9 months

Dear Lucy,

3/4 of a year down already! I'm not sure I approve of how fast you are growing. This month you only had a couple milestones but they were big ones.

First of all, pulling up and cruising around. You pretty much have to be standing 75% of your waking time or you are completely unhappy. It's not so bad until you get sleepy. You don't want to stop standing but you begin to lose the little coordination and balance you have and end up falling over and crying every 30 seconds. But soon enough you'll have it down. You can already move from your push walker to the rocking chair, down to the floor then up again on the couch.

You still love to be read to but I've had to come up with creative solutions to make it work. When you are really sleepy, you might sit still for a couple books but we also read a lot of books with you standing or in your jumper or laying down with the book over our head. We also read in the car. When you refuse to take a nap, I'll often just hand you a book, grab one myself and you'll play quietly for a few minutes "reading" next to me.

Another fun activity is getting up and down from the bed. You have been able to get down for a little while now. You can go front ways but normally you go up the edge, look over, turn around and scoot back. The you stand there for a few seconds before trying to climb back up. It still takes you quite a while to get back onto the mattress but once you do, you crawl right over to the other side and go right back down. You have repeated this for up to 20 minutes with me lying down on the bed reading. You don't mind, you just climb right over me.

But when I say "crawl," I really mean scoot. You still don't really crawl. You can though. When you get close to your "target" you will get up off your tummy and crawl the last one or two steps. You actually don't even like to scoot or explore much. We've been encouraging you to and now you might go 4-5 feet away to see something really exciting before turning around and coming back to me or your dad. You'll also come to us if we leave the room sometimes, but other than that you like to climb and stand. Of course, if you don't have to travel anywhere, you don't mind exploring a bit.

You are still very much a fan of your mommy and daddy.

You like your grandparents too but anyone else had better stay back. I thought your stranger anxiety was bad before but you are even more shy now. Your poor great-grandmother couldn't come within 2 feet of you. But you do like people from a distance. If someone you don't know talks to you, you'll snug up close to me before turning the them and smiling.

It is getting difficult to get a good picture of you without a helper. I have many shots of you looking away

and just as many of you looking at me, but maybe a little too close. 

You love to play games. Your daddy has taught you to "give him five" and you really like to be tossed about in the air.  But while you love to laugh with us, you do not like to be laughed at and you can tell the difference. You also do not like to be told "no" but luckily you are pretty distractable. You also love to sit on people's shoulders.

Your other big milestones this month were getting your first two teeth and babbling. You babble quiet a bit now. You also say "mama" but only when you are really upset. I'm not sure if you know that I am mama but either way, it works and I come quickly because you are my girl and I know it :-)