Nine months

Charlotte was nine months old yesterday, and it feels as though she's entered a new stage - a stage somewhere between baby and toddler.
  

We see this in her abilities and temperament.
When Charlotte is awake her legs are almost always in motion, kicking away.
She reaches for things now, most often to indicate that she wants to be lifted into a standing position at the couch or by her crib. This is her new favourite thing: standing supported - with almost total disregard for balance, mind you!

Charlotte's reaching motion is usually accompanied by a grunt, and her repertoire of sounds continues to grow. She has sounds for, "hey, look at me!", and "what is that?", and sounds that she makes when she's eating that are equally intense whether she's enjoying her food or not.
She's beginning to get into finger foods - cheerios (excuse me, "Nutrios"), toast, cheese and broccoli are early favourites - which is fun.

Charlotte is quite deft at turning the pages of her books.
She is also beginning to nap in longer stretches, for which I am thankful, although she keeps me guessing by throwing shorter ones into the mix.

As Charlotte communicates better, I see some toddler willfulness coming through. She wants to stand, not sit, then she wants to stand by the coffee table, not the couch, thank you very much, and after that, back to the couch, please. And while you're at it, pick up those books and coasters so I can push them off the coffee table again, would you? Today was a bit of a high maintenance day - I'm not sure if she was experiencing some discomfort, if she was spoiled by all the attention over Easter and didn't want to go back to playing on her own, or if it was just one of those days...

But Charlotte also laughs more easily now.

She plays little games with us and responds to our laughter. Every so often she'll come at us with a big open mouth - we're not sure if it's a kiss or not, but it's definitely affectionate. These are the kind of things that make the fussy bits not such a big deal after all.

An Easter family photo

Personality

It's been longer than I intended since the last post, and in the interim Charlotte has cut two teeth. Goodbye gummy grin, hello pearly whites. She's braved it well - a little extra fussiness now and then but no interrupted sleeps. After months of saying, "maybe she's teething...", we really weren't aware what was happening until the first tooth appeared last week. I was cleaning her face after breakfast one morning and there it was. A second one came through a few days later, so she now has a pair of teeth on the bottom.

In other news, Charlotte has had her first haircut. It was getting a bit wild, as you can see.

 

 

James talked me into trimming the front as well, which I immediately regretted. It was nerve-wracking taking scissors to her, especially since Charlotte desperately wanted to turn her head to look at them. Here's a photo of her right after the haircut. In the blue sleeper and the short hair we called her Little Lord Fauntleroy. Poor baby - the things we subject her to!

Fortunately it's growing back, as hair does.

 

 

Charlotte is more than eight months old and she still shows no real motivation to move! She's got the sitting down quite comfortably and has a good reach when she lunges for toys, but she has only rolled over a handful of times and crawling doesn't seem to be on her radar. Her legs are getting stronger and she enjoys standing supported. I'm sure many experienced parents would tell us to enjoy this relatively immobile state while we can, but like most new parents we find ourselves anticipating the next stage.

 

What we're most enjoying these days is seeing more and more of Charlotte's personality emerge. Observant and calm are her most evident qualities. Charlotte is very attuned to her surroundings and quick to spot anything new, for example, if I get the vacuum cleaner out or put a vase of flowers on the table. Sometimes she seems a little disturbed by changes like these, and it makes me think that perhaps she's picked up some Shantz OCD (you know, the good kind of obsessive, the kind that makes a person really organized!). The other day while we were waiting at a bus stop she spotted a bird building a nest before I had. She also loves digital clocks and will stare at them watching for the numbers to change. Incidentally, we think she recognizes the word "clock", since she's looked right at it more than once when we've mentioned it to her. It's amazing to watch Charlotte take everything in. 

 

Charlotte is not as smiley as some babies but she's usually calm. She doesn't get easily worked up and she soothes herself well. She's never been into the soother, but she will suck her thumb when she needs some comfort. Charlotte generally wakes up about 7 a.m. Since James usually doesn't need to get up for work until 7:30 we'll often leave her in her crib for a little while, and after chatting to herself for a few minutes she'll go quiet. We assumed that meant she had drifted back to sleep but discovered recently that she was just looking around her room and sucking her thumb, patiently waiting for us to come get her.

The highlight of the past month was visits from my sister Jenny and James' parents, and we're looking forward to a visit from my parents next week. It had been a couple of months since seeing family and we all enjoyed the visits. More details (and pictures) to come!