Mali 9 Month Milestones

Forgot to mention that 9 1/2 months old as of today Mali had her 9 month checkup last week. She was 19 lbs 10 oz, so we can legally squeeze her into the carseat for several weeks more. Even though she's dangling over the edges, as you can see.

Her weight percentile has dropped a bit (60th to 50th), which is expected with all her new crawling and standing and pointing. She's up a bit in the height percentiles, but is still a shortie like her mom. (5th to 10th).

Apparently her head circumference has increased dramatically since her last checkup. Almost half an inch in two weeks. I will check that up to distracted measuring techniques rather than the sort of dramatic head growth that occurs in many autistic children at this age, because she is acting so very neurotypical.

She is a darling baby. A funny looking baby (again, see picture), but charming. Tonight at dinner she kept smiling and reaching out to various people at the ph0 restaurant, who were all instantly enchanted. Even though she still looks like she has no eyebrows.

Her personality is still genial yet unpredictable. She is adamant about pulling off hats and socks. She turns her head and knocks away unwanted food. She is an accomplished speed-crawler now, and will not be turned away from a desired destination. Yesterday at the park she did not want to sit on the grass under the oak tree with me and Ep, she wanted to be over at the fountain with all the cavorting kids. So she crawled over there. Three times in a row. I let her go further each time, and suspect she would have crawled right into the middle of the melee had I not intercepted her.

She hadn't been eating much in the way of solids during the past few weeks, but for some reason (probably all that crawling) decided today that she was hungry indeed. Much baby-bird like demonstrations of her need, much reaching and grabbing for spoons, and squawking when the servants (us) did not attend to her appetite with the required haste.



Tomorrow is Leelo's first day back at Iron Gate, and so the first day Mali goes back into the nursery. She's been completely well this entire summer, and I worry about another cycle of respiratory ills. There will only be two other children in the nursery as opposed to the five that she hung with last year, but both the other children are old enough to want to poke and prod and grub on a baby, and both have two older germ-ridden siblings.

Oh, what the hell. Here's another pic. And mind you, it is okay if I say she is funny-looking. Say or write a like word, and your ass IP address will be banned.