Charlotte Mae will be 9 months old tomorrow. OMG. I can not believe that. I feel like it was just yesterday that we were bringing her home, and getting excited that she rolled over, and freaking out that she was sleeping all night! Now she is doing so much more! This month has been huge for her and her milestones, development, and overall learning new, cute things.
First, she gives kisses. Not only to us, but to the characters in her books and her babies. She will lean down when you are reading to her and kiss the bunny or baby or whatever the character maybe. It is so funny because she knows to lean down and kiss those pictures. She won't lean down and try to kiss if it is a picture of a tree or something. She loves to kiss her babies too. I will hug and kiss them first and she smiles and laughs and then I will give her the baby and she squeezes it and rocks it. So cute!
Charlotte has spoken her first real word, with association to that item. And by item I mean, ME! Yes! Her first word was "MAMA!" Woo! Well she only says it when she is crying but still, I think it is huge. : ) She also will say "ABABABA." Not sure what that is because she doesn't really get a bottle nor play with a ball that much but what is cool about that "word" is that she will repeat it if you say it first. She doesn't do that with any other sound.
We have started including lunch into our daily routine. Charlotte was only eating solids in the morning and evening. Then I added a snack in the afternoon and I have now cut the late snack and added lunch. Charlotte loves it. She seemed really hungry and would eye anything I was eating around that time and so I thought maybe we should try it. She is doing really well with feeding herself. I still give her pureed foods but I have been giving her a lot more "real" food. She has had canned green beans, chicken, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, potato, broccoli, cauliflower, and bread. So far she has loved it all. Oh, she has had watermelon as well and does not like it. I have tried it a couple of times and I get a terrible face and watermelon being spit out everywhere. Weird, because watermelon was her Daddy's pregnancy craving : )
We finally hit the milestone of crawling! Scotty and I have been trying and trying to get her to crawl and she is now doing it! It started with an army crawl (video below) and then just a few days later it was up on the hands and knees (video below with guest appearance by Henry the cat). I don't think that it will be much longer on the hands and knees though. Charlotte loves to walk when we hold her hands and when she is crawling on her hands and knees she gets her feet underneath of her and she tries to stand. Uh oh. We are in for a major change! She is pulling up on to things. That is still in the works but she has gotten really good at it.
Charlotte also recently signed "more". I have been working on sign language with her since about 6 months old. We work mainly on "more" and she finally picked it up! She just started doing it one day when she was eating. It was amazing! Now she does it all the time. We are working on "milk" and "thank you." We will see how it goes! Just shows that babies really do watch you and to just keep working at it!
Char has learned how to clap (video below) and she can give 5's. But with the cuteness comes some ugliness. She's a biter. And that's really not cool since she has 8 teeth now. Yes, you read that correctly, 8 teeth. She will bite Scotty and I when we are holding her and she has drawn blood. She will crawl over and bite your leg or toe or face. Ugh. We are trying to get her out of it. Pray that it happens quickly for us.
A cool thing that I have noticed is that Charlotte loves other kids. What is so interesting about that to me is that she can tell that there is a difference between a big person and a little person and she loves the little people. She gets so excited seeing other kids and when they come up and engage her she squeals and flaps her arms and giggles. It is amazing to me.
We attended our first Carolina Baseball game as a family. It was a lot of fun and Charlotte did really well. She did get a little hot so Scotty took her to the shade. He went to see a friend of ours who works the video camera for the team. It was very awesome because our friend can make things happen and Char Baby made it on to the jumbotron! That is my life long dream and she has done it at 8 months old! What a celeb!
After going back and forth, Scotty and I decided to put Charlotte in infant swim lessons. I did a lot of research and Scotty and I felt that it was a really smart thing for us to do. We are around water a lot in the summer between the beach and the new boat (pictures below) we wanted to be safe. I signed her up for the survival swimming class. She will learn how to flip herself over if she falls in on her belly, or on her back if feet first and she will learn to swim to the side of the pool, as well as how to push up on the step. The lessons are for 4 weeks, 4 days a week for only 10 minutes. The classes are short so that babies don't swallow a lot of water, get chilled, get too tired, or too chilled. We have completed our first week and are in the second. Our instructor says that Charlotte is doing really well. Charlotte hates it but she is getting a lot better at dealing with it. Hopefully one day she will understand it is for her own good. Hope we aren't traumatizing her too much. : )
So with all that said, it can be very nerve racking watching your baby struggle in the water, cough and sputter water, and get upset. It can be especially scary when you are watching your baby be dropped under the water and all you see are her little eyes wide open under the water. So not only is all that scary enough, all this information is surfacing about secondary drowning (person inhales, not swallows water, into their lungs and dies up to 24 hours after the inhalation). Not cool. I asked our instructor about it and she said it is something to watch for but that it is very rare and most of the people it happens to have an underlying disorder that can trigger this to happen. Rare or not it is still scary. It doesn't help that some of the signs to look for are tiredness after swimming and coughing while in the water. Um for real? I'm freaking exhausted after swimming, I can't imagine how tired Char is and who doesn't cough when they get pool water in their mouth? So anyway - I have to decompress after each swim session. Char does too. She immediately snuggles me when she gets out. She's knows she is back in her safe spot. I have included a video of the swimming below. I'm sure it will be hard for some to watch - so use your judgement : ) I know that many will question us for choosing to do this, or think that we are putting Charlotte in more danger than the chance of her actually falling in a pool but that is not a risk we are willing to take. We want her to be as best prepared as possible for that situation. With that said, we aren't going to not watch her because we know she can swim, we just want her to be safe. Bottom line.
Ok - so here is a funny story, so we don't end on such a serious note. : ) We are in the process of taking away the paci. We have moved away from bottles and are now using all kinds of different sippys. Even the straw kind! So now the paci has to go. Char doesn't get it that much anyway. She gets it in the car, naps, bedtime, Stroller Strides, and if she randomly finds one.... So I thought I would try cutting them from naps first. So it was time for a nap and Charlotte was pretty tired. I laid her in bed and I put her zippy sack on and she didn't make a peep so I thought this would be a good time to try no paci since she was so sleepy. Well Char spits them and throws them everywhere and I could not find the one that was in the crib so I thought "Whatever, I'll look for it later." I wanted to get out of there before she got fussy. Well, little Miss Charlotte is a sneaky thing. I went into my bedroom to get the baby monitor and I turned it on and what did I see? I watched little Miss roll over, from laying on top of her paci, slither her way down to it, pop it in her mouth and fall right to sleep! No wonder she was so calm when I laid her down! She knew where to find that thing! I'm pretty sure this baby is smarter than I am. We are in for a world of trouble.
Until next time, here are a ton of pictures and videos!
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| Ready for the open seas! |
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| 8 months old! |
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| Our boat! |
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| The Captain and his First Mate! I mean her First Mate! : ) |
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| Time to lower the crib? |
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| My gift I gave to my mom and mother-in-law for Mother's Day |
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| Charlotte and her friend, Clark! |
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| My first Mother's Day! We had brunch and then spent a wonderful afternoon on the boat! |
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| Beach trip! |
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| Playing with cousins, Hayden and Palmer |
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| Recovery after swim class |
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| Snuggling Mama |
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| What happens when we miss a few naps |
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| Baseball! |
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| Yes, she is actually drinking that |
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| Our Charlie Mae with her friend Charlie at Stroller Strides |
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| So beautiful : ) |
Tasting a Popsicle!
Singing into the microphone!
Blurry - but Char can clap!
Dark - but Char can still clap! I don't know why I can't take a good video of that!
Pulling up! This is an old video - she is much better at it now.
Army crawling!
Giggly baby playing with Mama and Daddy
Goofy baby with a ball!
"MAMAMA"
Char's first swim lesson - WARNING - might be hard for some to watch
Silly baby and her bowl trick
Signing "more"!
Crawling baby! Henry better watch out!
Bath time!
Swinging at My Gym
