Nine Months and Climbing

Charlotte is nine months old today!  She is 3/4 of a year old! How can this be? {Insert cliche here about how big she's getting and how sad I am.}

I feel like Charlotte likes to perfect her milestones just in time for her monthly birthday.  Today? She perfected the crawl and then sit on her bum.  Lunge forward, and then sit down. Rinse, repeat.  And she's also perfected the pincer grasp, as I mentioned when she grabbed at and then proceeded to eat Tandy's food.  Charlotte always starts crawling on her hands and knees, but then moves too fast and falls on her stomach, after which time she simply reverts back to the army crawl.  Still, she is fast!  I turn around for one second and she's gone!

And Charlotte is so busy, all the time!  When I'm holding her, she'll see something she wants and lunge for it. Never mind the fact that what she's looking at is five or ten feet away.  My back is really paying for it.  Ouch!

She still only has one tooth, barely.  The little speck of white tooth enamel in her upper gums is still there, but now the tooth has actually erupted out of the gums. And when she grabs my finger or Chris' and chomps down, it hurts!

Anyway, today Charlotte had her nine month check-up.  Nothing much to it, since she's not due for shots until she's a year old.  What I found interesting is that in the three months since her last regular check-up, Charlotte's only grown 1/2 an inch! I made the medical assistant check it again just to be sure, but it was true.  Her slowest growth to date.  The doctor's not concerned because up until this point Charlotte was literally off the charts for length, and she had to slow down at some point.  Now she's more in the 90th percentile range.  Her weight gain was also slowed somewhat.  She's gained about two pounds in three months -- she still hasn't doubled her weight, something most babies do by the time they're six months old.  Of course, Charlotte was enormous when she was born, so it's going to still take a month or two before she gets there. Overall, a great visit.

Weight: 18 lb 8.5 oz - 46%

Height: 28.75 inches - 87%

Head circumference: - 17.75 inches - 81% (the only stat where the percentile is increasing.  Such a big noggin!)

And for your viewing pleasure, pictures of Charlotte that I actually took this morning and posted the same day!

 Charlotte pulling herself up

 This requires a lot of concentration!

 I did it! Now if I could only open up my yummy vitamin bottle, I would be Queen of the World!