9 months! (well 10 really)

Today, on Riley’s 10-month brithday, I’m finally getting around to writing about her 9-month check-up… what can I say, we’re chronically behind around here. Her official height is now 18lbs 6oz and her height is 2ft 4.25 in. Nothing else really to report about the visit, except that she got a much coveted flu shot, and also a hepatitis A shot in preparation for our upcoming trip to South Africa to visit Riley’s uncle Michael.

I guess the biggest news about Riley is she’s crawling now! All of a sudden one day she just took off. She can be pretty quick when she wants to be, so you definitly have to keep an eye on her. She loves cabinets and drawers (which she’ll open and slam shut over and over again, pretty exciting) and definitly enjoys picking up and investigating every little thing she finds on the floor (thus providing a whole new motivation to keep our place clean). At the daycare when we drop her off in the morning she always goes straight for the little climbing structure and goes right up the stairs. The teachers say she spends most of the day sitting at the top or going up and down the stairs. She’s surprisingly agile… I’m always afraid she’s going to topple over (especially when she starts crawling down the stairs head first) but for the most part she stays upright pretty well.

The pediatrican recommended giving her a “lovey” to sleep with at night, so we put a bunch of stuffed animals in her crib to see what she would choose. We thought it would be the super soft lamb, but the winner turned out to be the Valentine Lion that Micah gave her. She especially likes the long hair which she twirls in her fingers while falling asleep. Many nights we go in to check on her and she’s either curled up around the lion, or lying on top of it… pretty cute. I’m always tempted to take a picture, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea.

Riley’s starting to develop definite opinions and will let you know what she does and does not like. Especially when it comes to eating…she does not like anything on a spoon and would much prefer to feed herself, thank you very much. Mostly she’s not too picky though, thankfully. Keep your fingers crossed that she’ll stay that way. In general she continues to be very vocal. Still a lot of indiscriminate “da da da, ma ma ma,” and recently she’s started saying “eee iiii eee iii eee iii” over and over again (almost like she’s saying “e i e i oh” but with out the oh), it’s pretty cute. Sometimes it sounds like she’s telling a story, but she doesn’t really have any real words yet.

Okay, that’s enough. Now for some picture posts…