9 Months Old

We have had lots of fun as you hit 9 months old. It is amazing to think you are as old now as you took to grow inside my tummy. Loving seeing you develop in the outside world I can only imagine how much you grew and changed each week you were inside me. We have started swimming lessons again this time at ACE on a Thursday morning as well as going on a Monday to Gallagher Aquatic Centre where Daddy hops in for ten minutes before his hydrotherapy class. We go to SPACE every Tuesday and this is becoming more focused on you with trips about to start and more play topics. Friday we try to get to Wriggle and Rhyme at the Library.
We have done some painting for the first time. I put some blobs of face paint onto a A4 piece of paper and put it inside a snaplock bag. Then you set to work squishing the paint under the plastic mixing the colours to make some artwork for Daddy. Next I froze some water with food colouring and you made your first water colour painting for Grandma who had badly fallen off her bike on a two day mountain bike ride.
I don't want you to help me with actual baking eating the raw egg and sugar so I mixed together some oil and flour and you stirred it all over the kitchen flour with Ava cleaning up after you. The oil clumped the flour together when squished in your hand but then crumbled when you ran it between your fingers. I have also made some playdoh for you and I showed you how to roll it into a worm and then twirl it into a snail we wrote your name and made some shapes with it too.
You are becoming more interactive all the time. You have learn't to wave watching us wave when we say hello or goodbye to someone you have picked it up. When you first learnt to wave you would just wave all the time but then you learn't to use it to say hello and goodbye. Now when Daddy gets home from work your little hand waves from side to side just as your grin grows wider and wider.
A happy little baby it is only right that you should know how to clap. As the song goes "If your happy and you know it clap your hands." On 18 February you learnt to clap your hands and now you love to show your seal of approval by clapping. If we do something that is funny or lots of fun your little hands clap together as if to say "more, more." Not only can you clap your hands together but you are also picking up objects and having one in each hand will bang them together to listen to the different sounds they make. Recently going swimming at the pools on Monday you slept longer than usual for your morning sleep which meant we got to the pools just as Daddy was due to start his class. But with the pools close to each other as Daddy did a length and we did a width and meet up you gave him a clap and wave as he played peek-a-boo.
Playing peek-a-boo is a game you have enjoyed for a while and sussed it out fairly early on that we were just behind the blanket. Now you like playing it but you like to be the one who hides. Whether it is behind a blanket, bib or piece of furniture you hide and we say "Where's Olivia?" Then you pop out from where you are hiding with a big cheesy smile as if to say "Here I am." You even play peek-a-boo with yourself in the mirror leaning to the side just out of view. You will look behind the mirror to see if you are behind there as well. When you see your pretty little face in the mirror you give yourself a kiss just like you have started doing in the shower. You will wipe the glass down and then pucker up. You are so funny when you give a kiss because it is always with a big open mouth. When you lean in to give a kiss on the lips it is still with an open mouth and sometimes you even slip in your tongue.
Uncle Glen has been busy racing his jetsprint boat and on February 15 he was racing in Meremere. So we headed to the racetrack to watch. Being a nosiey sport we brought you some cute pink earmuffs so that you could enjoy watching without getting sore ears. You had a busy weekend heading to Whangamata on Saturday night then getting up for breakfast with Jo and Hamish who were over for a wedding and Sam and Saba we then headed to Meremere. So with a busy day by the afternoon you needed a sleep and after some walking in your pram with Nana you drifted off to sleep. The racing finished and it was time to head home. I picked you up and transferred you into your carseat we drove home and unpacked the car and then you woke up. You are a pretty good sleeper normally but this afternoon you slept for so long Daddy joked that maybe we need to put you to sleep with your earmuffs on all the time.
We have been to the Waikato Museum to check out Excite (an interactive kids part) and some of the exhibitions on show. For Children's Day they had free entry to Excite and Planet Warrior an exhibition on looking after the environment. You had a great time looking around at all the displays and planting knitted vegetables in the holes of the knitted vegetable garden.