The Lion at 9 Months

Isn't he handsome?  He continues to get cuter as he ages in my totally unbiased opinion.  We have now hit 9 months!  Quite frankly, I can't believe it.  That's the magical milestone where he's been out as long as he was in, and my body's supposed to be fully recovered, right?  (ha)  

I know I say this every time but lil man is ACTIVE.  And the more he can do, the more trouble he gets into. Still, this is by far my favorite age to date, and he's a lot of fun to be around.  Except when the whole house has had Roseola for a week, on top of the double ear infection, and there's been a lot of screaming.  Not that that's going on here or anything.  :/  Chris told me I'm not allowed to post the picture of my rash.  You can thank him.

Physical feats:

He is so close to walking that it's making him angry.  He cruises easily, runs with his dino-walker, and pulls up and sits down with ease.  He finally mastered REAL crawling, and no longer does the silly army scoot.  Never thought that would happen.  His favorite game right now is opening cabinets and drawers that don't have latches, which mostly means his dresser.  And then removing the clothing out of those locations.  If you pull him away (or really any time you do something he doesn't like), he plops down onto his butt, flops his head forward onto the floor and screams.  We are amazed that we are getting temper tantrums so soon.  Not so much bragging about that one.  At least they are typically pretty quick.  He can walk holding one hand, but still only stands for a few seconds on his own.  I think he just hasn't cared yet.  He will just sink to his butt if you try and make him.  He can go up a flight of stairs, but it makes me nervous.  Going down, he hasn't figured out that he needs to go backwards yet, and REALLY scares me.  He is FAST and cannot be left in one spot and be expected to stay there.  We have now *almost* fully child-proofed.  Getting close.  Still need latches on the bathroom cabinets.

Mental feats:

Good grief is he smart.  We get new words almost daily.  Currently, we've heard: mamma, dadda, pa, up, more, all done, bat, ball, duck, puppy, bubba, hi...um, I'm sure I'm forgetting.  He's not particularly consistent about using them, but it frequently surprises us what he pulls out.  He understands how to do MANY tasks.  "Turn off the light", "Brush your teeth" (he sticks his tootbrush in his mouth and chews), "Give Mamma a kiss", "Throw the ball to puppy", "Do you want to eat?", "Where's dino/the ball/duckie?"  He also is EXTREMELY opinionated (that hasn't changed from day one, I suppose), but is now figuring out that he can throw fits to get his way.  Give me strength.

Food:

Robby is almost done with purees.  He hasn't wanted to eat them at home forever, since we've done finger foods for months, but he still will give in at daycare, though apparently this past week has been a battle.  We've started sending in Cheerios for snack time, so he realizes there are solids there, too.  I was scared that he was weaning himself this week, but seemingly it was just being sick.  He's actually flipped and is almost exclusively nursing at the moment.  Solids are bothering his throat it seems.  Though he forced down some stuffing and chicken tonight.  I would have wondered if it was really my son if he hadn't.  He has finally figured out sippy cups and drinks water that way, but we have not tried to transition off of the bottle for milk yet.

Sleeping:

It's generally been better, although, again, this past week has been off with the illness.  He still generally sleeps 7pm-7am and will do between 1.5-2.5 hours (total) of naps a day.  We'll see if that changes next week.  I'm going back to full time, so he'll always be at daycare for naps (oh goodness), BUT, they are moving EVERY OTHER CHILD out of his classroom and into the 1-2 year old room (legitimately, they're all 1).  As far as I know, no babies are scheduled to start yet, so it'll be Robby all by his lonesome.  I really am not sure what to think.  We shall see.  Hopefully he'll sleep better without the distractions. 

 Size:

Alright, I had been freaking out that he hadn't grown.  Because he had gone in to the doctor while sick and weighed less, and I measured his height, and it hadn't changed.  That was 3 weeks ago or so.  When we went on Saturday for his ears, he weighed 21 lbs (clothed) which is UP 2 lbs, and his picture below sure looks like he's about 3 inches taller (judging by where his ears are).  But we shall see for sure on Tuesday at his 9 month well visit.  He's moving into mostly 12 month clothes now, though we put him in mostly 9m pants so that he doesn't trip while walking.

Happy 9 months, busy man!  I'm loving watching you learn, and MAN you're just a goof right now.  Love ya!