Tardy Mamma: Third Quarterly Update

So usually, I atleast start a draft so the date is on there…but I guess busy moms are allowed to slack off once in a while.
As usual, Ahana seems to take big leaps in development all at once! At the 9 month 1 week point, she started scooting around (this one is not going to crawl for reasons best known to herself!). Within a week, she was all over the place, trying to get herself into all kinds of trouble. Just shy of her 9 month birthday I tried feeding her a saltine cracker at her friend’s birthday party. As if she had known all along what to do, she held the cracker in her hand, brought it to her mouth and bit off (I should say gummed off) a little piece. She mashed it between her toothless gums and swallowed it. Just like that…
She also magically started using sign language quite a bit more. She’s constantly bringing her hand to her mouth meaning “Eat”, showing us the sign for Milk in the mornings and waving her hand for “all done” when she’s finished eating!

I may have said this before, but it never ceases to amaze me how much she already seems to understand and know. She has a sense of humor and an uncanny comic timing! The other day I was testing her by giving her a bottle with the cap on (to see if she wanted milk) and she sort of giggled and moved my hand and the bottle away. Then I uncapped it and brought it to her, this time she opened her mouth. It was almost as if she laughed because she thought her mother was being silly by testing her like that. Of course, one cannot drink milk from a bottle while the cap is still on!

Words cannot describe the pride I feel when my little baby responds to so many things we say/do. She’s a thinker and she plans her moves so she’s never aimlessly scooting around the room. It’s always, what do I want next, where do I want to go next.

The one big disadvantage of her being mobile now is that I cannot let my guard down when I leave her alone or take my eyes off her. She’s constantly trying to exercise her pincer grasp (being able to hold small objects between the thumb and fore finger) and pick up the minutia she finds on the carpet/floor. I guess her head being so close to the floor (say about a foot off the floor) and perfect vision makes it easy for her to spot the little bits lying on the floor. Last night she put something that looked like the stump of a fruit into her mouth (I swear I had not seen it lying there or it would have been lifted) and I caught her right when her hand was coming out of her mouth. I rushed in, and she knew what my next move was going to be. So she smiles, looks away and spits out the stump! She’s not always so kind, sometimes she knows I am going to get my finger in her mouth and she’ll purse her lips together and look away!!

Needless to say, my evenings and days with Ahana are exceedingly exciting! Poor Dad is busy and comes home later than usual and on most days during the work week and he gets home only after she has gone to bed. Mornings are Dad intensive though…you have to see the glee in her face when she wakes up to see Dad lying next to mom.
When I bathe her in the evenings and R is not home I ask her, “A, where is Dad? Can you find him” And she pokes her head up, her eyes wide with wonder and she looks towards the Bathroom door to see if he’s visible from any angle! She may not say the words, Mamma and Dada yet…but she knows what they mean and it fills us with this warm, fuzzy feeling.

I also can’t cease to say enough about how easy going this little baby of mine is. I couldn’t have asked for better. So when I complain about how I don’t have time for chores, errands, dressing up, working out etc. remind me – will you? That this is a passing phase and soon enough she’ll be grown up and out of my arms, not wanting to cuddle or give wet sloppy kisses anymore. Dressing up and working out can wait. The husband will disagree and I will agree to do just the same – disagree!! ;-)