Ellie is Nine Months!

Oh my, Ellie is getting closer to ten months...I need to tell you about her nine months!  Growing up so fast.  She is now completely on the bottle.  No interest or patience in nursing whatsoever.  Exciting to see her grow up, sad it's done.  She has started posing for the camera!  She sees it and grins and will crawl towards it :)

Her photo with the monkey.  God, her smile makes me feel good.  She goes to sleep with this monkey playing music every night.  She goes to bed between 7:45-8:45, depending what else is going on and how late her nap was.  Lately she's been staying up a lot of the day and taking a late nap and then going back to sleep for the night two hours after.

She eats most any baby food except it's clear she does NOT like peas or any combination with peas in it.  She's kind of a slow eater and it's hard to manage the other kids and give her the attention she deserves... her meals get drawn out as I have to get up and take care of something. It makes me feel guilty.  In general, she is my guilt child!!

She drinks a lot.  The doctor said not to hold her back as she is probably catching up.  She will drink from 32-40 ounces a day!  The recommendation is at the low end of that.  She's still tiny, but back on the charts, so healthy.  Fifth percentile weight and height at 14 lbs 13 oz and 241/2 inches.

Oh, I love this shot of her.  She sleeps well through the night until between 4:30-6.  I give her a bottle, lying between us.  She wants to see her Daddy and give him a kiss.  Then I put her back to bed and usually she sleeps for a couple of hours, which I need so I can take care of the other two.  So it constitutes her morning nap.  The rest of her day is not as regulated as the other two as we are always working around them.  It's probably why she likes an evening nap!  The rest of the day, she seems to only catch cat naps.  She still just loves Rock of Ages and now two clips I play from Coven with Stevie Nicks singing.  She is riveted.  She has entered Mommy attachment and will cling to me when people come over.  Ellie doesn't want me to leave.  BUT she has also developed a real attachment to Daddy.  She reaches for him and grins when he walks into the room and says DADADADADA.  She also says Baba.  I think the other day she screamed Mama when she wanted me to get her out of the store, but that's about it.

Just yesterday, she finally sat up.  I didn't put her in that position, she used Adam's bed and then his chair to get herself in that position.  It was so cute.  She clearly wanted to do it on her own.  Another independent Duttinger/Butler kid.