my first post

I've always wanted to keep a journal of the first year of motherhood...but I'm 9 months late. Right now Violet is next to me on the floor throwing around a cardboard box that one of those cheap electronic keyboards came in. She likes to listen to the music and rock back and forth...hit the keys and make noises. Tomorrow Violet will be 9 months old .... and that time span is exactly how long I was pregnant with her. Well, not exactly...she was 2 weeks late so I guess thats wrong. She's been crawling for 2 months now and is pulling up to stand on everything. The chair, my leg, the wall, the futon, anything. She'll crawl along the floor but replace her knees with her feet and it looks so goofy. I'll be she'll be walking before Thanksgiving. She has recently been repeating things after us. A few weeks ago we could babble first "ba ba ba" and she would babble the same thing back. We would make the noise "mmm mmm mmmmmm" and she would repeat it back. Now she can say "mamamamama" but I don't know if she knows that's me!! Also, she likes to growl. I don't know where it came from...I guess its normal...but she'll just be crawling around and be growling really low. Its hilarious. I tied a rubber band (my version of childproofing a low cabinet door) around the built-in china cabinet, and she is constantly pulling up to stand next to it and strum the rubber band with her little fingers. I goes doink and plink and she likes the noises. We also got her one of those walking toys, where she could stand up behind it and push as it rolls along. Once she gets the hang of it (she hasn't done it yet)...it can turn into a little thing to sit on and propel with her legs. Its cute! She likes it a lot so far...but all she's done with it is pull and spin the toys and knock it over to check out every possible angle of it. About a week ago she developed the ability to grasp a little cheerio between her thumb and first finger and get it to her mouth. She loves to sit in her chair hooked to the kitchen counter with a pile of cheerios in front of her and eat them 1 by 1. Now all her pee smells like is cheerios! LOL She's still nursing almost 100%. I started her on the grain cereal for babies and some mushy baby food. She really liked the cereal for the first month (around 6 months) but started refusing it. She liked sweet potatoes and squash, and has has a few bites of the green beans, but I can't get her to eat more than 8 or 9 good bites. Some days I don't even deal with food, and just nurse her because she loves it and its very easy for me! Her two little bottom teeth are so cute....but are so darn sharp if she bites down. She doesn't really bite when she nurses...but sometimes when she's really hungry and latches onto me she clamps down pretty hard. Her absolute favorite place to be is in the guest bedroom/office where Dave works. He usually plays fun music while he's working and not on the phone, so she excitedly crawls over to the door and pounds her hand on it. If it ever opens, she's there in a split second. She likes that room a lot! Maybe because there is a big picture of me and Violet on Dave's computer screen. She likes to stare at pictures of herself. The place on the wall where the phone plugs into it is a "no-no" area. If she ever touches the plug she gets told "no" and a slap on the hand. We've been working on this for awhile. She knows the word and if she goes up to it and touches it, and we say "no"...she starts crying anticipating the snip on the hand. I guess these things take awhile to sink in.