Happy nine month birthday, Emily.

She scurries around the house, chases Jan’s flip-flops, scratches her ear, climbs up your leg, carries toys in her mouth, and growls. We no longer have a little girl. We have a terrier.

So, what other tricks has our little mutt learned this past month…

• Emily has learned how to point. She points at people she knows, food she wants, and trees with an odd number of leaves. We don’t know what she means when she does it, but she particularly enjoys pointing at my left leg.
• Again, we don’t know why she does it, but Emily has developed this endearing head turn. It’s like what dogs do when they’re curious about something. We like to think that she enlists this move whenever she feels like looking at the world from a different perspective. There is an ongoing investigation regarding this head turn and I look forward to publishing my findings in the near future.
• We decided that Emily was finally old enough to start sleeping on her stomach. We decided this right about the same time that she decided to start sleeping on her stomach. And what a difference it has made to her sleep pattern! Maybe it’s a coincidence, but she is now falling asleep with less of a fight at night, goes back to sleep quicker if she ever wakes up, and sleeps for longer stretches without waking. And she’s absolutely adorable lying snoring there like a little baby chalk outline.
• She’s happy and she knows it – Emily has started clapping. She’ll begin an impromptu round of applause whenever she is excited about something, sees someone else clapping, or is inspired by an instructional cry of “Hooray!”.
• After suffering for months with a diet of mushed this and mashed that, Emily has put her foot down and started eating “real” food. There are some things that no longer need to be chopped up into child-size bits. Still with only her four front teeth as her chewing tools (but we fear more are on their way), Emily will happily sit down with a banana, some crusty French bread, or a savory rice cake and gum, chew, and suck her way to three square meals a day. Next month: baby back ribs.
• Yes, Emily enjoyed her first trip to the beach – frolicking around in the sand and dipping her tootsies in the Mediterranean – but her first trip to the playground is all she can talk about. That slide. Boy-o-boy does she love that slide.
• Move over Bobby McFerrin, Emily has got some of the freshest mouth sounds on the block. Smacking lips, kissy sounds, tongue pops, raspberries, growls, screeches, incoherent babbles, and the loveliest laugh you’ve ever heard.
• Crawling is nothing new for our little girl. She’s been mobile for almost two months now. But up until only recently, Emily’s idea of crawling was akin to a marine dragging his belly through a mud puddle under barbed wire. But in the past three weeks, she has gone from baby formula to Formula One. There is not an inch of the apartment that she hasn’t explored, or doesn’t explore on a daily basis! It’s hard to get away from her now. You can usually hear her coming from a mile away: palms slapping against the hardwood floor accompanied by heavy breathing or growling. Stealth isn’t her strong suit. But nothing is brighter than the smile on her face when she crawls down the hall and peeks around the corner to discover her daddy working in the office. It warms my heart.
• Maybe the most significant milestone of the month, as of two days ago Emily is now sleeping in her very own room. She used to crash in her crib beside our bed, but to celebrate/encourage her only waking up once or twice during the night for a feed, we took apart her crib and reassembled it in its new permanent location. And so far so good. She hasn’t freaked out at her new surroundings at all. The only downside is that it’s a little more of a pain to walk down the hall to see why she’s upset rather than just sitting up in bed, but hey, it’s a small price to pay for independence.

The pitter-patter of little feet.

The swings are next.