Life at 9 months
The developmental leap between 8 months and 9 months has been huge. babyD went from being a baby who could adequately crawl with his arms, to basically a toddler who can crawl from one side of the room to the back bedroom all while I’m making my morning cup of coffee. He doesn’t stay still for even a nanosecond these days. While we were in Hawaii, he perfected his crawling skills we think because the house floors were either tile or hardwood, and it forced him on to his knees instead of pulling himself along with just his arms - army style. He also now pulls himself to a standing position on anything that is higher than six inches. He tried to stand using a container of baby wipes the other day. That didn’t end well. Mostly he pulls himself up on the couches and occasionally the coffee table or entertainment center. That one is the most scary since he can now reach all the components as well as the TV. The other day he climbed up to the edge of the coffee table, reached for my camera and was swinging it around his arm when I walked back into the room. My camera now lives on the kitchen table, where I assume he won’t be able to climb for at least another week.
After months without any teeth, he now has two bottom teeth and two poking through on the top. We introduced finger foods this month and he does very well with it. Mostly we give him crackers, yogurt melts, cheese puffs - all the stuff made by Gerber to make the transition easier. We also give him cut up pieces of cheese which both he and Dodger love. Dodger is very happy that having this baby around has finally paid off. He sits under the high chair during lunch and dinner and gets lots of scraps that magically go flying off the tray. We tried to introduce the sippy cup but babyD wants nothing to do with it. I’m told by other moms that this is normal. Lots of people have mentioned to try the straw kind.
Also, babyD is also babbling up a storm. He’s still signing milk, food and new this month DOG(!) but now he also says mama (which we think he says when he wants milk) baba and of course all the vowel sounds, his favorites being A and E to which we reply B and F. He thinks it’s hilarious. While we were in Hawaii, his older-by-4-months cousin Siena taught him how to clap and since then, that’s all he has been doing. He likes to sit in my lap and pull on my hands to make me clap, but he also enjoys clapping all on his own especially in his car seat. He’ll clap for 30 minutes on the way to the store. The clapping has led to endless games of Pat-a-Cake, which I had to YouTube to learn all the words to. He’ll also clap any two objects together even if they aren’t meant to be clapped together. For example, he’ll clap his stacking block onto the edge of my laptop because it just makes such a fun sound, mom. Yikes. We gave him a pot and a wooden spoon the other day; he was entertained for about two hours. I think we might have a future drummer on our hands.
That’s fine by me so long as he also plays basketball…
Hey, a mom’s gotta dream.
