42 weeks pp:

• July 13: She stands herself up in the crib now when she wakes up and holds onto the sides!!!! She can get up easily by herself while on the ground too and stand.. today, she stood up by herself at the activity table and in my haste to get to her, I spilled my haakaa pump (since I was in the middle of pumping). RIP 30ml of hind milk 😦
• There is such a thing as “crying over spilt milk” when it comes to breastmilk and having a lower supply these days. 😦
• Then a bit later in the day when I was sitting behind her as she played with the same activity table, she actually fell backwards(!). Thank goodness I was there and my hand reached out just in time to protect her head. She cried when she hit the floor but at least she didn’t hit her head.
• I was speaking to a friend about this and she had the same worries. Since padding her floor and her baby knows how to fall with control now, she’s less worried. We have to teach our LO how to fall and sit back too.
• Today, tried a new “activity” with her (that I learned from YouTube). I put 3 different items out, a ball, car, and parrot toy. I identified them to her and asked her to give me the ball. She didn’t catch on. (This is an activity that she should know how to do by 10 months old).
• Later in the day, daddy did it with her and she correctly identified the ball! Yay! We clapped with her to celebrate her win and she clapped along with us too. That’s another new thing. She loves clapping. She loves it to the point that she will randomly clap on her own. 😅😂 She was really tired and sleepy the other night during bedtime but she still randomly bust out some claps. Lol..
• Her claps now are louder and stronger than last week’s. Last week’s were small, timid, and soft claps. This week she’s much more confident about them. The random claps put us into fits of giggles.
• She loves climbing on us. When playing with her on the floor, she usually comes over to me to climb on me. When at the dining table and she’s impatient from sitting in her high chair and I’m holding her, she will climb on me and stand on my thigh and play with the backdoor blinds. She likes to climb to the highest part to stand on. It hurts when she stands on my thighs actually.
• She really enjoys the taste of cherries, chicken, salmon (most fish), and eggs. She is a good eater for those items. She isn’t fond of overly dry items like bread.
• Today she tried an egg tart for the first time. She loved the soft moist egg center. I let her hold the tart afterwards to eat but she ended up leaving most of it in her high chair.
• She wasn’t fond of the sweet potatoes either. We usually clean up so much food bits left over from her high chair and the floor.
• I bought a Kushies long sleeved bib today for her! (Naturally, I bought it from Facebook marketplace. It’s about $15.60 on Amazon and I saved $5 by buying the same thing new from someone in Markham who doesn’t overbought and doesn’t need it.) Excited for her to wear it during mealtimes so she can stay more clean than before. 😀
• If we had a pet dog, it would eat up everything on the floor that the baby leaves behind lol.
• She continues to babble constantly and say “eh” when addressing us. I’ll walk into a room holding her and when she sees DH or my mom, she’ll go “eh” as a greeting still. Or sometimes when I’m not looking at her, she’ll go “eh” to get my attention.
• We received a fresh batch of hand-me-down clothes for her this week. So much to manage! Aside from 2 small purchases at the store before she was born (less than 10 items) and another Facebook marketplace purchase of $30 for 2 big bags of clothes, she has had so many gifts of new clothes or secondhand clothes to wear. We haven’t had to buy clothes for her since. It’s fantastic. Wearing secondhand clothes is so reasonable for babies especially; environmentally friendly and they grow fast so it doesn’t make sense to buy much.
• This week, we resumed walks to the park again (since it’s not as hot outside and I’m not under a pile of transcripts). She is in another phase now where she is okay to sit in the stroller for 40-minute walks. She likes to look at things in wonder. She got “cat-called” by 3 strangers this week too 🤣🤣 . Daddy better keep a close watch!
• We took her to the mall and Walmart for the first time!!! She is outgrowing her infant car seat so we went to Toys R Us to try out a few. We haven’t bought it yet but have an idea of what we might want to get.
• For this successful trip, we made sure to feed her ahead of time. She was good riding by herself in the back seat with no fuss, rode through the mall’s elevator and mall with no fuss, tried out the 3 different car seats without fuss, and cruised through Walmart without fussing either. Yay! It was about a 2-hour trip. When we were 5 mins away from home, that’s when she started crying because she was hungry. All was well once we got home and fed her. Successful trip out! First time in a mall with her! What a difference it is to push the stroller on clean smooth floors as opposed to the uneven bumpy sidewalks outside.
• Looking back at her “younger” photos when she was 4 to 6 months old, she was chubbier back then. She had more cheeks and was more round. Now at 9.5 months (this coming weekend turning 10 months old), she has thinned out a bit and is more lean.  I’m not worried since it’s normal for babies to lean out as they begin to become more mobile. And this little girl is on the move all the time.
• Sometimes she likes the quiet time by playing by herself in the exersaucers or on the play mat with assorted toys. But she does like to know someone is around. If we leave the room for her to play by herself, she won’t last longer than a minute without calling out.
• When I’m momentarily not in the room like behind the door in the washroom, she crawls towards me and will wait and then start calling out.
• She doesn’t like getting dressed after a bath or even changed. She cries terribly when getting dressed. Why is this?
• My milk supply: this week it’s averaging 550ml ish, a little higher than last week. The ratio of breastmilk to formula that we give her is about 80/20. #proud
• Oh, and since she’s standing up in her crib now, we lowered the mattress down a setting.
• We are contemplating taking her on a short day trip or road trip.. to get her used to travelling when travelling across borders feels safe again. But logistically speaking, how will she be able to sleep in a pack-and-play in a hotel? Can she cope? She is sensitive to sleeping in her own bed, it seems, so how can we take her out to a new environment?
• She has started to cruise walk along furniture. Maybe I need to get one of those cushion head protector things for her to wear on her back..
• A few weeks ago, she was giggling in the bath when we dripped water in front of her face. She very quickly got used to it and doesn’t laugh anymore when we do it. Babies’ reactions are so fleeting because they learn fast. One day they will laugh at one thing and then the next day, it’s old news. Even more of a reason why I need to capture moments like these on video more. The novelty of items wears off so quickly!
• I’m trying to teach her colours. She doesn’t “speak” real words yet so I don’t know if she understands/remembers what I teach her.
• Lately we’ve been using a pacifier for her nap and bedtimes. It seems to work. She takes it and sucks it to sleep. (But she still likes to stand up in the crib if she doesn’t want to sleep yet….)
• She eats faster than before now. Her single bottom tooth is out now. It’s so prominent. She’s good at eating noodles too. She chews it up well in her mouth now. What an improvement! 🙂
• I emphasize moving my mouth and chewing so that she learns to chew her food too.
• July 14: She imitated me directly. I held up one of her red balls and pretended to munch into it with some sound. When she picked it up, she did the SAME THING. 😧
• I said this before but I need to keep reminding myself: she is capable and aware of more than I realize. She’s not a baby “baby” anymore. I can teach her more things than I realize she’s ready for.
• She did the splits yesterday when sitting down from her crib.