Kelsey is 9 months!

Could it be possible that she is another month closer to being a one-year-old? Tally called her a toddler on Sunday and I almost cried. Here are some things she's been up to this month.

PEEK A BOO, KOO-KOOS, WHERE'S KELSEY?

She loves playing this game now and can either do it with her hands or with a blanket.


BUNNY KISSES
Tal & I got this bunny piggy bank for Kelsey in Italy before she was born. Now, every morning when she wakes up (and even after naps) she spots her bunny, points to it and makes the "I want that" noise. We go over to the bunny and she gives it a kiss on the nose. I of course taught her to give it kisses but now she does it on her own. It's cute and I finally captured it on video.

SKILLS
Her vocabulary consists of "dada" "baba" "mama" "nana" and other babbles. She can also clap (which has been the case for a few months now, but now it's an open hand and with more purpose), play peek-a-boo (as of June 17th) where she covers her own eyes, feeds herself with her hands (very messily), and scoots/crawls. She scoots half on her butt, half stinkbug walking. Every time I try to put her on her hands and knees, she points her toe and goes to a sitting position. She's pretty set in her ways and she can get around quite well, just not from her room to the kitchen. She tried that today and stopped at her doorway and just cried for me. Too difficult I think. But when she adds a "mama" in that cry, my heart melts and I come running!

BUMPS & BRUISES
I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but she has THREE big bumps or bruises that she got in two days.


June 17-I put her on the bed and stood right next to it while I grabbed her burpcloth. Next thing I knew she was inches from the ground falling head first and my hands were on her chest and ankle. It happened so quickly - I was standing right in front of her! She is just so active and more mobile than ever before - even more so in the last few days.

Later that night we were watching one of the Euro 2008 games and Kelsey was roaming the living room. I had an eye on her, but she was holding onto a kitchen chair while I sat on the couch. She took one hand off the chair and faced out, then took her other hand off the chair and started to take a step, but her head was just too heavy. She came crashing down with a thud. She cried pretty hard and has a bruise on her cheek to show for it. I couldn't believe she tried to walk! This is what caused the bruise on her left cheek (see above).


PLAYTIME
There is this cool ship playground right next to the lake near our house. Everytime we walk/run past it, Kelsey stares up in awe at the other kids playing. One day, I decided to let her play on it and she loved it. She especially loved trying to eat the wood chips. Some of the older kids came up to her and played with her (talking in Swiss German). It was cute.



The expat ma-mas at Starbie's.

Here we are at story time. She loves when we read books to her at home, but I think there were too many distractions at the American Women's Club story time. Instead she resorted to one of her favorite pastimes - PULLING HAIR. She LOVES pulling hair. It's funny when she stands next to Tally's leg and pulls his leg hairs but it's NOT so funny when she pulls my hair - or worse - when she pulls other kids hair. Like on Wednesday morning when she pulled her friend Emily's hair so hard it left a bald spot! How do you discipline a baby? I told her no and she just gave me one of those gooey, toothless smiles and my heart melted. Which brings me to my next item.

She looks as though to ask, is it okay if I pull Emily's hair? She KNOWS it's not okay.


STILL NO TEETH. But enjoy that toothless grin while it lasts, she starting to get her bottom teeth! And I think they're coming in crooked...only time will tell.


ANIMALS
We have sheep by our house and we pass them on our walk to the train station. She's never really noticed them much until recently. Now she loves to watch them, pet them through the fence, and when they baa, she looks up at me and smiles. This sheep was eating the neighbor's plants through the fence and I thought it was kind of funny.




SLEEPING
She's becoming much more mobile, even in her sleep! Tally and I just have to laugh when we see how she falls asleep. We even go and get each other..."honey, come check out how she fell asleep tonight!" Speaking of night, she mostly sleep through the night (9p-6a, nurses and falls asleep until 7:30 or 8), but sometimes I get a 4am wake-up call. She never stays awake because I bring her into bed with me, nurse her, and we fall asleep.


Sometimes she falls asleep in daddy's arms while watching TV


EATING

She loves to eat! She's still mostly breastfeeding but she likes just about what ever we give her. Obviously we've given her too many chocolate chips as she seems to know what those are now. 






WATER BABY
She loves the water!