Nine Months!

Sarah is officially nine months old as of last Saturday, and we just can't believe how fast she is growing up! Every day we see more and more glimpses of the little girl she is becoming, and have to grieve (a little bit!) the tiny baby stage she is leaving behind. So, you ask, what is she like these days?

• Sarah loves laughter. One of our favorite things she does these days is that when she hears David or I laughing at something, she jumps right in and starts cracking up too, even though she has no idea what the joke is!
  
• Sarah loves to dance to music. If David's listening to something on the computer or if her musical puppy dog toy starts playing a song, she always responds the same: wiggling her abdomen up and down as her little baby-dance. This morning I was singing to her in her high chair and she did the usual dance--and I of course was THRILLED that, at least in her mind, my singing also sounds somewhat like music!
• Sarah loves wiggling. She wiggles and moves so much that we've started to have a problem with her wiggling out of her diapers and them coming loose inside her clothing! Speaking of diapers, the wiggling makes changing her these days quite a task! We've started changing her on the carpet in the living room instead of on her changing table because her wiggling makes any height super-dangerous these days. I would say the average diaper change these days includes at least six flip-overs and four crawl-away attempts. It is always better to try to do this with David available as back-up.
  
• Sarah loves foreign objects and electronics. She has a sixth sense for finding things she shouldn't get a hold of and being uninterested in things that pose her no harm/she poses no harm to. For example, she is constantly pulling the remote controls off of our living room side table. I try to trade her a coaster (safe object) for the remote (electronic), which is similar in size, also not a "toy", comes from the same side table--but she KNOWS and will immediately drop the coaster and head for something else she knows she shouldn't have.
• Sarah loves to read books on your lap. This has only begun in the last couple of weeks, but I am THRILLED! We are enjoying some sweet, sweet times together reading--too bad we only have like 5 books. She loves to point out the faces of the people and animals in the books. I am of course convinced she is a genius.
  
• Sarah loves to give kisses. Big, sloppy open-mouth kisses. She loves to kiss us, her parents, and especially her own reflection in the mirror or on the television or in a piece of glass . . .
  
• Sarah loves "talking." She's totally at that adorable stage where she is speaking her own make-believe language. Her cadence often sounds like sentences, and you can definitely "understand" what she's trying to say through the emotions she is expressing. Its really fun to have little conversations with her.