.png)
So, what’s life like now that you’re 9 Months old? I guess a lot of things are the same as last month. It’s odd, the older you get, the more things start to blur together. All the more reason this record is so important. I want to remember in 15, 30, 50 years what our life is like “today.” It’s why I keep this blog. I want to remember. So, here we go with some of the things that stand out this month.
Moving Around…
You aren’t quite mobile yet, but you’re getting very, very close. I blogged all about your standing/walking skills in a previous post. You’re not quite crawling, but you’re getting closer. You no longer cry when we put you on your tummy. Actually, it’s the position you now prefer. As soon as we lay you down, it’s insta-flip to your front side. Changing your diaper has become quite the challenge. The strap attached to your changing pad is now in constant use every time you’re on it to prevent you from tumbling over the edge. When you’re on a surface on which you are allowed to safely move around we let you have at it, and although you haven’t quite figured out how to get your knees up under you. You get around pretty well by a combination of rolling back to front, dragging yourself, and rotating while on your tummy. You always pause on your tummy and look toward where you want to get, get frustrated when you can’t quite figure out how to do it, and then flip yourself over on your side, then to your back to your side to your tummy. This rarely gets you closer to where you actually want to get, but you are definitely trying. Also, you are much more successful at pushing yourself backwards than moving forward toward your target. It’s pretty comical. You look completely puzzled and a little frustrated that you literally get “stuck in reverse,” watching the object of your desire get farther and farther away from you despite your best efforts. It’s going to be a matter of days or maybe a couple weeks before you figure it out. You’re very close.
Playing… At the beginning of the month, I finally put away your baby gym. In its place, we have the blanket your Aunt Steph made for you laid out with your toys in a basket in the corner or lined up against the wall. It’s really comfy and soft on your little knees and it’s a much larger surface area for you to roll around on. This is where we play most of the time. Your Daddy and I both spend a lot of time on the blanky with you these days. We sit with you and play or let your roll around, trying to figure out how to crawl. Every day you spend less and less time on the actual blanky because you’re getting more and more successful at propelling yourself off of it and into the larger world of the upstairs carpet.
Your favorite toy this month is your Spin in the Sea Top. It’s the best way to entertain you for 15 minutes, no adult assistance required. There’s a little turtle, an octopus, a crab and a dolphin all that make sounds and sing and “teach you” counting and colors and stuff with lights flashing. You have a couple other electronic toys, but this one is the only one that truly keeps your attention. One of the most interesting things we’ve noticed about you this month is your affinity for the bottoms of toys. With your Spin in the Sea top, you immediately flip it upside down and find where the sound is coming from, rubbing your fingers on the speaker grate. But it’s not just that toy, and it’s not just toys that make noises. Your pop up toy – the one with the five animals in different trap doors you can open and close – is another one you seem to be more fascinated by the bottom of. You flip is over and look for where the animals go I guess. At least I image that’s what you’re doing. You put your fingers in the holes where the screws are and look all over the bottom of it. We’ve decided this means you’re going to be a mechanical engineer, or the like. You truly seem to want to know how things work. You’re taking after Daddy there. I’m a throw-out- the-instructions-and-guess kind of person. The other way we play is with you standing, leaning up against one of our ottomans. You like to pick up whatever we place in front of you and drop it over the side. Over and Over again. You adore standing in general, and are very close to cruising around the furniture on your own. Oh, and those little legs. They still kill me.
And, well… maybe just a little bit more about walking since it is a major part of your playtime now. Sometimes you will fuss and fuss until one of us grabs your little hands and assists you in exploring the house on your own two feet. You just love it. LOVE it. Your face lights, completely fascinated with your ability to choose where you go, what you see, what you touch. Your little feet slap slap slap, and you talk and you smile and gurgle and scrunch your nose and breathe excitedly.
Sleeping… As for sleeping, no new news is good news. You’re a great sleeper, night time and nap time. I have no complaints. Your bedtime ritual still consists of reading a book, saying goodnight to Tiny Bear, cuddling and whispering for a couple minutes with your blanky if you’ll let me, then into the crib you go with your binky, blanky and your three crib friends Wooly, Hoser and Oinker (the trio was a gift from your Tia Kristy.) I line them up in front of your face, cover you with a blanky, say a quick prayer, tell you I love you, flip on your night light and walk out the door. Then you sleep for 12 hours – 6pm to 6am. When you nap, it’s a shorter version of the same thing at 9am and 1pm, and you sleep for about 2 hours each time. I know things could change any moment, but I’m not worried about it anymore. I worried so much about it for no reason already. If you change, we will deal with it. But for now, I’ll enjoy the fact that we landed such a good sleeper.
You continue to be the lightest sleeping baby on the planet. I can hardly walk in the room to check on you without you rolling over from a dead sleep to figure out what I want. You are super aware of everything. It’s hard to sneak anything past you. Everything wakes you up, so it’s truly a blessing that it isn’t hard to get you to go down. I am slightly concerned that removing the bumper from your crib – which we will have to do very shortly, as soon as you get a little closer to pulling up on your own – is going to wreak havoc on your sleep. I tried to take it out once a couple months ago and put it right back in after about the fifth time of you waking up screaming with your head banging on the slats of the crib. I guess eventually you’ll figure out how to sleep more stationary. Eating…. At this point, I would say you feed yourself at least 50% of the food you consume. You love to feed yourself and I love to watch you. You make HUGE messes, little one, but you have such a good time doing it I don’t mind cleaning you up. At first I tried to just cover you in big bibs. Now, I strip you down to your diaper. It saves a lot of staining. The most common self-fed items are cheeses, bananas, avocados, small bits of bread and bagels, peaches, cheerios and other baby puff like cereals and crackers and teething biscuits and… TOFU! You love it all, but you will eat a pound of tofu. Not sure why you like it so much. It doesn’t taste like anything. You must like the texture. So, maybe you’ll be a vegan mechanical engineer. Hehe. Anyway, there are very few food items you haven’t tried in one form or another. If it’s relatively soft or dissolves, I’ve let you try it as is. If not, I grind it up for you. I even made you broccoli the other day, and you ate it right up shocking us all. If, however, you are not in the mood for a particular food item (green beans most often), you will let us know. You ball up your fists and grunt and turn red after every bite. It’s cute because you still open your mouth, you just let us know that you don’t want to be opening your mouth. I wonder how long it will take for you to figure out that you don’t have to let us put the green stuff in there. I will say that you are losing interest more and more in us feeding you. It’s taking longer and longer to get you to eat your bowl of pureed homemade chicken soup or pasta. You will eat it all, it just takes forever. You get distracted by everything, by the drop on the tray, by the speck on your finger, by the wind in the leaves outside the window, by the screw holding your high chair together. You’d rather be shoveling your cheerios and tofu in your own mouth. The exception is yogurt, which is your all time favorite food right now. Even when you ignore everything else on the spoon in front of your face, you will eagerly let me feed you yogurt. Quirks… You are doing all kinds of new cute and funny things this month. You click your tongue all the time. In fact for about 2 weeks it’s like you forgot how to babble and became an aboriginal baby, communicating with us only by clicks of the tongue. Your affinity for clicking is slowing waning and your voice has returned, but you still do it on cue. We click, you click, I can almost say every time. It’s like you cannot help yourself. If you hear it, you have to do it to. It’s adorable. We started calling you our little puppy because you put things – crackers, hair bows, toys, clothes – in your mouth and let go with your hands, letting whatever it is dangle from your lips. Woof. You have a couple new poses that frequently come out when you feel frustrated or irritated (which I know because they are accompanied by frustrated and irritated sounds). I’ve dubbed them the Fonz which looks like this…
…and the Supermodel, which is basically the same thing, but with both hands behind your head. And a Couple More Tidbits… Interaction – It’s getting more and more fun to take you places since you become more interactive with your environment every day. You love to go shopping as long as I carry you in the carrier. You will tolerate a shopping cart or a stroller, but only temporarily. You will stay happy in the carrier indefinitely. You can also stay out for occasional longer stretches now – skipping a nap every once in a while – which is great. It means we can go down the hill every now and then without listening to you cry all the way home from exhaustion. Anyway, it’s a blast to let you touch and experience new places and things, now that you’re old enough to be interested and awake enough to enjoy them. Here you are checking out the board books at our library. Poop – And a gross bit, you now poop an average of 5 times per day. That’s a lot of dirty diapers. I’ve never minded the poopy diapers much, but we’ll see if I can say that in a few months if you keep this up. Words – And a fun development tidbit… I’m sure everyone believes their child is intelligent and special. And of course my beliefs about you are no exception. You are so bright-eyed. You notice everything. You are curious about everything. You listen to me when I show you things, try to teach you things. So, I make sure I narrate whatever we’re doing. I think you want to know. As you get older, my narration is giving way to emphasis on certain words. Whenever we go for a walk, the first thing I say is “Outside.” When I put you in your high chair I say “Eat.” When you go in the water I say “Bath.” When we see a bunny, I say “Bunny.” When we play with Elmo, I say “Elmo.” When Daddy gets home and opens the front door, I say “Daddy.” And I say it 2 or 3 times. You understand a lot of words. I know because you get excited when I say them. I’ve kind of been slacking on the baby signing, honestly. I still want to do it. I know a lot of signs; I just have a hard time remembering to use them. I’m not sure how persistently I’m going to pursue it at this point. We’ll see. I need to take another trip to the library. The last time we went, all the videos were checked out. Laughing – Your laughing has reached a whole new level. You now belly laugh, hysterically sometimes. Peek-a-boo is almost always what gets you going. That, or some form of anticipated tickling or nibbling, but mostly peek-a-boo. And it works best with Sammy Socks. You’ll laugh at me disappearing and reappearing, but it’s not nearly as funny to you as Sammy suddenly appearing where he previously was not. The more suddenly he appears, the funnier it is. Sometimes you literally almost jump off the ground it startles you so much, and you think it’s absolutely hilarious. Your laughter is the BEST thing yet. It makes me laugh so hard my eyes water. I giggle just thinking about it. Wow. Well, for feeling like things are blurring together, I sure came up with a lot of new things to share. And there are a ton more, but 4 pages it’s a tad long for a single post, so I’ll save some details for another day. Here’s one more pic of what our little family looks like this month… We love you, Waywee. TTFN.