Kiley started out her ninth month sick, along with her mommy, while daddy was out of town flying. Luckily, she started to feel better before Laura did and was able to entertain herself and play on her own while Laura recovered. She spent a lot of time in her excer-saucer spinning around on her own and pulling on toys to change her position to see new things in the room. She is also loving her cardboard books and enjoys turning the pages.

Kiley loves to sleep on her side and this month rolled over to sleep on her stomach for the first time. Also, when she’s a hot mess, we’ve found that she will calm down to polka music and fall asleep! Depending on the music, she will also be-bop and shake her head like Stevie Wonder.

Kiley’s first tooth made an appearance this month! Laura saw a little white bud on her gum February 26th while she was laughing because we can’t look into her mouth very well otherwise. She has done really well while teething, but drools a lot, chews on everything, and has done a lot of sleeping. Her teething has also caused a bit of crankiness and nose running, but we are all no worse for the wear. The only “meat” that she’ll eat is Gerber’s Apples and Chicken, although we try different food combinations with her a lot to see if she’ll eat something new. For now, she likes what she likes.

She has a pretty bad gag reflex and gags when transitioning between foods. If we switch from pears to bananas during a meal, she has to get a small taste of the new flavor first, otherwise she’ll gag when she gets a mouth full of a new food. She also won’t eat solid foods like pinwheels or saltines, she just gags. However the pediatrician has told us that it isn’t a big deal, she just isn’t ready for it yet. If she’s anything like me, she’ll kick her eating into high gear one day and never look back!

While she isn’t crawling or walking yet, we can’t leave her in a room by herself anymore because she loves to roll all over the place. She rolls onto her belly and pushes herself around backward, sometimes ending up almost completely under the couch or a chair. She also is still having acid reflux problems because we still have to renew her medicine every two weeks.

Finally, she had two doctor visits this month. Her pediatrician gave her the standard nine month check-up and we found that she grew two inches (4th percentile) and gained four pounds (18th percentile). Her other doctor visit was with Dr. Steve Williams, who helped kickstart Kiley’s initial development. He was God’s tool to help us have Kiley, so we wanted him to be able to meet her. Dr. Williams has a contagiously loud laugh which sent Kiley into a crying fit because she still is sensitive to loud noises. Oh well, we are grateful for our little blessing, whether she is laughing or crying.