She's on the charts...

Well, we had the little bear's 9-month appointment at the doctor this morning, and she's had exponential growth in the last 2 months! She's now in the 10th percentile for height and weight, and the 25th for head circumference. (16 pounds, 26" long, and 17" head circumference) It's so good to hear that, since at her 7-month appointment she was off the bottom of the same growth charts (9.8 pounds and about 24" long). Hard to believe this little one has grown so quickly! The doctor was highly impressed and said she's never seen a growth chart that climbed so fast :)

The appointment wasn't all fun and games, though, since she had to get her second set of vaccinations. Poor baby cries so hard when those needles go into her thighs - it's so sad. Hopefully she doesn't get the same reactions she did last time (itchy welts, fever, throwing up, etc)... at least this visit didn't involve blood draw like the last one.

Two full teeth are visible on the bottom front of her grin, and I think the top ones may soon make an appearance. She teeths on anything that will sit still long enough, and is completely in love with orajel (we may have to seek a support group for her soon... ;-)

She's rolling back and forth and doing a bit of a sloppy commando-crawl, but not quite crawling yet. I think it will probably happen in the next couple of months, though. The doctor also advised trying more solid foods, so we're going to see if we can get her to eat without an anger fit (crying, yelling, and all foods/bowl/utensils end up thrown on the floor)... should be 'interesting.'

Last weekend we took a short trip to eastern Washington to visit some of her adoption buddies from Ethiopia. We wanted to see them, and see how she would do sleeping over night in a strange place. She did fairly well, although she's entering the 'stranger anxiety' phase where she doesn't want anyone else to hold her, and doesn't want Mom and Dad out of her sight at all. From what I understand, that's pretty normal for 9 months and a good sign that she has bonded to us well.

It was great to see the adoption friends, and we brought the kids some Ethiopian food from the restaurant and store near our house. They loved it, so next time we're going to bring a lot more :) Net did pretty well with all the driving, but got crabby and 'expressive' after about 2 hours in the car seat. Next time I think we'll try to leave earlier in the day and minimize the driving in one day (we did about 6 hours the first day, which I think was too much). We'd like to get her used to the idea of going other places overnight, since we both enjoy traveling.