Nine Months Old and Walking....almost

Hollie at 9 mo.

Hollie at 8 mo. (for comparison. I never got around to that post after all.)

It's been a thoughtful, tender, bittersweet week. In the wake of the Aurora shootings and the accidental death of a past roommate, my little baby turned nine months old, took her first early steps, and is in the process today of getting her very first tooth (we can only just see it jutting up through her gums, but we can definitely feel it. It's there). I'll admit that I have felt a few fears for Hollie as she seems so bent on growing up and moving closer to the kinds of fears and pains that I want to always protect her from. At the same time, I've found myself feeling guilty at times for having fun with Holls and Dave, laughing boisterously together when I know that there is so much heartache and pain seemingly everywhere around us. Anyway, it's been a thoughtful week.

But this post is not meant to dwell entirely on deep thinking. This post is meant to record and share the things that our little Baboo has been learning this past month or two. Let me put it this way: when David and I saw two alligators uncomfortably close to us on a hike in Brazos Bend National Park, Hollie cooed and smiled at us as Dave and I exchanged cautious glances and lickety-split our way backwards down the trail before Alligator #1 reached the shore just behind us, which would have effectively pinned us between it and Alligator #2 (who was sunbathing his/her-self across the path in front of us. David and I may be well aware of all the dangers that threaten the well-being of our little family, but Hollie is blissfully innocent of such worries. (Or maybe that isn't entirely true. We do, after all, leave her in a darkened room by herself to sleep at night. And she hates that.) In any case, regardless of any grumpy interludes by anyone of the three of us throughout the day, we have really been enjoying a summer full of silly giggles and fighting-back-tears laughter as Holls has learned to clap, play Peek-A-Boo, play Steal-Mom's-Glasses, and crack up when she sees she has inadvertently made us crack up. Nine months old is my favorite months-old so far.

Here's some stats:

Weight: Somewhere around 20 pounds. I don't know her height. But basically, we need a new car seat. We can almost just barely buckle her into her infant car seat.

Hair: Getting longer and shaggier. Sometimes we call her Simba because her hair looks like a lion cub's baby-mane. (And let's face it: her personality is way more Simba than Nala at this point.)

Favorite foods: Her staples are bananas, apples, sweet potatoes, squash, and, of course, her beloved carrots. But we also found out recently that she really likes avocado. This last week, we also drove out to a farm and picked fresh peaches (a buck a pound! how great!). I gave Hollie some pureed fresh peaches cut with some plain yogurt, and I have never seen her go after a food with such gusto before. We almost always have to trick her into eating anything past the first four or five bites of anything. But she ate a whole bowl of peaches and yogurt, and her mouth remained open between bites. I've never seen that before. (Oh, yeah. And I also made this awesome peach pie. I've always wanted to be a real master at baking pies. This pie was one baby-step closer to that goal.)

The best (and second) peach pie I've made yet.

Favorite songs: She still loves Ducktales, but she also gets really excited when we sing the "Eency-Weency Spider" (help me out: "eency-weency"? "itsy-bitsy"? Which is it? I rotate between the two on a daily basis.) and she also loves this song about the sun that the playhouse her Aunt Sarah gave her plays when you rotate a certain circle on the roof of the house. She's obsessed with it. Sarah: best gift ever. She also loves the songs that play during the credits of any television show Dave and I watch. She'll play with her toys while we watch the program, and then as soon as the music starts, she stops what she is doing, turns around, bobs to the beat, and watches the black-and-white letters run down the screen.

Favorite books: Any book with pages she can touch, especially if the pages have fluffy things to touch. She is also getting really good at pointing. She points to the mouse on her That's Not My Fairy/Penguin books, and I found out today that she will consistently point to the baby hippo on every page of Kiss Kiss, a board book from her Aunt Erin and Aunt Kate (Erin, if you're reading this, we love those books!).

Reading with Grandma Grover on the 4th of July.

Sleeping habits: Still wakes up every three hours to nurse. We've been trying to wean her from the 3:00 feeding, but then she started teething, and she just can't seem to fall back to sleep on her own. Yeah. I didn't do a really good job of sleep-training her. Hmm. It's extra hard now because she can stand up in the crib and yell, "Mamamamama!" and "Dadadadadadada!" Plus, my boobs hurt if I don't go in there. So.....there.

Hollie loves to dance. We've been trying to record her so that we can tell her she danced before she could walk, but it is hard to videotape her (she is really interested in our camera and has a hard time focusing on anything else when it is out). When Dave or I get up with her in the morning, we will turn on some music, lie down on the sofa, and watch her dance and dance and dance, grinning away. She loves dancing. She will dance to any song. Even fake songs. She will dance to whistling. She will dance to a repetition of beeps. The girl has the music in her. She can't help but dance.

Hollie really wants to walk. She can stand by herself pretty well now, at least for several seconds at a time, and she can take anywhere between two and six steps toward David or me on her own. When she isn't dancing, she is practicing walking. Crawling can get her around, sure, but she basically uses her ability to crawl to reach us so that we can help her practice walking. When I was a baby, I learned to walk when I was about nine and a half months old. I think Hollie is going to beat my record.

Here is some video documentation of Holl's early steps and dance moves. It's a bit longish, but I kept it all in because I know Hollie's grandmas won't be bored watching it. Keep in mind that we take most of our videos in the morning, so be kind to David's ridiculous clothes, my ridiculous laughter, and all the times you hear our voices in the background sounding a bit sleepy or loopy. The most boring part of the video is during the ABBA dancing scene when Hollie can't decide whether she wants to dance with Dad or crawl over to the television stand and dance on her own. She finally picks the latter. I then cut to the transition to the next song, but trust me: she danced all the way through "Money, Money, Money." This baby does not tire easily.

Finally, here are some pictures of our trip last month to visit family in Houston. Thanks to all of our family who took us in for two weeks and played with our baby (especially when it let David and I go on some dates, including one to see Moonrise Kingdom! Thank you, thank you!).

Brazos Bend State Park

Playing with Cousins Minnie and Luke.

Dancing to Dad's singing.

Reading with Cousin Faith.

Dancing with Cousin Luke.

Reading with Cousin Madison

Walking with the help of Cousins Charlotte and Claire.

Mixed feelings about being surrounded by several (but not nearly all) of her boy cousins.