down for the night I used to hold Lola against my chest and rock her for a few minutes. It was the sweetest, I’d listen to her breathing slow as she sucked her thumb, cheek against my chest with her little feet tucked in and up so that she was just a tiny little ball of deliciousness. But now, she is just too big and active for that. I try anyway, I’m not ready for it to be over just yet, but it’s a rare occurrence now. Usually she is pushing herself up, looking around for Charlie or daddy, kicking her legs to try out new movements. And whereas I used to put her down sleepy and she’d just drift off, now I put her down and she practically bounces herself out with the velocity of her kicks and arm waving! We even had to put a few special stuffed animals in the crib with her so that she has some company as she transitions into sleepy time. She takes a few minutes to herself, kicks and moves about, rolls onto her belly then turns herself around to face the other end of her crib, tries out her side for a bit, hugs a toy, pushes it away, grabs another one, and on and on and on. She’s a busy little lady.

So its been a month of transitions. My Lola is becoming more independent and I’m learning to adjust to not being the center of her universe. Its nice really, the less central I am to her, the more she seems to enjoy BOTH Sean and I as well as others around her (so much less crying when others hold her! As in, she actually sometimes LETS other people hold her!), but it’s a change. And change is hard. 

One change I am looking forward to though is a change of scenery. Tomorrow afternoon Sean and I are taking Lola for her first ever trip to two very special places: New York and Long Beach Island. As it is with us it’s going to be a whirlwind complete with planes, trains, and automobiles but I already know it will be so worth the effort.  

Wish us luck!