The Sensos: Amélie Nine Months

Amélie turned nine months old last week and is now fully mobile! The days of leaving her to stay in one place are over and now she's all over the place. Doing these photo shoots is becoming more and more difficult as she's getting older because she just wants to crawl and play. I thought they would be easier as she got older! She just started properly crawling a couple of weeks ago and is getting faster each day. She's already pulling herself up on furniture and her crib and before I know it she'll be walking, talking and off to college.

Sleep wise, Amélie has been great this past week. About two weeks ago we decided it was time to sleep train her because she was waking up two times out of habit (around 11 or 12 and then around 2 or 3am). We would cuddle or feed her to back to sleep and thought it was time she learned how to get herself back to sleep on her own plus we knew she was getting enough food/milk during the day. The first few nights were a little rough, she cried a few times for an hour straight and that's just not fun in the middle of the night. We chose the "camping out" method so when she would wake up, we would just go into her room and give her a few reassuring pats on the back and say a few calming words and "shhhhishs." We stayed next to her until she fell asleep, but it was so difficult not picking her up. A few nights ago she started sleeping through the night from about 7:30 to 6 or 7am, which is really amazing! Let's hope this streak continues and the sleep training has worked.

Eating wise - she's been loving all kinds of pasta - with meatballs, eggplant, ricotta, etc. Avocado with brown rice and chicken is also a favorite, and she had three pork dumplings for Chinese New Year last week. I still need to spoon feed her everything, and she still doesn't like putting any food in her mouth. I'll give her blueberries, Cheerios, toast, rice cakes, etc., but she just continues to carefully examine the food and play with it/rip it apart.

Other developments - Amélie's first tooth is starting to poke out. It's her top right tooth and I already am starting to see the other top left tooth starting to come out. Her favorite game is when we build a tower of blocks on the other side of the room and she crawls to knock it over. She gets so excited when we start to put one block on top of the other and can't contain herself. At first she was just knocking them all over, but this past week she's been just taking one of the top. I think she is also starting to build her own towers though she's still not quite coordinated enough. Dancing is another favorite and whenever she hears music, she moves her little butt up and down. It's very cute.

Here are a few outtakes from our first attempt at taking some pictures in her little Chinese outfit: