Francesca as an Eight- and Nine-Month Old

To celebrate her 8-month birthday, Francesca went on a swing for the first time. Not surprisingly, her output of laughter and shrieks of delight was directly proportional to the height she went flying through the air. The grocery store is also a place of great happiness, full of people to flirt with and things to grab when no one is looking. On May 26, Francesca received her first flower when a grocery store check out person declared her "priceless" and handed her an enormous, yellow Gerbera daisy. Not long afterwards, a little boy she met on one of her walks picked and gave her some flowers.

Thanks to a crazy little duck toy that terrified her when she was smaller, Francesca has taught herself to quack and refuses to be intimidated any longer. She has also taught herself how to untie the shoelaces of anyone with feet within reach. Ioana tries to get back at her by taking one of her pacifiers and popping it into her mouth -- however, after a moment or two of initial outrage and chagrin, Francesca can't help but laugh at how silly her mamma is.

Francesca can now stand by herself while holding on to something and has made great strides on the crawling front. Sadly for her sleep, and the sleep of those around her, her best crawling attempts during her eighth month occurred on her way to sleep and when she was half asleep. In her ninth month, Francesca mastered the art of both commando crawling (on her stomach being propelled by elbows and feet) and then regular crawling. She can also "scooch" and turn around on her tushy and plays by passing a ball back and forth. On June 23, Francesca figured out how to go from lying down to sitting up and has quickly become a professional sitter-upper.

Despite all this increased independent mobility, Francesca continues to love going for walks in a baby backpack on Matthew's back, the perfect spot from which to survey the whole scene, tell him what she's thinking, and make sure that her papa's hat stays on a rakish angle. She also got to take a lot of walks with her nonna (grandmother) Karen when Karen came to visit for a week in June.

Francesca also continues to love food but has begun showing serious disdain for baby food, which she often refuses to eat, likely as a matter of principle. Francesca's third bottom tooth showed up on June 29 -- no top teeth yet but that hasn't slowed her down. Teeth or no teeth, her current favorite meal is spaghetti with olive oil and flaked salmon, which inspires her to plunge face first when feeding herself just isn't fast enough to satisfy. All this good eating resulted in Francesca hitting 25 pounds and 30 inches in her ninth month -- as usual, off the charts.

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