On Sunday, Breanna hit the nine month mark. I don’t even know how that happened. She’s changed so much since she was born in November.

I only vaguely remember, thanks to pictures, that she once looked like this:

Or like this:

And these days she looks like this:

She’s doing so much now. She crawls like a pro, getting from one place to another so quickly that I sometimes have to run to catch up to her before she gets into something she should stay away from. She plays peek-a-boo, either by crouching behind the safety gate and popping back up again with a smile, or by peering over the couch. She started taking steps over the past couple of days; tonight she realized what she was doing and kept shrieking and laughing, getting herself all revved up over the excitement of almost walking. ALMOST WALKING. AUGH!

I was right about the food situation; she just wasn’t fond of the texture. We started giving her some table foods and her interest in actually eating just exploded. She’ll eat bite-sized pieces of chicken, pork, mango (oh, she loves the mango), apple, banana, peas, bagel, cheese, puff cereal, pasta, and will now even eat applesauce. She doesn’t eat a ton at once, not as much as Hayley did at this age, but she eats and enjoys it, and it makes meal time much more bearable since she’s a participant instead of just being an observer trapped in a high chair.

She laughs frequently, but nothing makes her laugh as much as Hayley. I have a great video to upload later of Hayley chasing after her with monster growls, and Breanna is just cracking up. Tonight we had spaghetti and Hayley dangled a spaghetti noodle over her face like a crazy mustache. Before I could even open my mouth to ask her to stop playing with her food, Breanna looked over and started screaming with laughter. I foresee some interesting dinners for the next several years.

Other things she enjoys doing with Hayley include rolling a ball back and forth, following her big sister everywhere, playing tea party (though she perfers to chew on the tea pot spout rather than holding the cup), dancing, and sharing bath time.

She’s started doing something cute over the past week, something that I guess she picked up from me and from George. When she’s upset (and usually upset means either she’s tired, hungry, or I’ve left the room and triggered separation anxiety on a nuclear disaster level) and I pick her up, she wraps her arms around me and starts patting me on the back – the same way I pat her on the back to calm her down. It’s the sweetest thing.

She also tolerates kisses and even gives them if you hold her over your face, but every so often she takes the initiative and she’ll grab my chin or my mouth and pull me over, opens her mouth wide, and then she gives me a big slobbery baby kiss. I love it.

She responds to Breanna, Breebles, Brebleens, and Breeble-ina. She doesn’t pay much attention when I call her Puffin, but I still do it anyway. And when she’s annoying me I call her Bongo-Head; she ignores that too.

She still hates diaper changes with the fury of an explosion. Once in a blue moon I can distract her long enough with a remote or a funny song (she likes the Yeti song from the Backyardigans) but most often she just tries to flip over or twist away from me, eventually bursting into tears. She has an equal distaste for getting dressed, especially anything for the top half of her body. Pants aren’t so bad, but if I have to put anything over her head, she cries, and she thrashes angrily and wails when I put her arms through anything.

On Saturday she decided to have eight months finish off with a bang. The day before she had been lying in my nap nursing, except by “lying” I really mean she was twisting her body from left to right, trying to stand up, and generally fooling around. At one point she lost her balance and apparently pinned her arm under her own body. She cried momentarily but seemed fine. She was unsettled all evening and cried a lot when she woke up at night, but she was also in the process of teething, so I gave her Tempra and assumed that would be it.

In the early morning, around 6 am, she was crying and when I sat her up I noticed that she wasn’t using her left arm at all. When I tried to move it for her, she’d cry harder. George took Hayley to his parents’ house and we decided to take Breanna to the emergency room. Before leaving, I put her on the living room floor and we put the television remote, the phone, and George’s cell phone on the floor with her. They’re all things she can’t resist so she tried to crawl towards them but couldn’t put any weight on her arm at all, and she started crying so pitifully.

Although we spent four hours at the hospital (!) the fix was fast. The doctor said it was a popped ligament (I later found out it’s often referred to as nursemaid’s elbow) in her elbow and that it is something that happens frequently in young children. He assured us that we shouldn’t feel bad about it because it wasn’t our fault, and then he explained that he would twist her arm to pop it back in.

That part was awful. Her whole face turned red, and she opened her mouth in that dreaded silent scream; once she finally caught her breath, she just wailed. It was horrible. On the other hand, he was right – he told us she’d have her arm’s mobility back 100% within a couple of minutes, and as soon as she stopped crying, she was lifting her arm up, holding George’s cell phone, and back to her normal self. By the time we got home, she was completely fine. I put her down and within a few minutes I had to put the gate up again to keep her out of the kitchen because after only a brief hesitation, she was back to crawling at top speed again. The only proof of her ordeal was the bracelet on her wrist, the bruising from the doctor on her elbow, and her utter exhaustion as she passed out on George.

Then that night, despite a late nap, she was so tired she looked like this, and then went to sleep within five minutes of bedtime.

Still, quick fix or not, I’d prefer to avoid going through it again, thanks.

It’s just all going so fast. I thought it went quickly with Hayley but it’s even worse this time because with two of them to take care of, time flies by at an unbelievable pace (except on bad days where I just want it to be bedtime; those days drag on forever). I can’t believe she’s already nine months old. We just came home this time nine months ago.

I can’t believe that she once fit so well in the crook of my arm like this:

And these days she most often does this:

Happy nine months Breebles.