Lucy’s 9-month well-baby checkup was this morning.

She weighed in at 19 pounds, 14 ounces (I thought for sure she’d break the 20-pound mark this time, but she was 2 ounces shy), and she’s 27.8 inches tall. For those of y’all who care, that puts her in the 76th percentile for weight, and 52nd percentile for height. (I’m thinking that awesome potbelly makes up for the height/weight discrepancy.) She’s also in the 97th percentile for head circumference, which puts her as slightly smaller-headed than her sister. Catie was always off the charts for head size.

The doctor diagnosed her as basically perfect except for her eczema, which she’s had since she was a newborn. I could’ve told you that. This little baby girl is freaking awesome.

She crawls all over the place now, and she is FAST. She’s also pulling up to a stand on just about anything she can grab. If I happen to be sitting on the floor near her, she often uses either my hair or my boob to grab and pull herself up. Not so nice for me, but she’s so pleased with herself, I can’t really get mad at her, either.

She took two steps yesterday, pushing a little ride-on toy car in front of her, so I know that walking for real is just around the corner. I’m kind of terrified.

She mostly sleeps through the night now. Not always, but generally. Our routine lately has been that she goes down sometime around 8 or 8:30, and she might wake up sometime before midnight for one last bottle, but then she’s good until morning. So, it’s not too bad.

She eats like a champ. Baby food, finger food, regular table food… whatever you got, she’s game for trying it. Catie was always a bit of a picky eater, so this is kind of awesome to be able to just toss anything on her high chair tray and know that it’s most likely not going to go to waste.

She’s starting to get words here and there, too. The most popular ones are “hi” and “bye,” complete with hand wave. She’s not totally consistent, sometimes she waves and says “hi” to the door, or she’ll say “bye” a minute or two after we’ve left. Still, she’s getting it.

She can kind of say “bottle,” but it sounds like “bwuh”. And “all done” sounds like “nuh-nun.” She definitely has her own little dialect, but we’re figuring it out.

She can say “Pop-Pop,” which made my dad damn near melt. And she can say “Kay!” for Catie.

Still no consistent use of “mama,” but sometimes when she’s upset and wants me, she’ll say “mamamamamama,” which I figure is close enough.

For the most part, though, she is so much fun. We’re past the newborn stage and getting into the fun baby/early toddler phase where she seems to be learning something new every day.

And now that she’s getting bigger and a little more interactive, I’ve found that the dynamic between Catie and Lucy is changing too. Sometimes this is a bad thing – Lucy is mobile and wants to check out toys that Catie has deemed as “hers,” so we’ve had lots of long talks about how certain things have to be shared. Because, yes, of course, Catie has some toys that are very special to her and I don’t expect her to share those. But she also doesn’t get to yank every single thing away from Lucy with a, “That’s mine!” (And a lot of times, the things she yanks away are toys she hasn’t played with in months, if not years.)

But on the good side, it also means they play together sometimes now. Lucy loves watching Catie, and wants to do everything that her big sister does.

I have to say, this phase that we’re in right now is so much fun. I can’t wait to see what’s next.