Ani: Nine Months

You guys, THIS is my favorite age ever. Our whole family is just over-the-top in love with this sweet girl.

If there are nine things to know about Ani at nine months:

1. Crawler! She picked it up just a day or two after I wrote the eight month post. 
2. Also, a stander, now, as long as she has something to hold on to. For some reason, there is nothing cuter to me than seeing her stand.
3. When she’s in her nursing groove, she likes to smack my neck or arm with her little fist. Over and over and over. 
4. She’s learned to pull herself up on the side of her crib, but can’t figure out how to get back down, so she’ll just stand there and sob until I come back in and lay her down.
5. The other day, Ella was taking the world’s longest nap, so Ani and I were just hanging out together. She was okay for a while, but then got incredibly fussy. She didn’t want to be held or fed or play with toys. But the minute Ella woke up? All smiles again. She just doesn’t seem to like life without her older sister.
6. When I come into her room to get her after a nap, she’s almost always sitting up, and she’ll start bouncing up and down. It’s a nice welcoming committee. 
7. She is extremely chatty, always making little noises and sounds. 
8. Still no teeth (Ella had her first ones before sixth months, but Ani seems to have inherited my family’s slow teeth). But the best gummy grin I’ve ever seen. 
9. She’s learned to take food out of her mouth, which is not my favorite trick ever. At all. 

(But you almost might like to know that she’s starting to imitate sounds – no “mama” or “dada” yet, but if you do things like “ah-ah” she’ll copy it back (no, of COURSE you won’t sound like an idiot making those noises).

• This AMAZING birthday party, based on the book The Hungry Little Caterpillar 
• Baby names that are also palindromes (spelled the same way backward and forward) 
• A DIY Pirate Headband (perfect for Talk Like a Pirate Day coming up on Thursday)