9 Months...and a tad more

Samantha is so fast now, she crawls at the speed of light and pulls herself up very quickly. She can hold on with one hand and is trying to master picking something up off the ground while standing. She can walk a few steps while holding on to furniture. She has several syllables she uses at certain times, like "ma ma" when she wants milk and "da" when she sees the dog. She understands her name, "mommy", "daddy", "milk", and dog/doggy, and probably a few other words, too. She also has her bottom 2 teeth and is working on her top teeth, too, I think.

She's become a very picky eater, though, which is not pleasant. She refuses most of the purees I make for her anymore - she really only like the fruit ones. She'll eat oatmeal or whole grain cereal, but mostly just likes finger foods now. She LOVES cheerios and crackers, and also the Gerber puffs. If she even catches a glimpse of the packaging for those items she goes nuts until she gets some. I'm trying to give her veggies and pieces of meat from our dinner so that she at least gets some other food groups besides grains. She does like string cheese, so that helps in the milk department. Speaking of milk, she's still on breast milk, but is still only interested in drinking it from a bottle except first thing in the morning.

So last week I was in Santa Clara for work all week and that was hard, but I knew bonding leave was coming this week. It's day 2 of bonding leave and so far it has been great. We've been able to sleep in (thanks Samantha!) and have enjoyed playing with Samantha all day. I especially like going for rides and runs with her, and I think she enjoys it, too. I feel like she could use some baby interactions, but we're headed to Indiana and Ohio this weekend and she'll get to play with her cousin and our friends' kids. I'm pretty nervous about the plane ride because she will be in our laps and she doesn't sit still for very long. I'm planning to try the front carrier, but we'll see how it goes. I'm excited for our friends and family to meet her face to face (the ones who haven't already)!

Here's a pic of me Skypeing with Samantha last week:


This is a pic from St. Patty's Day:


And here she is watching the dog swim this past weekend: