NINE

Baby girl turned 9 months old this week! With the busyness and stress of moving to our new home at Camp Parks, the milestone kind of crept up on me… And yet, while Delilah's eighth month may have seemingly gone by in a flash, I wouldn’t say it was one of those “time flies when you’re having fun” scenarios. In many ways this past month was one of the hardest ones we’ve had — at least since Delilah’s colicky/gassy/reflux-y newborn stage. The culprit this time? Teething. Delilah’s first tooth started breaking through her bottom gum on July 6, and a few days later the one next to it started making an appearance too, and both teeth have been giving her (and us) a very hard time ever since. She was actually feeling so miserable on Monday (lots of crying, about everything) that we had to postpone her nine-month photo opp until Tuesday. 

Three weeks and only half of the teeth have emerged above the gumline… they are just the slowest growing little things! And while everyone says the pain of cutting a tooth goes away or subsides once it breaks through the gum, this is not the case for Delilah. This past week has seemed even more bothersome for her. (Maybe there are other teeth coming that we can’t yet see?) On top of the teething, Delilah’s been struggling with major separation anxiety/clinginess, has developed a case of stranger danger (if she doesn’t know you and you say hello, cue the waterworks!) and, according to the Wonder Weeks, she's in the middle of leap 6 (which I haven’t even had time to read about!).

Suffice to say, Month 8 was filled with a lot of tears (hers and mine) and lots of difficult bedtimes, followed by middle-of-the-night wake-ups. “Sleeping through the night” is a rare luxury lately, where previously Delilah had been a pretty decent sleeper.

It goes without saying but I’ll say it: This girl is my whole world and she has my whole heart. When she hurts, I hurt. When she’s mad, I’m madder (ha!). Seriously though, as hard as this past month has been, there have been joys too. And every happy moment, every smile, makes the tough times worth it and pushes me to get up — bright and early! — each morning to do it all over again and hopefully be the best mama I can be.

And through the difficulties of teething and clinginess and leaps, our sweet, shy bird is slowly coming into her own… Often now I see a strong, bright and feisty girl about to blossom (watch out, world!). With each new skill she learns, she becomes more confident, more opinionated (a nice way of saying impatient) and more determined.

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New and notable this month:

Probably the sweetest, cutest accomplishment: Delilah learned to kiss! She now gives mama and daddy drooly, open-mouth kisses. She likes to stick her tongue out for good measure! French baby kisses :) She finds the act wholly amusing.

Delilah also enjoys being tickled, especially on her back, and the “Tickle Monster” is a new favorite game when she is in a giggly mood

Speaking of games, baby girl played peekaboo a couple times, by lifting a blanket in front of her face and then dropping it. When mama said “peekaboo,” she smiled and did it again! Usually we’re the ones hiding from her (and she loves it, this game can always get her to crack a grin or distract her from something she doesn't like)

Delilah started doing this funny thing of lifting toys over her head, and we weren’t quite sure why… then she started doing it with her food/spoon… Eventually we figured out that she wanted to share with us! She will now often go back and forth, taking a bite and then offering the food (or a teether) to us before back in her mouth it goes

Blame it on teething or the leap or just loving mama SO much but Delilah is in a new phase of wanting to bite mommy, especially at bedtime. She’ll try to bite my hands, arms, chest, anywhere she can reach (she even bit my foot the other day!) but for some reason she never tries to bite daddy. Hmmm… And even though her teeth are only halfway in, man are those things sharp!

Delilah is belly crawling still, and sort of hates being on her knees despite our attempts to help her get more comfortable kneeling and putting weight on them. She has, however, sat up on her own a couple of times, always to our surprise! She comes up from laying on her back/side — girl has some serious core strength 

Now that we are in our new place, bath time has been happening in an actual bath tub and baby girl loves it! It’s fun to watch her having fun in the water and have this “chore” be less like a chore and more like play!

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A final note about the evil that is teething: Although it has caused us all a lot of grief and I pray subsequent teeth won’t take nearly as long or hurt her nearly as bad, I am excited for her to have the extra “help” while eating plus it is really cute to see those teeny-tiny pearly whites peek out she smiles.