Dear Baby Jack: 9 Months

Happy 9 Months!!

(As good as it got for this photo shoot...)

I'm going to be honest, I think you heard that your 9 month blog post was coming up (although posted a week late...) and decided to try and hit as many milestones as possible as quickly as you could. About a week before you turned 9 months you started to crawl, a tooth popped up, you fed yourself, and you started to say Dada. Clearly you are an overachiever when a deadline is near.

Now that you're crawling your world has expanded beyond the tiny area we designated for you in the living room. Your grimy hands have been all over Oliver's crate and bowls, our coffee table, your high chair, the kitchen cabinets, my shoes, etc. This means that I have spent more time reshuffling things around our house, so that they don't end up in your mouth/ripped up in your hands/swallowed, than I ever thought was possible. The best part about your crawling is that when I pick you up from daycare or come home from work you get excited and crawl over, ready to be picked up. I think most of that has to do with your food source arriving, but we'll pretend like it all has to do with me being the light of your life. I've noticed that now that you're a baby on the go most of the pictures I have of you are a blur, and your 9 month "photo shoot" ended up in a hilarious sequence of you crawling towards me and ripping the number off the pillow.

I'm not sure what constitutes a baby tooth, but I can see the tops of your two bottom front teeth have popped through the skin and are just sitting there waiting to fully pop up. You have tried quite the gambit of food, still mostly purees, and by no surprise you enjoy all the fruit blends more than the vegetables. We just recently tried a beef/butternut squash/rice blend and I have never heard so much gagging and carrying on. So SORRY to offend your palette. You started on the little puffs and the first time you picked it up and put it in your mouth I legitimately felt like you were now 18 years old and about to move out of the house to go to college. SUCH A BIG BOY! You still chew only on the bottom of sippy cups, and haven't quite gotten the hang out of sipping from the lid. You do enjoy taking sips out of my cups of water, which generally stops me from drinking since it is almost always covered in drool. The only non pureed foods you've tried, besides puffs, have been banana and avocado. Your face with both was NOT pleasant, I think the texture was strange to you. You have definitely become a much better eater (as long as there is a fruit involved...) and I'm excited to see what foods you'll come to enjoy.

Your babbling has become just a wee bit on the loud side, encroaching onto full on screaming. It is very sweet that you've learned to say dadadadada, but if you could say it at times other than at 4 am, that would be great. You've definitely started mimicking inflections of voices with your noises, and I think there's a good possibility that you could add mama to your list here any time soon (CROSSING FINGERS).

You have really started to get into reading books, especially before naps and bedtime and your favorite one right now is called "Where Is Baby's Belly Button", a lift the flap book. Your face at the end when the baby is under the blanket is a lot like you're Sherlock Holmes and you solved a great mystery. I don't think you have one specific toy that you like more than the others, but I have noticed that you are very intrigued with paper. There was one Sunday that I was holding you in church and you were leaning as far over the pew as possible to try and get the Portals of Prayer from the pew in front of us, I'm hoping the owner didn't notice the drool stains on the front.

Overall, you've become quite the happy baby most of the time, and I can't believe how much you've grown in such a short amount of time. Before we know it, we'll be putting your 1st birthday party together for July and I'll be sobbing about how big you are.