9 months!

While Piper turned 9 months last Tuesday, she didn't have her checkup until today ... so here are the latest stats!

Height: 28.5 inches - 85 percentile
Weight: 21 pounds, 12.5 ounces - 90 percentile
Head circumference - 17.5 inches - 50 percentile

I did have a friend ask today if they measured her thighs to see where those stood - I'm pretty sure those would be off the charts.

And honestly I can't believe how much she's changed since my last post. She's sitting up from laying down on her own (she actually did this for the first time the day of my last post and I just spaced it), and now she's doing it very gracefully and super often. It's very cute :-) She's also progressed from army crawling to real crawling, as of yesterday in fact! She still relies mostly on the army crawl/rolling combo for most of her mobility, but the fact that she's doing more than rocking now is pretty huge. And she waves and claps (I guess she was doing both of these before last time - sorry, Piper, I'm not doing a great job of chronicling everything!). She also says Nana and Mama (Nana before Mama ... grr), and Hi sometimes when she waves. She's a finger food pro at this point, with any kind of pasta being her favorite. Today, for example, she ate a huge portion of spinach and cheese ravioli at lunch. She LOVES to eat - a girl after my own heart.

And speaking of eating, there's also been a big change in terms of nursing - Piper weaned herself! A couple of days ago, she started biting when she was nursing (OUCH - yes, it was painful and crappy for me), and when I scolded her for it, she would dissolve into tears, but then do it again. So we've moved onto all bottles and she's super happy about it. I think a lot of it is that it's WAY faster, so she can get back to being busy sooner, and it's immediate gratification for her effort. As our pediatrician explained today, she now lacks the patience to nurse, which is totally normal (she said most kids will self-wean between 9 and 12 months), and would rather be onto bigger and better things. Even though we had our challenges with nursing,I was bummed about her weaning at first. I'd set a goal for myself of a year of breast milk, and with her onto just bottles now, I don't think we'll make it. I can't pump the amount of milk she drinks each day and this bummed me out a bit - after all, I am super goal oriented. But now I've come around and I feel good about it. After all, Piper is happy! We don't have to go through any sort of weaning drama and she's happy and healthy. Perfect. I bought my first can of formula today and we're going to try a bottle of that tomorrow. I'm going to keep pumping twice a day for now, but at some point, she's going to be on all formula before 12 months comes and that's A-okay.

So anyway, LOTS of changes are happening around here. I guess that's par for the course with an infant this age, but going through it all for the first time is unbelievable. It really is incredible!

Oh, and according to our pediatrician, she's cutting an entire mouthful of teeth right now. She's had two pop through in the last five days (upper right front and upper left lateral incisor) and has a LOT more in the works. Luckily, these teeth (knock on wood) have been way easier than the bottom two. She had one fussy day, but has continued to sleep through the night, and for the most part, be happy. She just rocks. I honestly can't get over it, or get enough of her :-)