When Two Cains Become Three... then FOUR!: 9 months!

My little baby girl is 9 months old (on Jan 17th)! She has been out in the world almost as long as she was inside of the womb! She was born at exactly 40 weeks, so that "birthday" is coming soon. Strange to think I was pregnant so long!!! We had our 9 month appt on Wednesday, and I am so glad we had it on that day. She woke up at a normal time, but was SOOOO fussy. She REFUSED to take a morning nap, except for in the car on the way to our 9:30 am Dr. appt, and the office is about 10 minutes away. So, first nap: 10 min. We get home, have lunch.... afternoon nap : 30 min, with mommy rocking her in her carseat the ENTIRE time!! I do give her that she was very very stuffy, and it's always hard to sleep when you are so stuffed up, but that was a long day. If Dr. Mac hadn't assured me that her ears, etc. were all good, I would have brought her to the doctor. Today is back to normal, so maybe she was just testing the waters on Thursday, not sure!
Anyways... Madilyn's stats:
17 lbs even : 25% , same as before, so right on track
27 1/2" long, 50-75%, also same as before and doing great!
46cm around on her head, don't remember the percentage, but she said it looked great!
Luckily we didn't have any shots at this appt. I have decided to wait on the MMR and the Hep. vaccination since I don't feel as though she needs them yet, so since we are waiting till she's school age to get those, she didn't have to endure any painful and yucky shots this time! Thank goodness too, I can't imagine what she would have been like if she HAD the shots! LOL!
This month Madilyn has done quite a few new things! She is crawling! YAY! She's into everything... she pulls up on anything she can get her hands on, whether or not it's sturdy. She is much more mobile. She jabbers a lot, and is saying "mama, dada, bob (... yeah...lol), lala, etc... " none of the words really seem to have any meaning, but she likes to make noise, a LOT of noise!! She has been eating lots of fun stuff. We have grilled cheese, soup, very tender chicken, lunch meat, cheese, mandarin oranges, mac & cheese, canned veggies, gnaw on apples, yogurt, cottage cheese, the list goes on and on! We are going to continue to have baby cereal at least 1x per day until she's about 2, but I am going to phase it out for the other meals and move more and more towards table food. We will start introducing cow's milk as a beverage soon too, so that the switch won't be such a shock. She's in a pretty good schedule now though, and it won't be too much of a change when she gets a little older. Right now she wakes up between 6 and 7 and nurses. If I am home with her she has breakfast by 7 or 7:30 a, if I work she has breakfast around 8 at her grama's house. Her first morning nap is usually 8am and lasts for about 2 hrs. She wakes up, I nurse her and then by 11 or 11:30 she has lunch. Nap at 12 or 12:30 and lasts about 2 hrs. Wake up, nurse and then plays with mommy and daddy. 6 or 6:30 I nurse her and then she has dinner and is in bed by 7 or 7:30, depending on the day. Right now I still "dream feed" her around 10p, but I will be dropping that soon, seeing as how she isn't very interested lately, and she's such a good sleeper.
She will be moving to a different class in her nursery soon, seeing as how she is crawling all over the place and probably all over the other kids in her class, so she'll get to move into a class with other crawlers to play with. I am sure she'll have tons of fun!! It's hard though when you get to know the nursery workers and see them every Sunday for 7 months... but it will be good. She's growing up!!
Madilyn is also starting to learn the meaning of "no". She is constantly in our fireplace, I say no and move her, and she goes right back! I found her with a fireplace rock in her mouth too, crazy girl! I freaked out, glad I saw her!!! She drops everything off her highchair tray, so now we don't set things on there for her, we give it to her one at a time. The other day I said no and she smiled at me and I had to turn away to keep from laughing, it was so hard!! HA!
Well, she's a joy, and I love every moment of being her mommy. We have so much fun and I am trying my best to enjoy each stage. She started walking behind her walking toy all on her own yesterday and it made me want to tell her to slow down, that I wasn't ready for that yet! I can't believe my sweet baby is growing up! Wow... well, enjoy these pictures!!!