Tayler

Posting an update about this cute, cute baby!  She's at the tail end of her 9th month (what?!!?)

She started crawling at the end of 6 months.  Has been picking up speed ever since.  She pops up on all fours regularly now, rocks back and forth, and even stretches her legs out and hangs out in a plank, but still prefers to move with a part crawl part army crawl combo to get around.  Tries as fast as she can to catch up with the other two - it's pretty fun to watch.

Said "mama" very clearly at 7 months.  Now says mama and dada pretty regularly, and babbles lots.

Baby food took her awhile to figure out the concept.  Would lock her mouth closed for a long time, then spent a long time tasting and spitting it out.  But, with time, she figured out that it really wasn't a bad thing, and is now a rock star eater and is increasing her interest in some little finger foods.

She happily nursed until about 7 months, but then we got to a point where feeding her around people or any place just wasn't working.  Up until then, it had been so slick feeding her under a nursing cover, but as she became more interested in life, she was less interested in eating.  Since she wouldn't take a bottle, I found her sleep was getting all messed up as she'd be so hungry at night from not eating enough during the day.  And, I really didn't want to shut myself into a room every time she wanted to eat during the day, so I was ready to move on.  She was strong willed, and since she had refused a bottle completely beforehand, it took her a good 24 hours before she gave in.  And then another week before she really felt committed to the change.  And then a month or so until we were all bottle.

Tayler has her people favorites.  Especially at the gym.  Whenever I drop her off, everyone there knows that she'll go to certain people, and other people will take her and she'll just scream.  Like the loudest cry ever.  Funny enough, one of her favorite people is also named Tayler.  She's told me that my Tayler will see her across the room and will crawl as fast as she can to get to her.  It's a pretty funny connection, and funny they share the same name.

She's a super flexible napper.  Probably because she's had to be because of all the change she's been through in her short life.  My other two were pretty set to a schedule.  And, while we still work on a schedule, it's just different with the third kid when you start juggling everything else the other two have going on.  So far, she's been awesome with the flexibility and is overall still pretty happy even when missing sleep.

She LOVES the baby bjorn.  Starts to laugh and wiggle whenever I start to put it on.  Still hates her car seat, but will tolerate it for car rides only.  It's funny when you try to unclick it from the car - she goes from happy to screaming in about 10 seconds.  I learned early on that the seat stays in the car.  :)

I have two absolute favorite things that she does:

1- Happy hands:  When she's excited to eat, or happy to see someone, she'll roll her hands in constant and steady circles.  We've nicknamed it her happy hands.

2-Shaking with excitement:  She'll get so excited to see you walk into her room in the morning, or you'll hold her and she'll be so excited to see someone, or she'll discover a new toy (or what she thinks is a toy) that she'll just shake with excitement.  Like she can't contain her happiness. I LOVE IT.  She is and is going to be such a cute personality.

Such a happy thing (and Mike needs to open his eyes!)