Bella Rey - 9 Months

Today, January 21, 2015, Bella turns 9 months old. We love this spunky little energizer bunny of ours! Bella sure has put her Mommy to the test this past month. She is all go go go, and in to everything! We (Mom) have learned a lot about patience and being on constant guard of what Bella will get in to next. I love being a mom and Pedro adores being a dad, especially now as Bella is getting more and more interactive.

Here is a little about Bella in her 9th month of life:

• Bella can do a full crawl now, and she is in to EVERYTHING! She loves to crawl around following Mom all day. She is my little shadow, and I constantly feel her little hands pawing the back of my legs and pulling herself up. She is also a little climber. She loves to crawl/climb under the coffee table and dining table. She has found the stairs and tries to climb up, and we have been helping her climb up them so that if on the off chance we don't notice she is at the stairs, she can climb well enough to not fall. We will also help her jump from step to step and she thinks it is the greatest!. 

Bigfoot sighting!

Always a blur!

Mommy's shadow.

Getting stuck.

• Bella can pull herself to standing. She discovered she could pull to standing about 3 weeks ago, and after that she was an instant pro. She pulls up on EVERYTHING! The window and mirrors, tables, couches, tubs, mom, dad, crib, exersaucer, toys, etc. She is getting pretty brave, which leads to lots of bonks. She would stand all day long if we let her. She has skipped several naps because she just wanted to be standing. She hasn't figured out how to get back down from standing yet, so if she stands in her crib, she won't be going to sleep. She is always up on her tippie toes when standing as well because she wants to see higher and get up higher.

Tippie Toes!

Standing instead of napping.

Working the barre!

Standing during our walk because she threw a fit.

• Bella is obsessed with her push and play elephant, and is always on it. She can walk by herself with it now and uses it to get into, you guessed it, EVERYTHING! All day long she is crawling to her elephant, pulling herself up, then walking while growling. When she gets the elephant stuck on something she will pull herself around to the side of it, pick/scoot it out, then proceed to walk at the side of it with one hand on the front handle, and one on the back handle. When she does the side ways walk, you know to be on extra guard, because it usually means she sees something up high that she wants and she is on course to get it. Her favorite place to go with it is the xbox, where she will stand and push the power button over and over. 

Sometimes we crash.

The side ways walk in action.

Hmmm, what's over here mom?

• Bella has a few words she says. We know for sure that she says "up" and knows what it means. She goes around saying "up" all day because she wants to be standing all day. She has even started saying "up" when she is standing because she realizes there are higher places she could be. She also says "papa" and "dada" and she will say it more often when Pedro is around. I think she is starting to figure out "mama", but a lot of her babble is hard to decipher. 
• She is such a smart girl and will come to me when I tell her "come here baby." She will push her arms through her sleeves when getting dressed. She leans forward for me to put her bib on, and lifts her arms up for me to put the tray on her highchair. She is starting to clap and wave, which is super cute! Like I said before, she knows where the power button on the xbox is, and the one on the stereo as well. I taught her to give me high fives and she thinks it is pretty cool.

clapping.

• Bella loves to eat, and for such a little girl she has a hefty appetite! Her favorite foods are fresh: avocado, oranges, banana, pear, and sweet potato. Oh, and french fries. She loves those too. She loves all of her purees except the mixed vegetable, but I don't blame her because it is nasty. She loves to beg us for food, and thinks she is so big when we give her tastes and bites of our food. We tried giving her spaghetti noodles, which she loved the fact that they were strings, and it was cute to see her slurp the noodles up, but she is a thorough chewer and she did not like that she couldn't get them chewed up enough. Bella absolutely loves feeding herself, and when it comes to avocado, she will shove her mouth until she has little chipmunk cheeks. She also loves to pulverize all fruits and veg and squish them between her fingers. It makes her super happy. For breakfast Bella has a fresh fruit (3 slices pear or orange, or 1/4 of a banana), a large container of fruit puree, and a handful of happypuffs. Lunch is a large and small container of vegetable and fruit purees, a handful of happypuffs, and a fresh fruit or vegetable (1/4 sweet potato or avocado, or 3 slices pear), and for dinner she will have a fresh fruit or vegetable (same amount as above), a mum-mum cracker, and a large and small fruit and vegetable puree. On top of this she still nurses before and after every nap, and at least twice in the night, so about 8 times in 24 hours. She still isn't super interested in liquids from a sippy or bottle, so nursing it is. That's okay though, I really do love nursing her. And Bella loves nursing too. She will climb on my lap and pull my shirt all the way down when she wants to nurse.

A delicious avocado lunch.

One day of solids for Bella.

• Bella loves strings and any little detail she can pick at. She has pulled the carpet up a little in several places in our apartment. She still loves hair, and is constantly pulling Mom's hair out so she can run the strands through her fingers. She also always has a mouthful of Mom's hair when I hold her. She will pick at our hang nails, designs on pillows, blemishes on our skin (she loves the mole on my collar bone), and pulls out my eyebrow hairs and eyelashes. 
• Bella is always on the move. This makes diaper changes and getting her dressed particularly difficult. I always see a little bum crawling away from me during diaper changes. Bella also likes to touch her bum, which has resulted in poopy hands on more than one occasion. Speaking of poop, Bella used to poop once a week, now it is at least 3 times a day and she always decides to do it in a fresh diaper right after I change her pee bum. Her little poop grunts are hilarious. She really grunts loud and will hunch her shoulders over and bend her knees. Her little poop posture is adorable.

• Bella is a very rough girl. She is sweet, but she just loves us so hard. She will tackle us down and eat our faces. She will smack at us, shove her fingers up or noses, poke our eyes, pinch, and squeeze us super hard during hugs. She likes to squeeze my neck super hard then climb to standing on my hip. She then jumps up and down, which is cute, but my hips are nice and bruised. 
• Bella still adores her Daddy. He was sick for a week so he limited his contact with Bella so she wouldn't get sick (still got sick though). That week Bella just wanted her Daddy, and as soon as he was better you can bet she attacked him even harder than usual. She missed her Daddy.  

Daddy's Girl

• Bella's sleep habits have declined. She was sick for a week, but she still wakes up at least twice a night, and for the last week she has ended up in our bed. She won't go to sleep at night unless I lay in bed with her. I love the extra cuddles, but I really want my bed back. I can't just let her cry it out anymore because she stands up in her crib and doesn't know how to get back down. For her afternoon naps now she will pretend to be asleep, then as I walk away will pull her crib bumpers down, peek through the bars, then stand up. She is a sneaky girl. She now sleeps with her bum in the air and her blanket wadded up in a ball under her belly. Such a cutie.

• Bella dislikes having her face washed. She gets so mad in the bath when I wash her face, after meals when we clean up, and when wiping her nose free of boogies. She also dislikes getting dried off after a bath. Other than that I can't think of much she dislikes.
• Bella Loves to have pillows thrown on her, tummy blows, being swung and thrown in the air, dance parties with Mom and Dad ("Blank Space" and "Timber" are her favorite dance jams), smacking her lips together to make kissy sounds, going for walks, Mommy's animal sounds (Bella tries to make elephant sounds with Mom), cuddling, and wrestling.
• Bella loves looking at herself in the mirror. She gives the mirror baby kisses, hugs, and pats at her. She also likes to bang her head on the mirror, or anything hard for that matter.

This Tiny girl has so much personality, and even though she wears me out, I think she is pretty cute and fun.

I love seeing her discover the world.

Sometimes Mom takes me shopping for too long.

I love her sweet snuggles.

I love seeing her new faces and sounds. I love her tiny voice.

I love seeing her get excited when she learns something new. 

We love to go on walks and see the blue sky, and hear the birds.

 I love her big brown eyes.

I love seeing her huff and puff with excitement when she sees Mom and Dad. I love when she reaches out for us.

Always finding Mommy's leg.

I love her big personality, and that she is the boss of the house.

She thinks she is Royal. We call her Queen B. She has us on a tight regimen.

I love that my knees are crusted up from crawling around and playing with her. I love that my baby wants to play with me. And most of all, I love being her Mommy.