Meera Grace 9 Months Old

Meera Grace is 9 months old today. The photo above is pure Meera. All happy, all the time. She has got to be the world's most ridiculously easy baby. She still sleeps unbelievably well-- 2-3 hour nap each morning, 1 hour in the afternoon, in bed around 6:30pm and awake around 6:30am. For the past few months she had been getting up 2-3 times per night to eat (a quick feed and then back to sleep), but over the course of this past month we've seen this starting to change. Every once in a while now she's waking for only one bottle. And the other night she slept from 6:30pm-3:45am, the longest stretch she's ever slept. She wakes up happy. Even in the night, she just fusses barely a bit, to let us know to go in. In the morning she'll lay in her crib talking to herself for 30-45 minutes before she'll even begin to fuss for us. Putting her to sleep is about as polar opposite as you can get from our previous baby-sleep experience (ah hem, K & O); we change her diaper, feed her a bottle, read her a book, close her curtains, lay her in her bed, kiss her, say we love her, and walk out. That is that. Sometimes she'll coo and chit-chat a bit, sometimes silence, but either way she's sound asleep usually within 5 minutes. It is unreal. And this is just one example of how much of an ANGEL BABY Miss Meera is. I wish I could complain of something about her (it only seems realistic that there should be something to complain of), but truly, she's pretty much angelic about everything. She just is one cool cat, always up for anything, always going with the flow, always mellow and happy. She has three big tricks now: 1) clapping, 2) pointing with her right pointer finger, and 3) waving hello and goodbye. Over the course of this month she gradually gave up nursing... to the point that now she's barely nursing at all (maybe once a day on average), and she's loving her bottles. Her current favorite foods are frozen cut up pieces whole-grain bagels, Earth's Best brand baby food spinach and potatoes, and of course her all-time favorite: "baby rice and beans" (baby rice mixed with pureed green beans). She'll try anything and we've started experimenting with all sorts of things: pieces of pasta, chunks of fruit, steamed carrots. She'll dabble in it all. She's got six teeth (2 on bottom, 4 on top). Her favorite thing in the world is still her brothers. She laughs, squirms, and kicks her legs like a mad woman just at the mere sight of them. Owen, especially, is her best bud. She thinks he is absolutely hysterical. Her favorite time of day is 12:40pm because that is when she leaves (with either Margie or Mama) to go pick up her brothers at school. The school pick-up is, for sure, the highlight of her day. And I don't think there's ever been anything quite as heart-warming to me as seeing the threesome reunite after a few hours apart each school day. Seriously. It is CUTE. She loves the stroller, loves the backpack, loves the bath, loves the car, loves the kitty. From as far as I can tell, there isn't much this girl doesn't love. She really loves being tickled. And she loves loves loves all her little baby toys. Favorite hobbies are: 1) grabbing on, playing with, and chewing on the brim of Papi's baseball hat whenever he's wearing one, and 2) grabbing on, playing with, and chewing on Mommy's bracelets whenever she's wearing one. We're such suckers for this girl that we're even known to wear hats just for her (B), and take off jewelry and let her have it to gnaw on (H)... (what can I say? the girl likes bling!!! you're not going to see me standing in her way). She still doesn't roll over (!!!!!!! LOL!!!), and shows zero interest in doing so (?!!), but she sits, stands holding on to things, and is trying to crawl (although she's still got a long way to go with that!). This month the pink Bumbo seat has been retired; Little Miss gave it up and let us know it (screeching and screaming if we tried to sit her in it). It feels like all the real baby-baby stuff is slowly starting to disappear as our little one approaches the 12 month mark. God help me when we celebrate her first birthday. I can barely stand the thought of it. We say everyday that we wish our little chunky monkey chub of love would stay just like this forever and ever and ever. Oh why can't it be so?! Happy 9 months to our sweet Meera Grace!