Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Nine Months!


Little Miss Maisie is nine months old! And, as she has always been, she's not really Little Miss. She weighs 21 pounds, 6 oz. (between 90-95%), and is 29 3/4 inches long (off the charts). I can't remember what her head circumference was, but it was about the 95% as well. She's big, but she's proportionate.

So much has happened this month. She's crawling all over now, and has been since the beginning of the month. She has also started saying a few words. At first I thought I was a super crazy mama for thinking that she was actually saying things, but I really believe that she has said/can say "hi," "mama," "dada," "ball," and "dog." She had been making noises that sounded like "hi" for awhile, but at the end of April, she leaned over to Fiona, stared straight at her, said, "HI," and then turned to look at me, like, "Did I do that right?" Since then, she has said "hi" to: me, Jake, my parents, Stephanie, Caroline, random mom in our baby yoga class, a couple of neighbors, a couple of people at Safeway, a lady at Old Navy, a Safeway cashier or two, and the nurse weighing her at her nine-month appointment. All of those people were people who either said "hi" right back to her in response or made some other comment to me about how she was talking, so surely that counts?

She says "dada" a lot more than she says "mama," and for a long time I wasn't sure she knew we were Mama and Daddy, but now I think she knows and uses them purposefully. When she sees Jake, she often says, "Dada" (and not just "Dadadadadadadada," though she does that too), and she most often says "Mamamamama" when she is crying or when she needs something from me.

"Ball" was the word that surprised me the most. She has several balls that she absolutely loves, including one that we have been playing with since Christmas, so it's a word she's heard a lot, but I had no idea she could say it until we were at Target last week and walked by a display of balls. She looked at them and said, "Ball." I stopped in my tracks.

"Did you say, 'ball'?," I asked her. And she looked right at me and said "ball" again! (Well, it sounds like "baw," but, I mean, she's nine months old.) I called Jake and he said, "You know, I thought she said 'ball' to me when we were playing with her ball recently, but I figured I was just imagining things." Then, two days later, we were in line at Old Navy and a little girl was playing with a ball in front of us. "Baw," Maisie said, and then kept babbling. The little girl's mother and I started talking -- I think Maisie had said "hi" to her already, and waved -- and the woman said, "Is she your first? That's why she's talking so early," and I said, "Yes, she has been saying 'hi' and 'dada' a lot," and the lady exclaimed, "Well, she just said 'ball'! I heard her!" I was so excited to have it confirmed by an independent source.

"Dog" was almost as surprising. Obviously we talk about dogs a lot since we have two of them, but she didn't say "dog" until we were reading one of her favorite books last week. It's just a book of words, with a picture of something on each page. As soon as we turned to the page with the dog, Maisie said, "Dog." ("Daw" -- different from the "dada.") Jake's parents were here this weekend and they heard her say it again a few times when we read that book.

She doesn't say all these words every time I want her to, of course, but she has said them enough and other people have heard them enough that I don't think I'm totally nuts.

She still really enjoys "How big is Maisie?" "So big," and she loves to give Eskimo kisses. If you ask for an Eskimo kiss, she leans toward you and shakes her head so you can rub noses. She still claps, and still sometimes makes the sign for "more," usually when she wants more string cheese, her new favorite food.

I can't really believe how communicative and expressive she is now (and how mobile, though that is also terrifying). I thought Maisie was fun before, but she is super fun now.

(And of course now that I blogged about her words, she probably won't say anything else until she's like three.)

3 comments:

Hannah said...

are you surprised that she's a talker? Look at her mama!

Annette said...

This is the fun age. I loved this age until about 18 months. Enjoy it because it passes so quickly.

Stephanie said...

I heard that "hi" and it was a distinct "hi" ... I can confirm it! What a smarty pants!! I love the part about Eskimo kisses. Too sweet.