9 Month Update

Sad after her shots, but she recovered pretty quickly.

Sarah turned 9 months old last week. At the Dr.'s visit last week, she weighed in at 18 lbs 11 oz (~50%-ile), was 27.75 inches tall (~55%-ile), and had head circumference of 17.5 inches (~65%-ile). She seems so big, I was surprised that she was actually pretty average in size. Maybe it's because she's just very compact. Haha. 

This month, Sarah has become increasingly mobile. She was already rolling pretty well, but now she's pretty much mastered sitting on her own, and has even made some forward motion in the past few days. Not quite crawling in the conventional sense, but inching forward like an inchworm. Noah did more of the commando crawl, but I think Sarah may eventually crawl normally, based on how she's moving now. She's also getting pretty good at going from sitting to crawling position without falling on her face.

Sarah is doing well with solids and eats just about everything, including the few things I've made for her. I've been trying to get her to feed herself the little baby puffs and baby mum-mums, but she mostly picks them up, looks at them, licks them, then throws them on the floor. She seems receptive to most foods, but still prefers more liquidy foods. Even when I scoop up a pretty soft banana, she has a hard time eating it because it's so thick. 

Sarah is very wary of strangers and is in general very aware...unagi? Haha. In particular she gets really scared of men she doesn't know. Hahaha.. She usually cries when men say hi to her or smile at her. She even gets scared of Peter when he's wearing sunglasses because she doesn't really recognize him. On the other hand, she's usually fine with women, even if she doesn't know them. She was also very suspicious when we were at the Dr.'s office last week when they started getting ready to prick her toe for her hemoglobin test and give her her Hep B vaccine. It's like she knew something bad was going to happen and she was on high alert. I'm pretty sure that when Noah was that age, he was clueless every time up until he got stuck with the needle. She also seems to pay pretty good attention when I read her books, following my finger when I point at the different objects in the book. I was feeling a little badly about the books because I really don't read to her as much as I did to Noah so it's a relief that she isn't just staring into space when she gets read to. 

Overall, Sarah is a happy little munchkin. She sleeps pretty well, eats pretty well, and plays well on her own. I don't know if she'll become more difficult when she gets older, but I'll take what I can get!

Potty Training Update/Parent Conferences

Noah has been in underpants for almost an entire week now! He's had a few accidents, but not as many in past couple of days and he's been staying dry through naps and even overnight! It's crazy that literally a week ago I had just worked up the courage to put him in underpants. Who knew it would happen so quickly! I wouldn't say that he's "fully potty trained" since he still really needs a lot of assistance to go, but he's definitely made significant progress in the past week. He's actually having a lot of time using the potty without me. He stayed dry at school today, but I think he held it in all day until I picked him up to go. I guess there's always something...hahaha.. I am just super excited that he's in underpants almost full time now. I almost can't believe that it's true!

I also had my second teacher conference today and I have to say it went better than the first. I don't think the first one went badly necessarily, but I was kind of nervous, and the teacher seemed kind of nervous too for some reason. Or maybe I was just thinking she was nervous because I've been on the teacher side of the conference for so long. In any event, it went well today, and I can confirm that parents really just want to know that their kid's teacher likes their kid! That used to always be my number one piece of advice regarding parent teacher conferences (again, from the teacher side of things) and now I know it's definitely true. And even though it seems like conferences for a 2 year old aren't really that important, I really felt like I got a lot of information today. Maybe it's because Noah's getting older? It was good to hear that he behaves pretty similarly at home and at school because it assures me that Noah is comfortable and happy at school. It was also reassuring to hear that he is engaged in activities...as opposed to sitting under a table in the corner all day long. Haha. I guess because he's gaining more independence, interacting more with classmates, and developing more skills, it's nice to hear someone else's perspective, particularly one that's tempered by broader experience. Other fun facts I learned today: Noah can recognize his name, and he might be ambidextrous!