9 Months / 39 Weeks & 1 Day

Today Molly turns 9 months old. Coincidentally, she is also 39 weeks and 1 day old, an age of significance only in that it is how long I carried her before she was born. She spent 39 weeks and 1 day living and growing inside of me, and now, 9 months later, she has spent just as long living and growing on her own (admittedly, with some help from me and David).

I had assumed that I would be in shock when she officially turned 9 months old, just as I had been with her previous milestones, from smiling to crawling, which is why I have refused to allow anyone to refer to her as a 9-month-old until that is her official age.

Instead I find that my reaction is, actually, not much of a reaction at all. Of course she's 9 months old. In no way does that surprise me.

:::

When we transitioned Molly to her current daycare (a month ago yesterday), she had a reversion of sorts. She became the shy, uncertain girl she had been when we first began taking her to daycare in July. It wasn't unexpected, though I was hoping that it wouldn't happen. Though she napped well from the beginning (something that had always eluded her at the first daycare), it seemed to us that she was always being held. And while we were glad that her teachers were kind enough to hold her when she needed it, we wanted her to be able to have fun and play, something it didn't seem like she was doing much of.

This suspicion was confirmed last Monday when they did a routine emotional and developmental check (that they do for all of the kids) and said that, though she was hitting every marker, they weren't able to check the developmental skills that required her to be sitting on the ground on her own (such as reaching for a toy, finding a "hidden" toy, etc.). These are things that she easily does at home, and has been for quite a while now, but she cried every time they put her down to do on the floor. The teachers weren't worried about her and were supportive, but it bothered me.

That night David and I realized that we were going to have to encourage Molly's daycare teachers to leave her on her own, even if she cries. There simply wasn't anything we could do at home, where she happily plays on her own and crawls all over the place. We know it must be disruptive for them to let a baby cry around the other children, but it was in Molly's best interest. And we simply had to advocate for her.

It turned out, though, that we didn't have to have the conversation after all. When David picked Molly up the following day, her teacher laughed and asked if we had given her a firm talking to the night before. Apparently she had been wonderful that day, playful and independent in a way they had never seen her be. And that trend has continued. Now when we pick her up, she's on the floor playing, on her own or with her friends. One day she was even standing and trying to cruise, holding onto a piece of their furniture.

:::

At 9 months, Molly is coming into her own in an amazing way, and her new-found confidence at daycare is indicative of that.

She is strong and independent, but also joyously playful. When I walk into the house after a long day of work, her face lights up and her smile takes up her face as she gets frustrated that her crawling speed doesn't get her to me fast enough.

She still loves to be outside; it's pretty much the only place where she contentedly sits still. She simply stares at the trees and smiles as the wind blows through her abundant hair.

Oh, that hair. It makes me laugh everything single day. It is absolutely crazy: part curly, part wavy, part 'fro. Every morning, I walk into her room and laugh as she stares at me through a wall of hair, surely not seeing anything past her brown locks.

I think she already has her dad's sense of humor (and I mean that in a good way). She loves to blow raspberries on my shoulder and then laughs at the fart noise it produces. She cracks herself up. (Another thing she gets from Dave.)

Of course Molly is 9 months old. Everything she does reminds me that she is growing up, but for the first time in her life I find that I'm not shocked or saddened by that fact. Instead, I'm excited by the baby she is and the kid I know she's going to become.