All that facial muscles to buzz

Future trombonist! Bzzzzz

Sophie tries to stand!

She did a lot of this on the San Diego trip. She was trying to climb into the luggage and using it to stand.

She finally succeeded! And then she used the stroller to help her stand too. Now back at home, all she wants to do is to try to stand or sit on her knees. She even crawled into the coffee table and opened the drawer of the TV stand so she could stand on it.
dd promptly went out to buy her an activity table from kidtokid so she can practise her antics.

Goodbye Breasty

Goodbye pumping breast milk, otherwise known as breasty the besty in our home. I packed up my pump and flanges last night. And watched Soph guzzle down the last bottle of milk I squeezed for her. Six months ago, I have been dreaming of this day, yet I still feel a sense of guilt when it has arrived.
My breastfeeding history for Soph:
0 month: Can't squeeze out any bm
1 month: Visited 2 lactation consultants. Judy said I had insufficient glandular tissue and would have to supplement. I felt a great sense of loss, knowing I could not provide her with the most basic thing she need. (Thank god for formula!)
2-4 months: Struggled with breastfeeding using supplemental tubing, and pumping after every feeding 8 times a day.
4.5 months: Decided to switch to exclusively pumping because breastfeeding was still taking an hour or even more at times. She wrestled my breasts and sometimes did not want to feed which was affecting her weight. That was the most miserable part of the 9 months! Every day was crazy, watching her cry while I scrambled to tape tubes to my breasts. And then sitting there for an hour but she did not want to drink or was really slow. And still had to pump for 10 minutes after that while she played in the jungle gym. It was taking a toll on me because both of us had no time for other activities. So eventually I chose to pump 8 times a day and managed to provide half of what she needed.
6 months: Back to work and pumping 3 times at work. Struggled to wake up early and sleep late so that I could squeeze in 6 pumping sessions a day. Down to 2.5 bottles of the 6 feeds she needs.
7-8 months: Pumping sessions drop to 5 from all the buzz. Down to 2 bottles a day.
9 months: Weaned off to 2 pumping sessions a day.
And this is the only photo that leaves me a memory of sitting there pumping with my iPad in my lap.
Goodbye for now.

She's nine months old!

It's December and Soph is nine months old. Already?! After the stuffy nose-constipation ordeal, she is finally back to eating regularly, guzzling milk and munching happily away on solids again.
On Sunday, we had brunch with friends and brought along her portable booster seat. We sat her in it and she finished her meal of homemade pear sauce and oatmeal. And even managed to have snippets of avocado from our plate. Ah table food.

Soph can also army crawl pretty fast now, even though she doesn't lift her tummy off the the ground. I say she's lazy but Doc says she chooses not too. Yesterday we sat her on her playmat and we went to sit some distance away at the dining table. When she saw that our backs were turned, she started crawling toward us at top speed, her arms diving left right left right like swimming freestyle. When dd caught her before she reached the table, she burst into laughter. And so we repeated this catching game until we squeezed all the laughs out of her. I feel that babyhood is becoming more fun.