9 Months old & Busy as a Beaver (literally!)

Cate showing off the final product in her totally fabric (and bandage!) covered crib.

Cate turned nine months old on Thursday and had her nine month checkup yesterday. She weighed in at 19 lb. 1 oz. and was 27 inches long. Dr. Phelps said she was perfect and doing really well. We talked a lot about what Cate should be eating, since I feel so incompetent when it comes to that. Dr. Phelps pretty much said she can now eat what we're eating, as long as it's in small, easily swallowable pieces, and isn't anything hard or food still on the no-no list (eggs, whole milk, shellfish, nuts, etc.). So tonight, since she's been teething something awful, I gave her half a frozen bagel to gnaw on, a suggestion from a friend. Now, I consider a plain bagel to be pretty, well, plain. You would have thought I was giving her liver! She scrunched up her nose, she gagged, like literally gagged, and even spit up a bit. She tried throwing it on the floor, feeding it to Zoe. All over a bagel!!! I guess she's not going to be up for Mexican for a while.

As for teething, however, we've run into a problem, which became today's craft project. This week, Cate started standing up in her crib and chewing on the crib railing. So her beautiful, cherry crib was quickly getting marks on it that would make one think a squirrel had taken up home in the laundry hamper next to the crib. And Cate was getting sneaky about it! Instead of talking or crying or fussing when she'd wake up, she'd just stand up and start gnawing, so she was doing some serious damage before we'd figure out what she was up to in there. Rick even called me at work yesterday all upset, because by the time he discovered her, she had been chewing on it so much she had red stain all over her face and hands!!!! We're hoping it's non-toxic.

So anyways, last night after her dr. appt. we went to WalMart, and I bought some cute puppy flannel material, as I saw some homemade sewn crib protectors online and decided to give it a try. This morning when Cate got up and Rick was off at work, I went to work measuring, cutting, pinning, even adding some batting material. I fired up the trusty old Sears/Kenmore sewing machine (and by old I mean, the instruction manual has a June Cleaver-ish lady on the front, sitting at her sewing machine, being watched by her little girl, and the inside cover starts off with a note from Sears that begins, "Dear Homemaker: ...." I briefly imagined my 2008 cover for the sewing machine- me, in jeans and a sweatshirt, Cate in the exersaucer squealing and feeding banana puffs to the dog. Ahh, just like the good old days!) But I digress.... so I went to work stitching my creation, and when we finished, we went down to Cate's room, I secured it to the crib with the ties, and I put Cate in the crib for a test run. Cate took one look at the material covered crib rail and....... promptly grabbed the round bar above it and started chewing on that. AHHHH!!!!! So to wrap this story up, it was back to WalMart for another 3 yards of material along with three packs of J & J latex-free, waterproof, flexible yet durible, sticks to only itself bandage tape, which I wrapped around the bar part. Not exactly something out of Pottery Barn, but it seems to be doing the trick until I think up something better. I put the bandage tape on before her afternoon nap, and when I went in to get her from her nap, I discovered she had moved on to the bare and vulnerable side rails. I couldn't sew fast enough!!!

But by bedtime tonight, I had covered all four rails on the crib. I pray to God this works. It's been exhausting! We'll keep you posted!