Girlie's Ninth Month

She cut her second tooth and pulled herself up to standing early this month. She has been wanting to stand ever since. She's been working on crawling but she can't figure out how to get that second leg behind her when she moves from sitting onto hands and knees. She celebrated her first Halloween and first Thanksgiving this month. She has also really started to feel the separation anxiety, which means people had to be patient and let her adjust before holding her over the holidays.
Dr. Sears says that human gestation is 18 months, but we are born after 9 months because the head is so big. I really believe that, because I feel like I have a newborn again with her clinginess, need to nurse, and sleep patterns. Also, she seems a little more equipped to be in this world now that she can eat a wide range of foods, move herself about (pretty quickly for a non-crawler), has a healthy fear of strangers, and just has more awareness and interactive capabilities than she did nine months ago.

Girlie's Eighth Month

This kid is such a delight who is more fun with each month. She's sitting really well independently, which just makes everything so much easier for me and exciting for her. It allows her to be part of the action now. It also makes going out and about much easier.
Her first tooth came in yesterday, and her second is not far behind.

Making Baby Food

Now that Girlie is delving into solid foods, I'm enjoying the preparation and cooking involved. Since each food is introduced with a three or four day waiting window, it gives me plenty of time to learn about each food. You know me, always the student! There's purchasing. Is it on the dirty dozen list requiring that I buy organic? Is it in season and available at the local farmer's market? And so on. Then there's how to prepare it so it maintains its nutrients: just mash and serve, bake, boil, steam, peel, etc. Finally, there are recipes and yummy food combinations. Plus, there's the totally exciting experience of feeding it to Girlie for the first time and watching her reaction.
We've been doing everything homemade, including the rice cereal. My rule is: If I won't eat it, I'm not feeding it to my child. I've been getting most of my information for how to prepare foods at the Wholesome Baby Foods website. It's a great resource!
So far, Girlie has had eight foods: banana, avocado, pear, sweet potato, apple, brown rice, peach, acorn squash. We're taking it slowly around here. Plus, there are tons of combinations with each food that we add! I think the sweet potato has been the biggest hit. She had the acorn squash tonight and really liked that. I loved the smell in the house as it was baking... Hello autumn!
I've been taking lots of pictures to share with you all, so here we go...

First time trying avocado

Pureeing avocado and pear in the blender

Baking apples and sweet potatoes in the toaster oven

What a cutie! This is after trying one of my combinations.

Baked apples. You can see the peel is ready to come right off.

Apples and pears... 

Make yummy apple sauce, no sugar added!

Divvying up and preparing to store in the freezer.

Look at that spread!

Another angle of all the meals I've prepared for my little one!

Making rice powder in the blender.

Baby's view of dinner time.

Mine and Reagan's breakfast: Rice cereal with pureed peaches (I get a little pat of butter and scrambled eggs too). The homemade rice cereal is good. Kind of like cream of wheat. Easy to prepare to boot!

Yum!

Acorn Squash

First time trying solid food!

Hm... What is this?

Oh! It's banana. Gimme!