"Normal"

I'm happy to say things are returning to normal at our house. Or maybe I should say "normal." I'm not sure there is such a thing as normal without quotation marks when you have an almost 9 month old!

The crib is now in the low-rider position, as I like to call it. The bumpers have been added to the crib. We took them out when she was a wee little tike because they posed a suffocation hazard. But with all her standing and rolling and climbing, we decided the risk of her bonking her head is much greater now! It also keeps her from launching her paci's out into the floor too. :)

We've have a few good nights in a row where Campbell has slept through the entire night. Naptimes are still very rocky - standing up usually proves to be more exciting than napping, but we're working on it. She can now pull up to standing on a lot of her toys, on the couch, on the laundry basket, and on us! Once up, she's getting brave and letting go with both hands and amazingly enough, is able to balance while standing for several seconds! You can totally see it in her eyes - she is loving her new independence and can't wait to take off walking. Notice I said walking, not crawling. I'm convinced this child will never crawl. She could do it if she wanted. She's halfway done it once or twice. She just has no interest. Once on all fours, she wants to do nothing other than push herself up to sitting, and find something to pull up on. I did some reading about milestones, and most things said they will crawl first for a month or so and then try to pull to standing. I think Campbell has just bipassed the crawling completely. Not my preference...I thought crawling would be cool, less dangerous than toddling around, and a quick fix for her frustrations of sitting still. But...I guess I don't get to make all the rules, so we'll just see what mode of transportation Campbell chooses! She is somewhat mobile by sitting up, spinning around, and pushing off in another direction. She basically spins into a sitting position over and over again until she reaches her destination. It's actually quite cute to watch.

Now a totally random picture that has absolutely nothing to do with this topic. This is Campbell demonstrating the dangers of texting and driving.