Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Dear Mackenzie,

You learned how to do three new behaviors in the past two days:

1) You can turn yourself in a complete circle while seated.

2) You pulled yourself up to a STANDING position! So exciting! And nerve-wracking because here come the falls!

3) Today, you clapped for the first time! You were sitting in the playard while the rest of the family was hanging on the couch. One minute you were rubbing at your wrist and the next, you were clapping your hands together!

I love watching you grow, Kenziebear!

Love,
Mom

Motor Skilled

Dear Mackenzie,

So much news to share! This past month was a big one because you learned so many new things! At the beginning of the month, you were getting ready to crawl--you could get into crawl position but didn't move anywhere. During the last week of July, you began going from a crawl position to a sitting position and by July 30th, you started crawling across the floor! It's really fun to see what objects catch your interest enough for you to crawl over to them--you are particularly fond of your older siblings' paperback books (but barely give the time of day to any of your baby board books--unless you want to chew on them), the heating vent near the floor with a little brass tassel on it and . . . me! When I come into your room and sit down on the play mat, you always smile, make your way over to me and try to climb into my lap. It is so sweet!

As if the crawling alone wasn't enough, you also acquired a number of other new motor skills this month:

-You can drink water from a cup (and went through a brief stage where you actually pushed your baby bottle away and refused to drink water from it, as if that was so June 2020).

-When I'm playing around with you and put a washcloth on top of your head, you know how to reach up and pull it off.

-In your crib, you can go from laying on your back, to rolling over onto your tummy, to pushing up into crawl position, to sitting back on your butt to grabbing the top of the crib and pulling yourself up onto your knees. Wow! We had to lower your crib the day you learned how to kneel.

-You started reaching your arms out toward me when you want me to pick you up (which is a lot!).

In other news, you started eating blueberries, broccoli, carrots and chicken (and are a fan of all of them). Your top two center teeth are also growing in and you've already bit me--sometimes quite sharply!--with them a few times!

I can't believe how many changes there were these past four weeks. You even look significantly bigger in your 9-month photo in comparison to your 8-month photo:

Taking your 9-month photo was also significantly harder because you barely sat still. You kept lunging forward and trying to crawl off the bed!

You are so cute! I can't wait to see what the next month brings!

Love,

Mom

Crawl Space

Dear Mackenzie,

Hello my giggly girl! It is still harder to make you laugh than any of my other kids but I am getting more and more giggles out of you now. And I can always make you smile when I make exaggerated happy faces at you, nibble on your super chubby torso, dance with you and hold you up in the air the way Patrick Swayze holds Jennifer Gray up at the end of Dirty Dancing (will that scene still be as iconic when you're an adult reading this?). Strangely, you also always smile when you see me drinking out of my water bottle. I don't know why that makes you smile but it does! And when you smile, you show off your two adorable, pearly white baby teeth . . . which you occasionally bite me with!

At your checkup last week, your weight was 20 pounds, 7 ounces and your height was 27.5 inches. Your motor skills are developing nicely. You can sit up on your own pretty well and when you're sitting in your crib, you can hold the side of it and pull yourself up about a half-inch off the mattress. You often rotate your wrists as if you're slowly waving (are you waving?) and can push up onto your hands and knees. I don't know if you just get scared or if it's too much weight on your arms, but you often start whimpering when you get yourself into that position. You can't crawl forward yet but you do crawl backward!

You are usually pretty quiet but when you are vocal, you are LOUD! You love playing with remotes, pulling hair and eating apples, bananas, peaches and ground beef. You don't seem very crazy about avocados.

Love,
Mom

In the Crib

Dear Mackenzie,

Last night, you officially stopped sleeping in the bassinet in my bedroom and started sleeping in the crib in your bedroom across the hall. This milestone was way overdue--the top of your head and the bottoms of your feet have been grazing the ends of the bassinet for awhile but I wanted to keep you in it--and hold onto your infancy--for just a little while longer. And now I feel guilty for doing that because your new crib mattress seems to be extremely comfortable--so comfortable that you slept on it for over 10 hours last night without waking up! I put you down right before midnight last night and when I woke up at 6am, you were still soundly sleeping. Same thing at 8am, then 9am and 10am! At 10:15am, I actually unwrapped you from your blanket to wake you up and feed you. In the bassinet, you'd been sleeping for six- or seven-hour stretches so I guess the crib mattress is much cozier!

Love,
Mom

Summer Love

Dear Mackenzie,

We have entered month 7! You are doing so well with eating solids and have liked everything I have made for you so far (which includes green peas, zucchini, sweet potatoes and butternut squash). You also have a new trick: rolling over onto your stomach! You just started doing it last week and every time you complete a roll onto your stomach, you grin and look so proud of yourself! Yesterday, you mastered rolling back onto your back after you'd rolled onto your stomach. At one point, you were in your crib and you just kept rolling from back to stomach to back to stomach . . . I think you did it about a dozen times before you got tired, haha!

You didn't have a doctor's appointment this month so I don't know how much weight you gained but you did get significantly taller because Daddy had to raise the height of your jumper. You're wearing 9-months-sized clothing and size 4 diapers. You have also stopped drooling so you don't need to wear bibs anymore (whereas JieJie drooled so much for so long that she was still wearing bibs as a toddler). But the drooling may begin again soon because when I look closely at your bottom gums, I can see the beginnings of two tiny baby teeth!

Things you currently like: attention from me (you always smile when I make eye contact with you!), jumping in your jumper, spinning your alphabet globe, banging toys on your high chair tray (sometimes you bang them so hard, the loud sound makes you wince and squeeze your eyes shut--yet you keep banging away), getting tickled on the sides of your stomach and under your armpits and watching Olaf sing "In Summer." Daddy discovered that last one! Every night when Daddy holds you while I go shower, you cry. A lot. You cry and fuss and shake your head and rub your face violently against his shoulder. Nothing he does can console you . . . except when he plays a YouTube video of Olaf's signature song. Other Frozen songs don't work. Other Olaf songs don't work. But "In Summer" calms you down every time. I heard it myself last night when I was heading to the bathroom for my shower. You were wailing but when Daddy turned on the video, you immediately stopped and cooed, "Ooooo." How cute!

Love,
Mom

Standing Tall

Dear Mackenzie,

New skills you picked up this week:

* Standing up on your own -- when you hold onto your crib, you can actually stand up all by yourself for a minute or so! Your legs are so strong. Amazing!

* Blowing raspberries -- you push your lips together so hard sometimes your face turns a little red, haha!

* Curling your tongue -- you just did it for the first time tonight. The only other person in our family who can do that is Daddy.

On another note, I was eating an ice cream cone after dinner tonight and you wanted it so badly! You kept eyeing it and when I held it in front of you (I am so mean, I know!), your eyes widened so much and you reached for it so desperately with first one hand and then both hands. You were so cute and I wanted so much to give you a taste!

Love,
Mom

Bouncer Chair Scare

Dear Mackenzie,

It was bittersweet when you outgrew your infant clothing several months ago--and now you have outgrown your infant bouncer! You are so strong and active and whenever you sit in it, you kick your legs so hard that the whole chair bounces up and down with an almost alarming force. And now that you can push yourself up into a sitting position, I can no longer safely leave you in the seat.

How did I learn this? Well, you, Second GuhGaw and I were in Second GuhGaw's bedroom and you were sitting in the bouncer. I went to use the bathroom and a couple minutes later, Second GuhGaw came running into the bathroom and said, "Mackenzie is looking at the ground!" What now? I wasn't sure what he was getting at but then I heard you crying really hard and ran back to the bedroom. And there you were, hanging over the edge of the bouncer. You were leaning all the way to the side and your head was about an inch from the floor. Oh my god oh my god oh my god! You had sat up and the weight of your upper torso had made you fall forward. Thank goodness the straps had been tight enough to hold you in to the chair and that you weren't so heavy that the whole bouncer flipped over. And thank goodness Second GuhGaw came to get me right away! What a good big brother!

Love,
Mom