on the outside

She's officially been outside of my belly as long as she was in it. Her time out has been just as short as her time in was ridiculously long. Her ninth month was like rapid fire milestones. Every morning I woke up to the stark realization that she would at some point do something to surprise me. She was all of the sudden very much not a baby, and this little person that is almost a toddler.

This month, my baby took her apprehensive crawl to lightning speed cruising. She started using "mama" and "dada" to actually refer to the correct person (sometimes, and "mama" only comes when she's dejected). She stopped eating most solids and sleeping through the night (AWESOME). She throws her nose in the air when she finds something particularly distasteful, food or toy. She loooovvvves her mama. She laughs and giggles when she's playing by herself. She likes to hold two things at a time, particularly if they are the same, to see if they match, make sound, can stack. She's developed a courtesy laugh and uses it when she wants to be a part of our conversation. She can walk along the couch and thinks standing by herself is pretty funny. She wears SIZE FIVE (yes you read that right) diapers, and her clothes are in the 12-18 month range, sometimes 24 month. She hates shoes on her feet but loves to play with ours.

Just this morning, as I was attempting to get ready (how dare I do something without her?!), she crawled into the bathroom, and pulled herself up to stand behind me as I did my makeup. And while she customarily whines when I'm not giving her my full and undivided attention, suddenly I heard amongst the whines: "Mamamama... mama... num, num, num," which is to say, "Mom, I'm hungry."

WHAT? YOU JUST LEGITIMATELY COMMUNICATED? I fed her. She was happy.

My baby is very much a baby and a little person all in one. I find the concept both heartbreaking and thrilling. Either way, it's been a lovely nine months. And I would take the not sleeping over the being pregnant any day. For the record.

NOTE: This bottom photo is an excellent demonstration of her sweet double jointed arms.