Nine months!

Nine months - August 24, 2014

And just like that, another month has flown by.

These days, it's hard to keep up with Sam as he crawls around all over the place. We are in full hands-and-knees territory. He can crawl, and sit, and change directions, and crawl while holding a toy, and bat a toy around and chase it. He laughs and grunts when he's moving at top speed toward something he wants (like when he races over from across the room when mama comes to pick him up from daycare). He shrieks - LOUDLY! - as he chases the cats around. He can pull himself to standing, though he's not quite so good at sitting back down once he's up. This is one mobile kid!

Which means that we now have three baby gates and a bunch of corner protectors guarding the house. And it means that he has a few bumps and bruises from random pieces of furniture that he has decided to try to crawl through instead of going around.

All this movement means that he's still burning calories like crazy. He eats and eats and eats, but at his nine month appointment was still just shy of 17 pounds. New foods to add to his regular list are yogurt, spinach, and sweet corn. And he is now also feeding himself small pieces of food. So far, he's fed himself Cheerios, sweet potato puffs, pieces of bread/bagel, and pieces of banana (which are kind of slippery and hard to hold onto!). He also got some great tastes of things at the Minnesota State Fair just a few weeks ago: shreds of turkey, bites of croissant and scone and apple turnover, pieces of apple, and sweet corn ice cream.



Sam's personality continues to come through. He is incredibly sweet, and friendly, and only a little demanding. :) We went to a wedding earlier this month, and Sam was hanging out on a blanket with a few other babies his age, and he was definitely the grabber of the bunch. He takes whatever toy or food he wants. We'll have to do a little work on sharing, I think... But he loves other babies, and he loves smiling at people who smile at him.

Just the other night, he played peek-a-boo with us for the first time. He would hold his bib up over his head, and then peek around it to find us, laughing like a crazy man the whole time. He is ticklish when he's in the mood, and loves laughing when you toss him up into the air or flip him upside-down.

He babbles a lot these days. He is practicing saying M, D, B, and P sounds. Sometimes I think that when he says "mama," he means it, but most times, it's just him talking nonsense syllables to himself.

These days, he HATES diaper changes. I don't know if he's just upset about being stuck on his back or what, but he screams and tries to wriggle away. On a whim, I sang "Old MacDonald" to him as I was changing him last week, and he quieted down. So now it's our diaper change song. I need more suggestions for animals, though! We sing a lot about cows, dogs, cats, ducks, chickens, turkeys, geese, mice, and horses. I added in frogs this morning. I've sung about sharks once or twice ("with a CHOMP-CHOMP here and a CHOMP-CHOMP there") and about aardvarks ("with a snuffle-snuffle here and a snuffle-snuffle there"). There have been a couple times when it sounded like Sam was trying to sing "E-I-E-I-O" back to me!

We keep taking two steps forward, one step back with regard to his sleeping habits. He is still sleeping from about 8:30 p.m. until about 4:00 a.m. in a stretch, then waking up hungry. He isn't consistently going back to sleep after that feeding, though. We'll have to think about dropping it soon enough. He still isn't much of a napper, but his daily schedule at daycare is helping a bit to get into the pattern of a morning and an afternoon nap, even if he only sleeps about half an hour at each of those.

It took us nine months, but we have now weathered our first fever and ear infection. He's been a trooper. In fact, I don't think he ever really figured out that he was sick, other than the fact that mama and daddy kept trying to wipe his nose (oh, the ire...). So he had a few days off of daycare and is now rocking the bright pink strawberry bubble gum amoxicillin.

Speaking of daycare...Sam is now going to daycare three full days a week and one half day. Good for him and good for me. I'm pleased by the transition.

The end of summer has been busy. We've traveled up to Minneapolis and Rochester for weddings and family visits and the Minnesota State Fair. Next up for us is flying out to New York for Matt's brother's wedding in another week, and then driving out to Chicago for a friend's ordination a week after that. I feel like we are running at light speed toward Sam's first birthday, and it is crazy to me just how much this little sweetheart keeps growing up and sparkling and being all curious and playful and more and more conscious of his interactions with other people.

I just cleaned out his dresser drawers, retiring a next batch of too-small clothes and adding in all of the 6-12 month clothes that have been waiting patiently for him to grow into them. His hair is super blonde and super fluffy. His eyes are still blue. His fingers are getting so long, and his feet are getting all chubby. He has skinny arms and legs but a great belly. He has two teeth on the bottom and two more bottom teeth in the works, but none on top yet.

Here's to another month crossed off the calendar, little man. We love you so much. You are a light and a joy!