10 whole months

If I'm being completely honest, I must say that this has been the hardest month for me thus far as a parent. Jens was a pretty easy infant. Although I really had no right to be, I was confident in myself as a mother - as far as bathing, feeding, holding, nursing, and waking up with a tiny human being. I could pretty much get by on babycenter.com and my overwhelming love for my new baby. Sure it wasn't always easy, but it was so new and exciting and honestly just completely enjoyable. Then Jenson turned 9 months old. She had an opinion about things, and she was moody, and she was crawling everywhere, and she started throwing fits. There were a couple weeks where I pretty much had to hand her over to Ben when he got home, because I just didn't feel strong enough and patient enough to deal with it anymore. Disciplining your kid is just a whole other ballgame. I get so overwhelmed thinking about whether I'm doing the best thing for her, or just completely screwing everything up. It was just so much easier before she got all of this personality...but not nearly as fun.

That being said, Jens and I have finally got our groove going, and things are better than ever. She is just the most amazing little thing. She is funny. And she is super cute, if I do say so myself. She still looks exactly like her father. Speaking of her father, she is still completely obsessed with him.. and it's not nearly as cute as it used to be. But it's still pretty sweet.

Her favorite foods are macaroni and cheese (which her health conscience dad doesn't like me to give her), blueberries, yogurt, peas, and carrots.

She says Mama, Dada, and bye. She is a speedy crawler and walks while holding on to something.

I cannot even begin to put into words just how much we love her, and just how much she has blessed our life.

Pics to come soon - probably when she's 10.5 months.

The girl loves her dad.

I was on the phone with my mom today and told her two quick Jens stories and she said, "That is the stuff you should be writing down! You'll want to remember that!"

So... Two days ago Jens and I were at Ace Hardware picking up some flowers for the backyard. I was holding her on my hip and busy talking to the cashier and not paying attention to her at all. She was patting my back and grunting and trying to get my attention, and I didn't even realize until she weaseled her way up my chest, grabbed my face, and kissed me right on the lips. How is she old enough to do that?

And... Today, for the first time ever, she cried when her dad left for work. It was the sweetest/saddest thing. She wanted nothing to do with me. I had to pry her away from him and we watched him walk out the door and get in his car, while she was reaching out for him the entire time.

Time, just stop.

Sick.

We have been sick up in here. It started with Jens on Friday night. We were sharing a few night time snuggles before she hit the hay, and before I knew it, she was sharing her vomit all over both us. Sorry, that's sounds really gross. But motherhood is really gross sometimes. And if you didn't remember - she eats real food now; so it wasn't sweet baby spit-up.

I'll spare you all the gory details. But the night included: 3 baths for the baby, 2 showers for the momma, 3 crib sheet changes, 4 dirty towels, 3 pairs of pajamas, and one Dad who had some medical exam boards the next morning.

She was such a little trooper. This picture was taken after her 3rd bath.

Then the next day, Ben got it. And then in the middle of the night, when I was bringing a vomiting Ben some water; I got it. We were not a pretty sight.

I spent today washing every single thing in this house that would fit in my washing machine.

Nine months

My baby is 9 whole months old. Just tonight, the three of us were sitting at the table eating pizza (yes, the baby was eating pizza) and Ben and I could just not believe how BIG she seemed. How old she seemed. Picking up pieces of bread and cheese and eating like she had been starved, taking a quick break to throw her head back and get a swig of water from her sippy cup, making faces and cracking up with her dad from across the table. It was all just a little to much for my heart to handle.

Tuesday she had her 9 month check-up. The girl is in the 50% for weight, height and even head circumference. We have a perfectly average kid. She actually loved Dr. Krause this visit and passed the 9 month milestone checklist.

Says "mama" and "dada" - check
Pulls up and "cruises" around furniture - check
Uses her fingers to pick up food - check
Starting to throw tantrums - check

Jens loves food. The only thing that she hasn't seemed to like was a taste of oatmeal and a green olive. (Her dad gave her the green olive, just to be clear.) Her favorite foods at the moment are yogurt with blueberries, turkey, and beans of any kind. She is still nursing 4 or 5 times a day and eating 3 meals a day with us.

She goes to bed, in her crib, anywhere from 7:30 to 8:00 (or more like 10:00 or 11:00 when her grandparents are in town) and wakes around 5:00 or 6:00 to eat. She usually falls back asleep in our bed for a couple of hours.

She is into everything. And she's really fast.

She absolutely loves being outside. She sits in the grass while I water the flowers. And I wear her in the sling when I mow the grass. I didn't realize how weird people might think that is, until I caught one of my neighbors taking a picture of us with her iPhone.

We had Ben's cousins and their boyfriends over for dinner and they got her to wave all night. I haven't been able to get her to do it again. So I don't think she can claim that skill yet.

She loves to give kisses. I remember telling Ben when she was born that I wanted that to be one of the first things she learned. So I started from the beginning, saying "kiss" whenever I would give her  asmooch. Now she doesn't even need to hear the word, if you are anywhere near her face; she will kiss you. It never gets old. My favorite is when she is crying her little head off and her dad will say "kiss", she will stop crying, give him a kiss, and then start wailing again. It's a tad bit ridiculous.

**I wrote this post and took these pictures a couple of weeks ago. Oops.