Simply Liv: Evie- 9 Month Update

*Mushy Mom Alert*

Sometimes I look at my little Evelyn, with her blue eyes, huge grin (complete with three and a half teeth), pudgy thighs, curious fingers, and whispy reddish-brown hair, and I wonder how I got so lucky. If she isn't the very definition of God's grace I don't know what is. Despite my weakness and mistakes, He worked beauty into the ashes and in many ways healed my doubting heart with the birth of this little girl. Being her mom has brought more joy, tears, pain, laughter, and growth than I ever imagined...and its only been 9 months. Parenthood....I tell ya.

Its not all sunshine and toothy grins though. This month, while probably one of my favorites, has also been one of the hardest. Just when sleeping became a normal thing and I was adjusting to getting more than two hours in a row, teething hit hard. She cried about everything, and had a fever for four days. It is a good thing we can't remember being babies- they go through a lot. The sleep schedule we worked so hard on was nonexistent and I did anything I could just to get her to sleep. Which, a few times actually, meant her sleeping in bed with me all night long. There was one night when I had been up with her for hours and my patience had left the building. I was at the verge of a breakdown (in my sleep-deprived selfishness, I regret saying. My poor baby had teeth breaking though her gums for crying out loud), when AJ came to the rescue so I could get a few minutes to compose myself. On-the-verge-of-mental-break-down Olivia isn't a pretty sight, so thank God for AJ. We survived though and sleeping is on the up and up in our house, I'm happy to say. Until the next round of teeth.

Likes:
- Getting into things: now that she's crawling, anything in the house is fair game. So far her favorite places to explore are the bathroom and in Roxy's dog food bowl. She may have consumed a little too...it's a pretty safe assumption.
- Long walks in the stroller/car seat: this is still the only way she will nap, but I will take it because it usually is my only excuse to leave the house.
- Daddy: she is obsessed with AJ right now. The second he gets home from work she starts laughing and waving her arms and "dancing". He loves it.
- Blueberries: she will basically eat anything I put in front of her (except eggs...) but blueberries seem to be at the top of her list. She will eat around everything else on her plate if blueberries are in the picture. They also make her look like she's part of the Blue Man Group, so that is probably half of the fun.

Dislikes:

- Teething: see above rant.
- Putting clothes on: I can sympathize with this one a little bit. In all honesty, If I didn't have to wear pants everywhere, I totally wouldn't. Evie, however, doesn't understand the cultural norm the clothing is, and so she puts up a fight every time I try to dress her. This leads to a lot of naked baby time at our house. But her butt is probably in the top five on my list of cute things so I won't complain. ;)

Firsts:

- Crawling!!!!: This was a big deal. She took her sweet time about it and still kind of crawls like she has a bum leg...but she gets around. And fast. Look out world, Evie is mobile.
- Blowing kisses: Her Nona taught her to blow kisses which is probably the most adorable thing you will see all week.
- Pulling herself up on things: With crawling comes standing. And lots and lots of falling.
- Saying "poop": she lets me know when business has happened by making a little noise that sounds an awful lot like the actual word. Which means her two favorite words are "poop" and "dada". I'm such a proud mom.
- In case you didn't know, she got her two upper middle teeth. Refer to above paragraphs if you haven't read enough about her darn teeth yet.
- This month AJ and I went to Fort Collins for my birthday. WITHOUT the baby. A definite first for all of us. We were there for three whole days- the time away was amazing, but by the end I was all too ready to be back to my baby. She did great with Mimi though :)