Ruby is 9 months old tomorrow. This is what she is like:

• At her doctor’s appointment a few days ago, she weighed 16lbs, 10oz. She was 27″ long. Her head circumference was 43cm.
• Her eyes are brownish-green, although still trending towards brown.
• Her hair is blonde and wispy. She’s starting to get some curls — she’s got one big one on her forehead and a few small ones on the back of her head.
• She usually is happy to be out in public and meeting new people, although every now and then a new face will freak her out (the beginnings of stranger anxiety?). Mostly, though, she loves to smile and wave at everyone she meets.
• She has just her two bottom teeth. She’s been drooling a lot the past few weeks, though, and for the past few days she’s been flicking her tongue out on one side of her mouth, so more teeth are probably imminent.
• We’ve been on a nice schedule for the past month or so, although it’s been breaking down a bit this past week:
• 6:20am: Ruby wakes up. Coincidentally, this is 3 minutes before Kate’s alarm goes off.
• 7am: Kate hands Ruby to me so she can get dressed for work. We hang out in bed. I try to snooze, she tries to crawl off the edge.
• 7:30am: Playtime!
• 8:30am: Breakfast! A nice warm bowl of oatmeal with fruit.
• 10am: morning nap
• 11am: After waking up, visit Mama at work for a midday snack, or have a bottle
• 2:30pm: Another bottle, and then afternoon nap
• 3:30pm: More playtime
• 5:30pm: Dinner with Mama and Papa
• 7:30pm: Bedtime! Kate puts her to sleep.
• As I said, this schedule is breaking down and Ruby is on the verge of moving to one nap per day. She’s also moved to an earlier bedtime this past month. Daily Savings Time had a lot to do with it, as did her changing nap schedule.
• Ruby usually sleeps through the night without waking up.  She occasionally cries out around 9pm or 10pm, but doesn’t wake up (or goes right back to sleep).
• Ruby is almost always in a good mood when she wakes up.  She’s best just after her naps.  Her mood then declines until her next bedtime.
• To get her to sleep we usually feed her some milk.  If that doesn’t work then we either bounce on the ball or lie with her until she falls asleep.  Sometimes she’ll look like she’s fast asleep, but as soon as her back touches the mattress she’ll spring to life, crawl to the railing, stand up, and start bouncing up and down.  This can be quite frustrating.
• Ruby is crawling with gusto. She can move at almost 0.5 miles/hour (actual measurement: 6 feet in 9 seconds).
• She is pulling herself up to a standing position on just about everything. We have babyproofed the lowest three feet of the playroom.  She has a big bridge-like toy which is designed for her to stand at and play.
• Now that she’s crawling and exploring actively, she seems to be in a better mood throughout the day. She doesn’t get frustrated or bored as easily.
• She chatters to herself a lot. When she’s happy she’ll whisper and make high-pitched noises and quiet squeaks. I think the most common thing she says is, “da da da da”. When she’s a little unhappy she’ll say “nay, nay, nay”. When she’s a lot unhappy she’ll just whine. She can say “Mama” and “Abpabpa”, although not always in the context you’d expect. When she’s being tickled or attacked by one of her stuffed animals she’ll scream quietly in mock terror.
• She understands a few words like “milk”, “where’s mama/papa?”, and “no”. If you say “no” like you mean it she’ll start crying.
• Her favorite toys are paper (newspapers), and string (like shoelaces). She also likes her jingle-bell rattle, an empty water bottle, her books, metal cups, and her blocks. Oh, and pulling off a sock and waving it around can be fun for a few minutes too.
• Ruby likes to stand at the edge of a basket full of clean laundry (probably dirty laundry, too) and pull it out, one piece at a time.
• She occasionally flips up the edge of the rug in the playroom to see if there’s any treasure under there.  So far, no treasure.
• She has a few stuffed animals that she enjoys squealing at. There’s Clyde Frog (a frog), Oxana (the traveling teddy bear), Mr. Monster (an Uglydoll), Phil (a kiwi bird), and Mustard Bear (which she sleeps with). Her favorite is Clyde Frog.
• Now that it’s winter her usual outfit is a long-sleeved onesie with a short-sleeve t-shirt on top, and pants.  If she’s going to be outside in the cold for a long time then she’ll wear her brown suede snowsuit.  Otherwise she has a puffy purple winter jacket which she wears occasionally, and a few warm sweaters.
• She’s fairly tolerant of hats on her head, although sometimes she’ll pull them off.
• She still uses her soother a lot — she probably spends half the day with it in her mouth. This is something we’ve got to work on.
• Every time we put her down on the changing table, she starts crying. But it’s only for a few seconds and her soother usually stops it.
• She’s eating two meals of table food each day, and we’re about to add a mid-day snack into the mix. Breakfast is oatmeal powder mixed with fruit. I enhance the oatmeal powder with ground flax seeds and teff. Dinner is a variety of things, but chicken, sweet potatoes, and peas are pretty common. Just about all of her food is hand-made by yours truly.
• She can pick up small cubes of soft fruit or vegetables and feed herself. We sometimes give her cheerios after dinner if it seems like she’s still hungry.
• We all eat dinner together when we can, although Ruby wants to eat at 5:30/as soon as Kate comes home from work, so if Kate wants to exercise before dinner I’ll feed her ahead of time. Kate and I take turns handling the spoon while the other person eats.
• Ruby has a long list of foods that she’s tried, and has enjoyed most of them. We’re still avoiding the big allergens like peanuts, tomatoes, egg whites, citrus, and wheat. Wheat is due to come off that list pretty soon, though.

Today Ruby is 6 months, 8 days old. This is what she is like:

• At her last doctor’s appointment (5 days ago), Ruby:
• weighed 14lbs, 4oz.
• was 24.25 inches long
• had a head circumference of 41cm.

…which means her weight and head are essentially the same, but she’s grown a bit longer the past month.

• Her hair is coming in a very light blond color, and is pretty fine. It’s now long enough to be ticklish if you brush your face against it. It’s not long enough to be mess-up-able. She still has the bald patch on the back of her head, although it’s shrinking.
• Her eyes are still a strange combination of blue/brown/grey that is looking greener, but that changes a lot depending on the light.
• Her skin is clear. She has a few rough patches (around her ankles, for example) from eczema. The back of her head still has red bumps. Every now and then, her face will exhibit a small self-inflicted scratch.
• She generally goes to bed around 8:30pm, and sleeps until around 6:30am. She occasionally wakes up at 4:30 for a snack, but these are becoming less frequent. After her 6:30am wake up, she may or may not go back to sleep until 9am or so. If she doesn’t, then she’ll have a morning nap around 9am.
• She naps two or three times per day, and each nap is about an hour long. Her nap times are generally about 3 hours apart. They’ll be further apart (and her naps will be shorter) if we’re out of the house, and they’ll be more frequent and longer if we’re at home.
• We bounce on a yoga/exercise ball to get her to go to sleep. This usually takes about ten minutes. Getting her to fall asleep without bouncing is tricky.
• She’s eating a lot of table food. The first table food she ate was an apple picked from our garden off a tree I planted three years ago. The list of foods she’s eaten is: apples, bananas, rice, avocado, amaranth, yams, plums. Coming soon are flax seeds and something green (peas?). She’s liked everything we fed her so far!
• She eats a half-cup (or more!) of table food at a time, and she eats table food once or twice per day. Feeding her is easy, and a lot more fun than having to rush through dinner to calm a fussy baby like we were doing last month.
• Now that she’s on table food, her poop is very putty-like and smelly. Not as smelly as when we first gave her formula, though, and much easier to clean up.
• She’s still breastfeeding, of course. Kate feeds her once (or twice) in the morning, and then once or twice in the evening. Three days each week, I’ll bring Ruby in to see Kate at work for a mid-morning snack. In addition to Kate’s milk, she’ll get one or two bottles (of formula or pumped milk) per day.
• Ruby is getting happier on her stomach, but is still not crawling. We think she’s got all the individual skills, but hasn’t figured out how to put them together. Instead of moving when she’s gets frustrated from being on her stomach, she’ll drop her face to the ground and flail her arms and legs about. She can push her entire torso off the ground, push up style, and I’ve seen her do a downward-dog-type faceplant a few times.
• When she’s on her back, she’ll do a lot of abdominal crunches: she’ll left up her head and legs and look around. It looks like she’s straining to sit upright, but isn’t strong enough for that.
• If we pull her to a sitting position, she’ll sit upright for a while — maybe ten or twenty seconds — and then fall backwards again.
• Half the time when we attempt to pull her up to a sitting position, she’ll dig in her heels and go straight to a stand.
• Yesterday she showed us two new interesting behaviors. The first one is where she’ll hold her hand out and twist the palm. It’s kind of like a beauty queen wave, or like she’s scooping something out of the air, or maybe she’s revving an invisible motorcycle throttle. She did it over and over and will watch her hand, fascinated, while doing it. At first we thought she was trying to make the sign for “milk”, but now I think she’s just doing it because it looks/feels neat.
• The other behavior is a sudden expansion of her vocabulary. Whereas previously she was stuck with “da”, yesterday she started saying “dit” and “doo”. She would string them all together in random combinations: “didadadidyoooo”.
• Ruby is still attached to her soother (and it is attached to her). She’s able to find it if it’s within reach and put it in her mouth, although it’s fifty/fifty whether she’ll put the right end in, and sometimes she forgets to let go and yanks it right back out again. She’s especially reliant on the soother to fall asleep and after meals.
• She’s been lots of fun to play with lately. She responds to us with giant smiles. We wrestle with her a lot.
• In the past few weeks she’s started to get cuddly when she gets tired. She’ll put her head down on our shoulders and snuggle in, although she seldom stays there for longer than a few seconds — she’ll pop her head back up and look around some more. Still, Kate and I both adore those few seconds of cuddling.
• She doesn’t have any favorite toys right now — she’ll play with various rattles, stuffed animals, and some stainless steel mise-en-place bowls. A few days ago we bought her an exersaucer thing (which we call “the throne”) and she loves to sit in it and play.
• In the past month we’ve taken Ruby on her first hike, to the Bumbershoot music festival (which included a rock band and some roller derby), to restaurants, and to various friend’s houses.
• Ruby still enjoys riding in her jogging stroller, although I tend to be more careful about the timing so that I don’t take her out when she’s in a fussy mood. She also likes to be carried in a sling, although sometimes she’ll fight against the tight space and want to stand or stretch out more.
• She’s still comfortable around strangers and smiles at them. She doesn’t mind being away from Mama and Papa. “Stranger anxiety” hasn’t set in yet.
• Still no teeth. She’s gone through a few intense spells of wanting to bite and chew on things. Her drooling has decreased considerably the past few weeks.

Ruby is now 5 months and 3 days (a little more than 22 weeks) old.  This is what she is like:

• At her most recent doctor’s appointment (9 days ago) she weighed 14 lbs 1 oz, was 23.5 inches long, and her head was 40.5 cm around.  She is short for her age, but her weight is average.
• Her hair is getting thicker on top.  There are a few long hairs that stick out here and there, but mostly she’s got some dense, inch-long fur on top.  The color is blond, with very golden highlights when the sun hits it.  She still has a bald spot on the back of her head from lying down so much.
• Her eyes are bluish-gray, and appear to be heading towards green (or brown?).  The outside of the iris is dark blue, and the insides are pale blue-green-grey.
• Her skin is clear, for the most part, although she now scratches herself on the face occasionally and gets the odd pimple.  She has a few patches of mild eczema that flare up every now and then, and she has stork bites on the back of her head.
• Just a few days ago she started turning from back to stomach.  She does this by kicking her legs up, flopping onto her side, and then rolling over from there.  Once on her stomach, she’ll plant her hands and lift up her head and shoulders to take a look around.  She’ll also suddenly collapse, throwing her arms backwards and planting her face into the ground.  This doesn’t seem to make her very happy, but she’ll usually recover and lift her head up again.  Depending on her mood, she’ll spend up to ten minutes on her stomach before getting frustrated and demanding rescue.
• She’s getting very accurate at reaching for toys.  Occasionally she’ll wave her hands in a vague manner before she grabs something she’s interested in, but mostly she’ll grab it on the first try.  She’ll occasionally reach for toys that are nearby inside of waiting for us to hold them in front of her.
• She enjoys shaking her toys to see if they rattle.  Rattling toys then get shaken up and down, and she’ll occasionally whack herself in the head with them.  Eventually, though, all objects Must Be Eaten.
• She’s very active at looking for things to keep her interest.  When we’re holding her upright she’ll swing her head and shoulders back and forth, looking for something interesting.  This also leads to her bonking her forehead into our faces a lot (it hurts us more than her).
• Sometimes when we put her on her back, she’ll lift up her head like she’s doing abdominal crunches.  She seems to be preferring to spend less time on her back in general.
• She can now sit by herself in her high chair.  This makes meals a lot easier for us, since she enjoys playing with toys that we put on the tray in front of her.  Restaurant high chairs are a little big for her, but we use them anyway, maybe with an extra blanket thrown in behind her.  They don’t come with trays full of toys, though, so they’re not as much fun.
• Ruby is still eating breast milk exclusively.  We’re planning on starting her on table food some time in September. 
• Ruby goes to sleep between 8pm and 9pm every night, and wakes up between 7am and 8am, with one early morning feeding between 4am and 5am.
• Ruby is slowly progressing towards fewer, larger meals and fewer, longer naps.  A “typical” eating/sleeping schedule looks like this:
• 4:30am: early morning feeding from Kate, then right back to sleep.
• 7am: Kate wakes her up for her breakfast
• 9am: morning nap for 45 mins to 1 hour.
• 10am: first bottle, about 6oz
• 12pm: midday nap for 30 mins
• 1pm: second bottle, about 5oz
• 2pm: maybe another 30 minute nap
• 4pm: third bottle, about 3oz
• 4:30pm: afternoon nap for about 45 minutes.
• 5:30pm: Kate feeds her
• 7pm: sometimes Kate feeds her again, depending how early the previous meal was. 
• 8:30pm: Kate feeds her and puts her to bed.
• I bring Ruby in to see her Mom at work three days each week, usually around 10:30 am.
• Ruby uses her soother whenever she’s upset and when she’s falling asleep.  Although it is still attached to her clothing on a fairly constant basis, she’s been using it less lately.
• Her mood tends to start off bright and then end fussy.  It’s a steady decline throughout the day, although she perks up after each nap.  This decline isn’t much fun for Kate, as she comes home from work to be with Ruby when the baby is at her worst.
• Ruby has been a little less smiley lately.  It used to be that mornings were guaranteed to be full of smiles, but now she’ll occasionally wake up in an apathetic mood.
• She’s pooping only every few days now.  She set a record last week by going 6 days between poops.  That seemed to bother her parents more than her.
• No teeth are in sight, but she’s still got all of the symptoms of teething.  She’ll spend hours drooling, sucking, and chewing on her fingers or whatever else is handy.  When she’s really teething hard, she’ll lunge at an object with her mouth and pull her whole body inwards towards her mouth.
• She loves naked time.  She spends 30 minutes to an hour naked in the backyard every day, and spends the whole time holding her toes and looking at the trees.
• She hasn’t been doing much jogging for the past few weeks, since we had a heatwave that kept her Papa from venturing outdoors, and then he pulled his hamstring playing soccer.
• She loves to spend time walking around with her parents in her sling.  Her Papa takes her to the grocery store and for walks around various parks.
• Kate and I still take her to restaurants without too much concern, although we now try to err towards noisier restaurants.  The dinner hour is also her worst time of day, so Kate often spends a good portion of the meal standing and bouncing with the baby.
• She’ll laugh when she’s tickled.  I’ll often lean over her and make a long, rising “aaaa…” sound while I slowly lean in.  Then I’ll chew on her belly, and this will make her laugh.  Or shriek.  Sometimes she’ll start shrieking (not in a bad way) before I get anywhere near her.
• She has a distinct “hey, I want some attention” call that often starts with a cough, like she’s clearing her throat.
• Sometimes (every day or so) she’ll wake up from one of her naps in tears.  When she’s crying for a non-fussy reason, she’ll stick out her lower lip and give us a giant frown.  It is incredibly cute, in a heartbreaking kind of way.
• Sometimes she’ll get chatty and start making random vowel sounds.  She’s not officially “babbling” yet.
• Lately she’s been sticking her tongue out and blowing, like she’s trying to blow a raspberry but hasn’t figured it out yet.