Hey Baby! {9 months went fast}

We hit a big milestone over the weekend. The sweet bebe of the house is officially 3/4 of the way through her first year.

And I just don’t even know how that happened.

Here’s the quick stats:

Weight: 17ish lbs. (doc visit next week)
Clothes size: 6-9 months and some 9-12 months
Eyes: still blue
Sleeping: um, better?
Teeth: 4
Eating: nursing 5x a day, eating cereal/baby food 3x day

Now, for the chatty and cuteness.

You’d think with six kids I’d have one with brown eyes since I’m the original brown-eyed girl. Nada. Zip. Not one. The girls all have blue and the boys fluctuate between blue and green, nary a hint of brown anywhere. That’s like tossing a quarter and having it land on heads SIX times. Evidently the odds were not ever in my favor.

Sleeping is, dare I say it, better? Rather than bore you with all the details, Gianna was shaping up to be one of our worst sleepers. Her nighttime waking was killing Scott and I. We’ve always been the parents who co-slept with our babies, or at least had them at an arms length in a bassinet or pack-and-play. Luke still wins as the worst sleeper of all time, but Gianna tried to give him a run for his money. My sincerest thanks to all of you who gave me such great sleeping advice over on Facebook. We did a modified version (I like to call it the kinder/gentler one) of crying it out. Man, that is hard on a momma’s heart. She’s now consistently going to bed at 7/7:30. Most nights she goes down without a fight, but this teething business sometimes interferes. On occasion she will wake up once, but we are 1-million times better than we were a month ago. Thank you, Jesus. She’s now enjoying some new digs and I promise to blog the transformation from red-ass Aggie office to red-ass Aggie nursery. For my non-Aggie readers, red-ass is just an endearing collegiate term for awesome. I know, Aggies are weird.

We went full-on hippie and dove into making baby food. Again. Three kids ago, we tried our hand at it and loved it. It saved some serious dinero and I felt much better about what we were feeding our babies. It’s not for everyone, but it does work for us. I nursed her exclusively for six months and just a few weeks ago, we started introducing baby food. I know, conservative feeder alert. She loves sweet potatoes, apples, carrots, pears, green beans … and is anyone still reading? Sheez, Kathryn, bore them with produce. Sorry.

Fat and happy. Evidently I keep my babies so happy that they are in zero rush to move. She can roll over but says, “why?” She can sit and grab toys, but crawling? Nah, that’s for other babies. My earliest walker was 12 months (Will) and everyone else has been 15, 21, 16 and 27 months. Um, yeah.

But, the teeth? That’s a whole other story with this one. She’s my very first baby to cut one before a year and she has FOUR, y’all, with a fifth on the way. I have zero idea how this will affect nursing, but let’s just hope she practices the chomps for her toys and not me. Ow.

Oh, and she’s super social. I know, we’re shocked. She does this whole waving thing, but with a circle of both hands. And, when she’s really excited she gets them both going. Gah. I can’t stand the cuteness. Her laugh is like a light switch with John Paul. He just says hello and she belly giggles. Anna-Laura is my second mom and Clare begs to hold her, and then one minute later she’s all, “Um, can someone come get her. She’s heavy.” Luke? He just keeps telling her how pwitty she is. Will is amazing with her. “I just don’t do diapers, Mom.” HA! We might have to stage an intervention with all this attention she gets.

I love it.

Our biggest milestone? Seizure-free since September. Y’all may remember that horrific scare we had in July. Then, she did a doozie again at the Edel Conference I attended. She had several more in August and September and my post-NICU mom heart almost broke. Initially, when she had her first episode, I was sitting in the ER freaking out. The first person that came to mind was Mary. Without even thinking, I reached out to her via Facebook and asked if I could bend her ear. Little did she know I’d bend it a lot over the next several months. We’d only met virtually, but I knew she would provide me good counsel and much-needed levity. And that she did. Mary, during all my sleepless nights with my all-too anxious heart and many tears, thank you for talking me off the ledge. Thank you for praying for us. And, I find that it is no coincidence that on the nights her daughter, Courtney, needed prayers, Gianna delivered and woke up a million times so I could pray. Y’all don’t even want to know how many 3am texts Mary and I shared.

Every month I say what a gift Gianna is to our family. Month nine is no different. I keep looking in the mirror wondering who that old lady is hugging and kissing on the baby, and then I realize it’s me. I adore her, down to her Michelin baby legs. Thank you, God, for giving me another chance at motherhood. Happy ninth month, sweet G!