RR got a clean bill of health on her 9-month checkup, at which time she was the height and weight of the median 12-month old (!) In related news, she has already outgrown some 12-month outfits and we have been buying more baby clothes. So far she wears them contentedly, however mismatched or over-the-top pink they may be.She is making rapid progress in the world of widgets. After watching us at the computer she wants to join in, and so far seems to understand using the scroll wheel on the mouse to move through pages on the screen. Her random mouse-clicks have uncovered several menus on the computer which I had not seen before. Phone calls within reach are often subject to surprise touch-tone bleeps and sudden hangups.
Although she won't speak into the phone yet, RR is working hard on "ma-ma" and "da-da" and a few other similar sounds. "Da-da" seems to be a happy identification, but so far "ma-ma" seems as much a general distress signal as a reference to a specific person.
She now frequently stands up by herself, using some nearby object for balance. This is often a low table, but she has managed to stand using a nearby parental leg and even just a smooth wall. Attempts to stand using a small toy or round ball have not yet succeeded. Just today she made a small side-step while standing in her crib, so "cruising" along parallel to a support is no doubt just around the corner.
Before I became a parent my exposure to babies was brief and infrequent, and I somehow had the idea that they were mostly passive items that sat quietly in their parents' arms. In practice I have found that is almost never the case, as RR is always going somewhere, but there is a brief period of calm before sleep which is a nice moment.
