Allie her had 9-month doctor visit yesterday. The nurse said she dropped in height percentile! She is no longer taller than 99% of girls her age; she’s taller than about 90%. Here are her stats:
* Height: 28.75 inches (that’s 2 feet and almost 5 inches! she’s almost HALF my height!), 88th percentile
* Weight: 18 lbs 4.2 oz, 41st percentile
* Head size: 44 cm (about 17 1/3 inches), 51st percentile
The nurse said that because Allie’s head did not shrink, the head size measurement at her last checkup at 6 months must’ve been wrong. “They probably just measured it too loosely,” she speculated.
No shots this time, yay! The only “medication” was brushing her 5 little teeth with fluoride. The fluoride was a thick brown fluid that was applied with something resembling a nail polish brush. It was bubble gum flavored, and Allie kept licking her sticky lips afterwards. The doctor warned me that at the 1-year appointment, there will be A LOT of shots. 🙁 Then after that, no shots until 18 months.

Allie was super-cooperative and handled the 45-minute waiting room wait, and subsequent exam room wait, like a good-natured pro. Other adults kept smiling at her and pointing her out. One grandpa, there with his 1st-grader granddaughter, paid a lot of attention to Allie and said things to his granddaughter like, “Look at the baby! Wanna go say hi to the baby? Hey, buddy! Hi! Look, he’s smiling! He’s got teeth!” Allie, BTW, was wearing a shirt with large pink, yellow and orange flowers and orange cuffed capris with a decal of a smiling GIRL monkey (cuz it had a matching orange flower behind its ear) on her butt.

The doctor was pretty impressed with her. He said she was healthy, at a great height and weight, and quite a bit ahead on motor development and cognitive skills. He said the minimum they’re looking for at 9 months is a baby who sits up well by him/herself, and maybe showing interest in starting to crawl. Allie had pulled herself up in the exam room and was cruising around the perimeter of the room from chair to chair. The doctor was happy that she was even responding to simple commands, such as “no” (the other day, she held onto a rock for 15 minutes that we wouldn’t let her eat, and she remembered not to put it in her mouth again), “give that to mommy,” “say aaah,” “wave bye-bye,” “shake shake shake!” (for toys that make sound when shaken), “clap clap clap!” and “dance dance dance!” She’ll also respond to simple questions by pointing or looking around or using some other body language, such as “Where’s daddy?,” “Where are your balloons?,” “Wanna eat? Wanna nom nom nom?,” “Wanna come out?,” “Where’s Dodo?” She’ll also control our attention by pointing at something she wants us to see and give her a word for, such as birds, dog, hammock, fan, light. Allie still loves the mimicking game, and it no longer matters who mimics whom, it all makes her laugh. And of course, the usual singing, peek-a-boo from around the corner or behind furniture, “Where’s Allie/mommy/daddy” from behind a cloth. She seems to love music and will stop whatever she’s doing, pull herself up, and bop up and down and sing along, wiggling her hips back and forth. The other day she was tired of the piano keyboard and was trying to climb up onto the piano. I put my arms around her and played “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (which her daddy sings to her changing the words to “Allie had a little lamb”) with a boogie beat and she instantly stopped climbing and started dancing. It’s a really fun age.

Oh, she just started eating baby puffs altho she spends more time turning them over and examining them than actually eating them, and she also just learned to sip through a straw. We’d always fed her water at restaurants by plugging up the top end of the straw and letting her suck out the bottom end, but now she can do it herself from the top of the straw. The first few days of her trying this, she’d choke and cough from the water going back too far, but now she knows to stop it with her tongue.

“Scuse me, nurse…I believe I was next. Long wait, you say?”

“That’s cool, I’ll just sit here and do my calisthenics.”

“Gotta make sure we limber up for the can-can!”

“I’m gonna qualify for the baby olympics next year.”

Don’t let these photos fool you…after this she wandered all over the waiting room cruising with a hand on the chairs, banging on the tables while watching people, asking to be brought over to the plants so she could touch the leaves.