Ivy 9 months

  Ivy is 9 months old!  She has now been out of me longer than she was in me! 

  Ivy, Ivy, Ivy... crazy girl.  She is my busy little bee.  She never stops MOVING!  She has been cruising for a couple of months now and she gets around quickly.  She loves to climb up on walls, chairs, sisters, garbage cans, legs, dogs, and everything in between.  She also loves to pick up anything and everything and put it in her mouth.  Sippy cup?  Sure!  Cheerio?  Yes!  Hair ball, insect, grain of sand, dirty band-aid,  piece of glass?  Of course!  My floors have never been so clean.  When I say that they are so clean that you can eat off of them - I actually mean it most of the time.  Between the sweeping and the mopping and the Lysol, Ivy is very good for a clean and sanitary house.  Anything that escapes me and doesn't kill her, I just have to figure is good for her immune system!

  She is also chattering up a storm.  "Dadada" is still her favorite phrase, but she occasionally throws in some other sounds and consonants.  She also likes to growl.  At least that is the closes thing I can compare her strange and often guttural sounds to.  They raise more than a few eye brows at church, that's for sure.  She is so much fun, though.  While she is a little clingy, as long as I am in the room she is happy as a clam.  She follows me around like a little puppy with a *slap* *slap* *slap* of her hands and knees on the floors panting all the way.  She LOVES to "play" with Lilia and most of the time Lilia tolerates her well.  Oh, tolerate sounds so harsh.  Lilia loves her baby Ivy and thanks Heavenly Father for her every night in her prayers.  Lilia even made up a song about how much she loves her the other day.... Anyway, that's another post.  Here are Ivy's latest stats:

She is 26 3/4 inches and 18lbs 11 oz.  20th-25th percentile for height and 50th for weight.  She is so SMALL to us!  I think she seems so tiny because she is a little on the short side, but also because Lilia was never less than the 98th percentile.  I just love it, though.  She is so EASY to carry!!!  Man!  I can carry her around all day long if need be.  That usually doesn't happen, though.  She is a girl on the go and very squirmy.  She is a pistol when it comes to diaper changes.  I'm lucky if I get both tabs on.

  Cliff describes her as "vocal and active.  She is tenacious.  She sees something and goes for it."  She makes things happen.  Lilia might have been content to sit and observe the world around her, but Ivy is not.  She is all about exploration and discovery.  She is also very smiley and laughs easily.  She has Cliff's hair.  She climbed up two steps the other day....

   Her hemangioma is fading.  I think it will be completely gone in 6 months.  Maybe less.  I won't say that I will miss it exactly, but it will be a little strange not to see it anymore.  It's just been part of the package, you know?

 She is still mostly breastfed.  She is super interested in food, the problem is once you start feeding her you can do NOTHING else because she melts down if you aren't 100% devoted to her feeding.  She yells and screams and bangs her tray.  Our solution for this has been mostly finger food.  This allows us to eat as a family.  She is doing ok with the sippy cup.  Mostly she chews on it, but she gets a little water down.  She still hasn't really every had a bottle.  No point in starting one of those now!  She is finally sleeping through the night like for real sleeping through the night.  12 hrs sometimes.  I do still feed her at least once because I am a sucker and because I like my sleep.  She knows this and "milks" it for all it's worth.  Ha ha...

  We just love our little baby Ivy, though.  She is so much fun.  She fits right into our family in a way we could never have imagined!