9 months

My littlest little has now been in this world as long as he was in my belly.  It's probably just coincidence, but just as we tipped those scales he has seemed to cling to me for dear life.  Yep, separation anxiety hit big time at the end of the last month.  Now I have two boys who sometimes desperately want to get away, explore, find their own way, then seem to panic and want to run to home base.  I love being home base.  I hope all my boys know that I always have their back, that they are always safe with me, that where ever I am there will always be a home base.  I could skip the part where they turn and panic and scramble over each other to get there though.  Ahh, all in good time I guess.

I asked DH for a word that describes NB this last month.  He's always good for helping me complete that part of NB's baby book, and I love having his input to record.  This month we were both kind of at a loss.  "Louder?" he offered. "Communicative?' I countered.   Neither seemed exactly right.  Frankly, I'm hoping something better will come to me as I write this.  I think DH's suggestion was referring to NB's cries of protest as we turn away from him even for a second.  He has also taken to crying in the car unless it's moving.  It's kind of comical actually.  From the moment we hit a full stop to the moment I hit the gas again he cries, then turns it off like a switch. His crawling has not served him well during this phase.  He will crawl out of our sight to investigate a shoe or LO's toys, then find himself too far away and not able to return as quickly as he'd like.  He still does the worm when he crawls and has only gotten slightly more efficient at it. Occasionally I find him on all fours, but then he slides down to his belly to scoot along.

In addition to his cries of protest, he has also begun to communicate with me in a few ways.  I get so excited when my babies reach this stage.  Any indication of what's going on in that little head is such a huge help!  I have been using a few signs with NB and I thought he might have picked up on the one for "milk," but I'm not certain.  In the last week or so though he has been more likely to pat my chest when he is hungry.  He has also seemed to wave bye at a couple of appropriate times.  I'm not sure it was intentional initially,  but I cheered like crazy and I think he's getting the idea.  Lastly he will give me "five," sort of.  He hits my hand if I hold it out, but will also pat it repeatedly. His last new hand move is sort of like washing or wringing them.  He did this a few days ago while LO was washing his hands and that's when I noticed the similarity.  Our potty learning has led to a lot of hand washing lately, and NB is often in my arms for that.  Maybe he is mimicking it?  Anyway, this has been neat for me to see and fun to encourage, but with all my hedging of whether he is really meaning what it looks like he's doing, it's hard to really call it "communication."

There aren't too many more things to explain about our little guy's last month that I haven't already mentioned in the year end and Christmas posts.  Here are a few other noteworthy tidbits:

He loves books (especially eating them), but also always feels or scratches the pages so I try to read him touch and feel books or ones with cut outs.

He shakes or pats things to check them out before mouthing them.

He often shakes his head "no," rocks, bounces, thrusts himself forward, or hang upside down.   Sometimes he does several of these at once.

His official stats will be available next week, but the bathroom scale says he's about 18 1/2 lbs

We've dropped his third nap, but still keep him up until about 7-7:30 to accommodate LO's bath and bedtime.  This makes for one cranky baby some nights.

He has met some doggies and kitties this past month.  He liked the dog (Sam and Patrick's dog, Buddy) until he got kisses in the face (twice) and now he's a little shy about them.  That could also be a "stranger" anxiety thing too, so I hope he'll work it out. For what it's worth, he got scared by a toy dog that rolls and laughs too.  LO was playing with it today, then screamed when it moved unexpectedly, so NB screamed too.  That doggie is in the dog house now! He is intrigued by the kitty.

At night when I am rocking him to sleep he has several times raised his little head up and given me sloppy "kisses" then just giggled as his mouth bounced around my face. I wonder if he knows it's really hard to put a giggly kissing baby to bed.

A couple of more things he does just like his brother: 1) flicking the springy doorstops or mouthing them 2) opening and closing doors (lately the doors on LO's toy kitchen) 3) playing in the bottoms of the curtains as they hang down over his face 4) crawling in the refrigerator and dishwasher doors.

I think he has more hair than LO did at this age.  The curls at the top are getting a little unruly, but I just can't cut them until his birthday.  I hope one day he will understand.

Eyes=hazel, with colors like his Papa's

Hair=still red, officially from second cousins on both sides...who knew?

Here are several pics of my 9 month old baby boy.  He has gotten more expressive, don't you think?

Look at those curls on top.  There are some on the back and sides too!

 

The talent is getting sleepy....

Just had to finish with this one.  It says a lot to me.  NB reaching out for LO, and LO looking at his nails to see if he can convince me they need clipping (aka time to watch garbage trucks on YouTube)

I can't wait to see if the next month brings a first tooth, some real crawling, or something else exciting!