Emma's standing!!

 
Emma's 9 month check up with Dr.Davis was last week. She was a week over 9 months since they had to reschedule us last minute.
Here are her stats:
Weight 22lb 8oz (90th percentile)
Length 29.75inches (97th percentile)
Head Circumference 46cm (95th percentile)

It was supposed to be a vaccine free trip to the pediatrician's office. She's up to date on all her vaccines. Steve and I feel very strongly about her being vaccinated, although I do hate watching her get the shots. She ended up not being so lucky since she is due for a flu shot. And it stinks because she has to get two flu shots. He said if you're less than 8 years old and it's your first time being vaccinated, you have to get two shots to have adequate immunity. So we'll be back next month for the second shot.

Emma has been LOVING bath time lately. It's a good thing since we've been rinsing her bottom a lot. She had diarrhea for just over a week. She ended up getting pretty bad diaper rash, which she has never had before. It was pretty awful. You could tell she was in pain when we changed her diaper. We made a trip to the pediatrician's office to get their input about the diarrhea and diaper rash. I think it was quite helpful. Vaseline is awesome for diaper rash. I doubt I'll ever buy diaper rash cream again since Vaseline worked so well and is cheaper. I think the final consensus is that she had a long lasting virus. We figured this out on Monday when other kids in her MDO class have had the same problem, including the twins. Stinks!

Emma is not a fan of getting her diaper changed. I think she just doesn't want to be tied down and she knows that she's strong enough to fight us. It's not like it takes that long. I try to give her toys to keep her occupied, but it's only helpful some of the time. I've learned to change her diaper while she's standing up, which is what I do most of the time. For a pee diaper, it's not a big deal. If she's pooped, then she just gets poop everywhere, then we go to the bath to rinse off :-)

Emma has more recently had a runny nose. She's been doing fine otherwise. She had a run of illnesses around 7.5-8 months. I wonder if it's because that's when I stopped giving her breast milk so her immunity wasn't as good. Guess I"ll never really know. The real culprit is MDO. It's a little frustrating, but if she wasn't exposed to illnesses now, she'd be exposed later when starting school.

She's not a fan of socks and shoes. We've been working on both of them, especially socks. She needs to get used to it so she can stay warm. She has learned how to take them off, so they never seem to stay on for very long. The shoes will be more important once she starts walking (outside of the apartment), although I'm sure it makes walking more difficult. Speaking of walking, she's been walking a little more every day with assistance from us. And today, she stood twice for about 10 seconds without any assistance!!! I was reading her one of her favorite books, "The Eye Book" by Dr.Seuss. She was so excited that she stood up to watch me read it to her. We re-created the moment when Steve got home from work and she did it again! Fun!! She also loves her animal book,  "Who Hoo Are You?"especially when we make the animal noises.

Speaking of books, we signed up for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. We'll get a book every month. We got Emma's first book last month. It was "The Little Engine That Could." Pretty sweet! I haven't read it to her yet since I think she would just tear all the pages. We're still using board books.

We've really gotten tons of laughing out of her lately. There are so many ways to get her to laugh. She loves wrestling and gets very giggly when you wrestle with her, especially if you give her raspberries on her belly. She's very ticklish. And most recently, I jumped up on the bed towards her, and she thought it was hilarious. So that's pretty fun!

We've been giving her food that we eat for dinner.  I think her favorite is cheese. She can seriously eat as much cheese as I can. She seems to really like chicken as well. Sounds like we need to take a trip to Chick Fil A!!

Ok, I tried to narrow down the photos that I have and it's still over 50. So I did a Picasa upload with comments on some of the photos so you get a little context. October Part 2 photos