9 months.

At 9 months Rylee...

- has her 2 bottom teefies!  The top ones keep playing tricks on us and going up and down like a pair of Oompa Loompa's on crack.

- eats EVERYTHING in sight. Winter Squash, peas, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, string beans, avocados, carrots, applesauce, pears, peaches, mangoes, bananas and the bits of yumminess off our plates every so often. Girl loves her food!

- eats her food like her daddy.  Takes the biggest bite, chews (if needed) the least amount of times possible, and swallows.  She’s her Daddy’s little girl.

- likes to be swaddled again when she goes down to sleep. With a blanket over her eyes. With her binky (which she ends up spitting out when she’s good and asleep).  She’ll also fall asleep in our arms during church while nuzzled on one of our chests.  Which is still the best feeling in the world.

- speaking of binkies, she still doesn’t care for them much unless she’s bonked her head or if she’s going down for a nap.  Which is absolutely fine with me!  It will make weaning her from it a breeze in the future.

- likes long walks to the duck pond and hearing the ducks quack and flap their wings.

- has a new found love for swinging. Swinging in swings, swinging from our hands, just plain swinging. Swinging OUTSIDE is always the preferred method.

- loves looking at her reflection in mirrors, the oven door, windows, anything that shows the cute baby on the other side that wants to play with her! Girl has narcissistic tendencies. And we love it! I how she always gets excited and loves how she looks when she sees her reflection.

- loves playing with toys. Anything soft and cuddly or that makes noise and she's all over it. And I mean ALL over it. She lovingly mauls her teddy bear every time she sees him.

- loves the silicone whisks and brushes in the kitchen.

- has a knack for picking up her yogurt melts, baby puffs, and peas with efficient ease that makes them disappear within seconds of getting on her tray.

- scrunched up her nose and full on SNORTS when she's extremely happy about something. Which usually means she's doing her vertical "clapping" at the same time. Just about kills us!

-s till scoots around on heels of her feet and the back of her head.  She is, however, teetering on the edge of a traditional crawl.  She’ll get in the right hand and knees position, rock back and forth, and move her hands forward.  She’s still attempting getting her legs to move at the same time.  I’m really in no hurry for her to start crawling.  I fear that once she starts it’s officially the end of her “baby era” and she’ll move into toddler stage.  Eek!

- needs her sleep.  If she’s had her 12 hours of sleep at night and a couple of good naps during the day, she’s a happy and incredibly energetic little gal.  If she DOESN’T get her naps (which mostly happens on sundays) then she can be a bit of a drama queen and clings to mama and daddy.

- shamelessly flirts with every baby/child/adult in the grocery store.  Shamelessly.

- loves grocery carts and her stroller.  Maybe it will extend to anything with wheels in the future.  She loves to be moving and grooving with people around her.  Such a social butterfly already!

- loves playing the “pat pat” game.  She pats everything from the floor, to her toys, to giving people fives.  Anything that has substance to, she pats.

- loves the "Rubber Ducky" song when she takes a bath.  Over and over and over again.  We're more than happy to appease her with it!

- has started waving.  She bends her little fingers and waves at herself constantly.  Which usually turns into a yelling session at her hand numerous times during the day.  We catch her holding her hands in the air and screaming while she looks at them and moves her little baby fingers.  It always makes us crack up laughing no matter what we’re doing.

- Though she knows “mama,” “dada,” “baba” and other baby babbles, her go to these days is “dada.”  We tell her to say “mama” all of the time and she’ll just smile, shake her head, and say “dada” again.

-still gets called Ry-Ry, little one, baby girl, otter pop, Rylee girl, and peanut.