9 months old today!

In all her glory... here she is... Benita, 9 months old. :)

At some moments she just seems like she's grown up so quickly... in this first picture for instance, it seems her face is no longer that of a baby, but verging on toddler-hood. Sigh. Too fast! It's all going by too fast!

So what's little Beni up to... she's cruising up a storm. Cruising being the technical word for walking while holding on to things. :) So she cruises the furniture, her play table and anything else that comes in at the right height.

When we got home from Australia, she had one day, ONE, where she slept for 2 two hour naps in one day. It was REALLY AWESOME. Right after that she went back to taking 45 minute naps 3 or 4 times a day. Now, she has devolved to taking 30-45 minute naps that she will only take if I stay in bed with her while she sleeps. Trial and error is a quick teacher on this one- when the baby wakes up within 5 minutes of me getting up every single time for a whole day, thereby reducing her daytime asleep hours to about 40 minutes, I stop taking my chances and just stay in bed with her. It's not ideal (although I have gotten a heck of a lot of reading done this week!), but, it's where we're at right now. And it seems that every time I have the thought to try to even gently train her sleeping habits, she changes em up on me anyway. So, I'll just ride this wave, and hopefully it'll go by quickly.

One thing that might be making her not sleep so well is that she finally got her first tooth. It broke through her gum just about a week ago I believe. It's taking what seems like forever to come all the way through- I don't know how long it usually takes for a tooth to surface completely, but, a week later, we're still dealing with just the top edge. In person it seems so obvious, but in pictures (as you can see in the last picture in this post), it's just not as impressive. Oh well. It's there. And the neighboring tooth seems to be sitting just below the surface as well. So maybe that is why she is still being somewhat crabby and sleeping badly. Maybe we'll get a little reprieve when both of those teeth pop through. I guess we'll see.

Beni is talking a lot these days, although not quite saying any words. She has a new sound- something that sounds like a cross between that and dot... comes out a little gangsta, like "dat". She does a lot of pointing and uttering, "dat, dat, dat." I'm sure it doesn't mean anything... it would be boring if her first word was really "that." :) She does say mam-mam-mam and da-da-da, but, not in reference to either myself or Joel. Oh well. Soon enough. She will however just sit there babbling away, sometimes to you, and sometimes to herself. It is awfully cute.

One of my favorite things that she is doing lately is noticing space. She's noticing her surroundings more and more and how she fits into them. She looks under things- like the couch and the entertainment center. Sometimes her toys are there- other times I'm not sure what she's looking for or at. But when she does look under something she puts her chest and chin on the floor and sticks her butt up in the air. It is ridiculous. I can't help grinning from ear to ear when I see her do it. As I said she is also becoming more away of how she fits in the world. Her jumpy seat is attached in my bathroom doorway. She gets confined to jump around while I shower. When I get out of the shower I usually take her out and let her crawl around while I get ready. I move from the en suite bathroom to the room freely. Sometimes she gets upset when I do this, but I tell her to follow me. She will then start to crawl out of the bathroom, look up at the jumpy seat, then crouch down almost into an army crawl, and make her way out of the bathroom. The funny part about this is that if she were to crawl out at normal height, she would still clear the jumpy seat with a couple inches to spare. She obviously thinks of herself as much bigger than she is. Also, very, very cute. :)

On the eating front- Beni is a carboholic. She happily eats organic puffs, rice rusks, toast, naan bread, pizza crusts, crackers (with or without Vegemite), etc. Basically, any kind of bread product, she will chow down on. Today, miracle of miracles, we actually managed to finish a whole pouch (for those of you not in the know, baby food can now often be found packaged in pouches rather than jars) of baby food (it was banana, pear and mango) in one day. She had some at breakfast and the rest at lunch. This is a big deal, because she has basically shunned baby food since day one of solids. Recently she has showed me again that she likes mango- she really likes to suck on it if I let her eat it off my fork. Sometimes she even bites off a chunk and swallows. I'm happy to share my mango with her. I have been giving her egg yolk for breakfast, and while she happily tastes it, she hasn't actually eaten any of it. She has tried loads of veggies and she always has the same attitude- she excitedly tries the first bite, and then generally declines to have any more. So I just keep offering. Some day I'm sure she'll change.

I have to say just add as a note that, I have, at moments, considered whether or not it would be ok to delay solids just until she is potty-trained. That's not too long, is it? You know what I'm talking about right? ;)

I'm really not sure how many people read this blog that aren't friends with me on the good ole facebook...but, if there is anyone, then this is for you...

Just before we left for Australia in December, Joel got a new job. In August he'll be starting work at the international school in Vientiane, Laos. I'm pretty darn excited about heading back to Asia. We're both excited because Joel's younger brother and his wife work at the same school- and better yet, they are expecting a baby in just a few short months. So by the time we move there, there will be six of us family living in the same city. I'm excited for Beni to live so close to a cousin even if it is for just a few years (although who knows!). So, great change awaits us this year...and I for one am excited for it!

(this here last picture is proof of the tooth- and a cranky baby. :) )