Oh Clara girl. The past 9 months have flown by. The love we feel for this little lady is unimaginable. She is such a cuddly, happy girl, who still loves her people. She is so curious and into EVERYTHING. If the past month is any indication, we are going to be watching her very closely to keep her out of trouble. She eats anything she can get her chubby little fingers on.
D E V E L O P M E N T
Clara is now an expert crawler. She still drags her one leg underneath her. I'm pretty sure it gives her better traction, given her pants are always wayyy too long (short people problems). She is so quick and has figured out the layout of the house. She knows all the different ways to find her people. She loves to disappear into Nora's bedroom and crawl in and out of her teepee. She even squeals and plays peek-a-boo solo. Her other favorite location is the bathroom. We typically find her eating toilet paper or attempting to teeth on the toilet. She has also started to try to crawl up our basement stairs and up went the G A T E S (much to Daddy's dismay).
This girl has always LOVED to stand. She has even started to stand without support for a few seconds at a time. Even when shes not standing without support, shes holding on one handed or balancing with her belly to keep her hands free. Don't worry mom, shes still a WAYS away from walking. She did start cruising late this month but still isn't close to walking.
Until very recently, Clara was picking up toys and food in a sweeping/whole hand motion. Now, the pincer grasp is starting to emerge. Once shes holding a toy, she easily manipulates and moves it from hand to hand.
Probably the biggest change this month is Clara's understanding of language. She now understands quite a bit and can even follow simple commands, like "come here," "splash," "dance," and "give it to me." She loves to play games, especially "peek-a-boo" and "so big." She has started to become more vocal. She says and repeats "ma-ma-ma," "ba-ba-ba," and "ga-ga." Like Nora did, she loves to do "ba-ba-ba" on the back of her hand. We were pretty excited about that. We are also loving her little noises. She makes this amazing happy noise sounds like she is gasping for air.
We definitely experience separation anxiety with this little one. As I've mentioned numerous times, Clara loves her people. She definitely does not like when mommy walks away (even if she is in the same room).
S L E E P
Sleep has been one of our larger challenges for some time. Clara was (as this post is a bit belated) waking up 2+ times per night to eat. She is/was so distractable during the day, she was doing the majority of her feeds overnight.
Enter Clara's 9 month visit. The pediatrician asked me if I wanted to start sleeping again. She said there was no harm in continuing the way we were if I was happy with this set-up (somewhat sarcastically of course). After some thought, I knew that despite secretly loving precious alone time in the middle of the night, I would be a better mom (to both girls) overall if I started sleeping again.
While this is really for month 10... [spoiler alert] sleep training (not feeding or taking her out of her bed with as needed comforting) was actually really easy. The first night was a bit rough. The first time she woke up she cried and fussed for about 45 minutes. She woke up and fussed several other times throughout that first night. The second and third night were better with some very mild fussing intermittently and by night four she was more or less sleeping through the night. One of my biggest fears about sleep training was interrupting Nora's sleep (the girls rooms are about 3 feet away from each other). She has had some sleep challenges over the past 6+ months, which have only recently disappeared. This was an apparently unwarranted fear. Nora did not wake up once with Clara's crying.
So here we are at the beginning of month 10. I'm hoping we all continue to improve our sleep situation!
E A T S
Clara has intermittently LOVED to eat and has been less than interested. She is very strong-willed in this department. She will eat fruit with ease and gusto. Vegetables, on the other hand, (this has expanded from carrots to all vegetables except squash), she seals her lips so tight, you couldn't pry her mouth open even with great effort. So... we are sticking to continually offering it and praying one day she decides vegetable are 'out of this world' AMAZING. TBD.
Favorites are still cheerios, rice, bread, grapes, bananas, oat cereal and any pouch with pureed beans. When my friend Alyson was in town, we tried mashed garbanzos, but the skins gave her trouble. She has also LOVED roasted squash. I've been trying to introduce allergenic foods, now that the AAP has changed their recommendations. She has done well with cheese, but seems really fussy with greek yogurt (despite loving it). I have been mixing almond butter in, which she loves. I'm hoping the fussiness goes away (she has no other signs of an allergy).
T H E S C H E D U L E
6 am Wake-up/BF
7:30 am Breakfast (oat cereal + fruit)
9 am BF
11:30 am Lunch
2 pm BF
5 pm Dinner
7 pm BF/ Bed
F A V O R I T E S
- Bathtime. Still a huge favorite. She could be crying her head off all day, but will play enthusiastically when put in the bathtub. It works like MAGIC. She is an absolute water baby. She splashes like crazy, squeals, tries to eat the bubbles and even drinks the water. About 90% of the time she remembers she can't breathe when she's face first in the water. She gives me good scares and I have to watch her SO closely.
- Peek-a-boo. Clara laughs soooo hard. She has the most amazing laugh. Peek-a-boo is one of the easiest ways to get her laughing.
- Toys. Little balls (with beads/animals inside). We have a set of balls that look like the parts to a catepillar from when Nora was a baby. Recently, Clara has really taken to them. She likes to shake them and hit them together. They have little animals and beads inside that make noise.
- Activities. Playing in the tee-pee (especially peek-a-boo). Clara crawls into the teepee and then BURSTS out with a giant smile on her face. She will do this for hours if you let her (which Nora rarely does...).
T H E S T A T S
Weight: 15 lb 11 oz (12%)
Length: 25 3/4 in (2%)
Weight for length: 47%
P H O T O S
XO,
Caity
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