9 Months Old

William turned 9 months old on Friday and is into everything these days! Most of his recent new tricks have occurred over the past 2 weeks, my favorite one being in the vocal department. His "first words" were "baba" followed by "mama." My heart was a puddle on the floor the first time I heard the words "mama" come out of that tiny little mouth. I realize he doesn't associate "mama" with me but it's music to my ears. I do think he understands that "baba" means bottle. He has the highest, squeakiest little voice. The funniest is when he mouths the words "baba" or "mama" but nothing comes out. We took these pictures right after he woke up from his morning nap so his eyes are still a little swollen from his siesta ;)

He still claps and waves but he hasn't done any head nodding yet. He's crawling everywhere and pulling up on anything and everything! The other day I was rolling around on the floor with him and he stood up using my big toe as his prop. As of last night he can also stand unassisted for about 5 seconds, but when he realizes he's not holding onto anything he freaks out and falls down! It's hilarious to watch.

 Saying "MAMA" in this pic. 

Not too much new to report in the eating arena. He continues to drink 6-7 oz. around 7am, 11am, 2pm, and 6pm. Right now I'm buying all organic Gerber baby food. I'm mainly writing about this because I know I'm going to laugh hysterically at myself when I read this a year from now because Grant and I are by NO means health freaks when it comes to all-natural foods. The way I look at it is organic is about 30 cents more a food serving so why not?! He eats banana baby food every morning around 8. I'm really trying to branch out and introduce more fruits but he LOVES bananas. At noon, he has banana oatmeal which is his all time favorite. When he gets really excited about something he shrugs his shoulders and rocks back and forth. He always does this while eating his banana oatmeal. At dinner (around 5pm) he has a mixed pack of Gerber organic carrots, squash, and apples mixed WITH bananas (GROSS). He won't eat it unless I mix in the bananas. I'll do anything to get those veggies down! I've got to introduce green beans/peas/spinach next, but I have a feeling that's going to be a battle. We've tried several finger foods like puffs, Gerber wagon wheels, MumMums, and cheerios but he's just not ready or maybe it's US that aren't ready :) I get so paranoid about him choking. I need to take a CPR course!

 "BABA"

He's got FIVE teeth total. 2 up top, 2 on the bottom, and 1 more cutting through on the top. He never acts overly phased by the teeth but he does have spurts when he's more fussy than usual and we give him Tylenol/Ibuprofen before bed. I can always tell when he's cutting a tooth because everything goes in his mouth and he drools a ton!

William goes to sleep most nights between 7-8pm. He's still very hard to get down at night and for naps. We're finally letting him cry it out at night which rips our hearts out but it's necessary. He usually doesn't cry for more than about 5 minutes. When he's home with me, he usually goes down for a nap around 9am and then another one around 1pm. At school, the child DOES NOT NAP. His teachers said he's having way too much fun to nap. However, this means when he gets home from school he is grumpy Gus and not too pleasant to be around. They are working on getting him to nap at school but they haven't won that battle yet ;)

When he wakes up in the morning or from a nap he's always standing up and JUMPING up and down until we get him out. 

He's become very attached to Mommy and Daddy. If I leave the room he cries. It usually only lasts for about a minute until he sees me flash through the room again, but he is definitely experiencing some separation anxiety. He cried when I dropped him off at school for about 2 weeks but this past week he didn't cry, so maybe he's over that...I hope. 

Like I said at the beginning of this post, he's one wild little boy and he keeps us on our toes!