9 Months Old!

Wow, Sweetie!  9 months today!  That sounds so grown up!  You have been so much fun and seem to have grown so much in just the past couple of weeks.

Today we are going to see a dermatologist to have him take a look at your hemangioma marks on your neck and back.  Dr. Nourmand doesn't expect there is anything to worry about but decided to have us go just to be safe.

We have been going to a baby gym class at the YMCA and are hoping to enroll you for a gym and swim class starting in January.  On Saturday after class, Santa was visiting and we got your picture on his lap.

When we got home from Illinois after Thanksgiving you decided for a few days that you sometimes didn't like me to leave you to play on your own.  When I would sit you on the floor you would hold onto my pantlegs to keep me from going anywhere.

You love playing in the vertical blinds in our living room.  We're pretty sure you know you're not supposed to.  You often look at us while you are playing in them as though you are gauging our reaction or even smugly showing us that you are being defiant.  The same thing goes for when you go after the electronics or try to open the drawers on the coffee table.

On the subject of drawers, you first discovered you could open the lowest drawers on your dresser on 11/20.  Since then, no drawer is safe.  Whether you can open them or not, you're happy to give it a try.  As mentioned above, the ones on the coffee table are a big favorite.

The drawer discovery was the result of your fascination with knobs.  You like any type of knobs, but shiny ones are the best.  Yesterday I was putting laundry away and turned around to find your face pressed up against my dresser drawer while you tried to fit the entire knob in your mouth.

We prop up throw pillows all over the living room to cover sharp corners in the areas where you play.  As a result, you've taken on a new liking for playing with pillows and now you just pull the pillows down so you can get at whatever is behind them.

You love tags.  You sometimes snort when you really get laughing.  You've started wrinkling up your nose a lot and make some adorable faces when you do it.

You pushed yourself into a sitting position from laying for the first time at Grandpa Mike & Grandma Norma's house on 12/1.  And on 12/2 you clapped for the first time in the car on the way to St. Louis headed to the airport to come home.

Some of your favorite games are Let Me Have It, Body Parts, and Empty the Box.  Let Me Have It, is when you have something that I want and you hold on tight while I repeat "let me have it" and try to wiggle it out of your hands.  You laugh and laugh and laugh.  Body Parts is a game where I point to each of your body parts while saying them aloud, "head, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, shoulders, arms, elbows, hands, fingers, tummy, back, bottom, legs knees, feet, TOES!"  We finish by repeating TOES several times and tickle you all over.  Empty the Box is when you sit with your box of toys and play and eventually empty out every last item.  You've gotten so good at this that you sometimes even disassemble the box when you get to the bottom.

You finally figured out sleeves.  For at least 8 months, you approach to getting dressed was to bend your elbows and hold your arms tight against your sides while I had to feed your shirts over your arms as best I could.  Then just a few weeks ago you finally decided to take it easy on me and just straighten your arms once I got the sleeve over your hand.  It was great while it lasted, until about a week ago when you decided you don't like getting dressed at all any more.

You continued repeating mamamama for a good long while and you almost had us convinced that you knew that I am mama, and then you stopped altogether.  It was fun while it lasted.  You moved on to bababababa for awhile, then just liked the B sound and would just say "buh."  None of these have been very popular over the past few days so I'm anxious to see what comes next.

You started eating finger foods on 12/3.  On the first day you would pick up the pieces but didn't really understand you were supposed to feed yourself.  You liked playing with them but were happy to let me feed them to you.  On the second day you figured out that they should go in your mouth, but you didn't understand that you have to let go of them once you get them there, so you just ended up with a lot of soggy pieces still in your hands.  Then on day 3 you managed to successfully feed yourself a couple of pieces and it's been smooth sailing since then.  You're doing great, and you seem to love feeding yourself.  Right now I'm still trying to figure out what are the best foods to give you while you're still figuring out the chewing concept.  We've had mixed success with the fruits and vegetables we've tried but you're great at puffs and Rice Krispies.

Finally, you are starting to crawl!  You have been starting to figure out the crawling position over the past week or two and have been moving yourself backwards even though that didn't seem to be where you wanted to go.  Then yesterday you crawled yourself forward just a little bit to get to....the blinds!  Of course!  I didn't see it at first, but Daddy was there and I'm glad since he misses a lot of your firsts when he's at work.  But today you did it a few more times and I'm sure in another couple of days you'll be a crawling machine.  You also managed to pull yourself up onto your knees a couple of times today so it looks like it's going to be another big week!

I know this post is seriously lacking pictures.  I have lots, but just haven't been able to get through all of them yet.  More to come soon....