Vivienne at Nine Months

Dear Vivienne,

Ohhhh, you are TROUBLE. I love you more than anything, of course, but you’re trouble.

New this month is crawling. Well, sort of. You get up on your hands and knees all of the time, but you haven’t figured out how to coordinate all of the moving parts to get from Point A to Point B. Instead, you lunge forward onto your belly and then continue on with an Army crawl. We can’t get you to stay in the same place anymore. As soon as you’re on the floor, boom, you’re gone. And you have this evil little laugh that escapes your wide-open mouth as you scurry away from us. You do the exact same thing when I’m trying to change your diaper and you use all of your strength to try to roll over and get away from me. Flustered, I’ll say, “Vivi! Vivi, get back here!” and you laugh that mischievous laugh like you know exactly what you’re doing. You little stinker.

Speaking of the sounds you make… you are certainly good at making it known when you are not happy. You don’t cry very much, but you make these loud, long grunting noises until you get what you want. We’ve taken to calling you “pterodactyl baby” because I imagine that’s what a pterodactyl sounded like. You also kind of remind me of those loud crows that I sometimes hear outside of our bedroom window in the mornings. It’s charming, really. :) But hey, you know what you want, and you’re trying to communicate with us to get it. I can’t really fault you for that!

You’re still eating purees like a champ. Any puree we present to you, you’ll eat, usually gobbling it down faster than we can spoon it into your mouth. By this time with Nora, we had started yogurt, but I’ve been taking my time starting any kind of dairy with you, given your previous challenges with it through my milk. Within the last week or two, you’ve also taken to puffs and Mum-Mums. You do great feeding yourself the Mum-Mums—holding them and breaking off bites with your teeth (still just two of them on the bottom!) and gums. While you’re happy to eat the puffs, you still make us feed them to you, because try as you might, you can’t seem to get them into your mouth. They stick to your hands and you get frustrated easily. But that’s coming, I know it is. When we were on vacation last week, I also gave you a few tiny pieces of bread while we were out at dinner one night, and you’ve also had a few peas—you handled those well. So now we have to start really introducing other “real” foods—I want to try soft fruits and other veggies.

On the breastfeeding front, we’re still doing fine. But nursing you is an event lately, because we’re at the height of distraction on your part. You latch, unlatch, latch, unlatch a million times at your feedings during the day. The only ones during which I can really get you to concentrate are the first one in the morning—when you’re starving—and at bedtime, when you’re exhausted. Fun times.

You love your toys, particularly anything that makes music or noise. But now that you’re on the move, you’re loving everything you shouldn’t even more. Car keys? Amazing. Dog bowls? Awesome. Electrical cords? Best.thing.ever. Nora calls you “grabby girl” and for good reason. Heck, you even ripped your 9-month sticker on your shirt when we took your pics today (evidence in photo above)! There is going to be a different level of babyproofing going on with you, since we also have all of Nora’s little pieces to worry about. A lot of the small toys are going to go up to her room. And Daddy and I, well, we’re just going to have to get used to keeping a very close eye on you for a while! Honestly, Nora never really bothered anything she shouldn’t have, but you seem to be much more of an explorer. We’ll adjust our approach accordingly!

You have a nine month checkup on May 12th and we shall see how you measure up in the weight and length departments. It seems like FOREVER since we have been to the pediatrician, which is a very good thing, actually. It’s so different than with your sister, whom we had to take to the doctor all of the time because of her ear infections. You are a very healthy girl, and I pray you always stay that way.

Nora continues to love you so, so much. And you her. One of the greatest things about my life right now is being able to watch the two of you strengthen your bond and grow up together. I know there are challenges ahead—she’s already getting frustrated at time when you are wrecking her toys as she’s trying to play with them, which will only get worse as you’re more and more mobile!—but she’s more patient than I’d expect her to be. She gently scolds you, “No, Vivienne!”(Well, Biddienne, according to Nora.) Or she’ll quietly ask me, as she did tonight, “Mommy, can you please hold her in your lap? She’s ruining my train track.” But through it all: Sisters. I love it so much.

We took our first road trip with you last weekend, to visit Pa in Virginia. Well, actually, it was your second road trip, but your first was to the Poconos when you were only five or six weeks old—needless to say, that was a different animal. Anyway, you did pretty darn good, despite not sleeping very much on the rides. You slept at most for about 50 minutes a stretch. It must be the busy body personality in you, not wanting to miss anything even though we’re all just bored to tears. It should be interesting to see how you do on our trip to the Outer Banks in a few months! You did, however, sleep in the pack ‘n’ play without any problems whatsoever, both at naptime and bedtime. That’s my girl!

Speaking of the car, though, we made the transition from your infant car seat to the convertible one. We were tired of lugging you around in the infant seat (so heavy and awkward!) so as soon as the weather started turning, we made the switch. We’re seemingly casting a lot of baby gear aside lately. You no longer need your play mat on the floor (Lord knows you’re not staying on it!). You don’t need a bath seat anymore, either.

It’s so fun to watch you grow and do new things, but man, I can’t believe how fast it’s going. Nine months ago already. It’s crazy to think that you’ve now been outside longer than you were inside. It’s such a privilege to get to know you as your personality continues to blossom.

I hope you always know how much we love you.

With hundreds of kisses,
Mommy