9 months!

Jay turned 9 months old this past Friday!

My has he come quite a ways! And boy has it gone fast!


He's graduated from the military crawl to a real crawl (which we almost thought he was going to skip as he showed us he could do the actual crawl but seemed to prefer the military crawl as it was faster, lol...). He's gotten REALLY fast too, as I'll come in from the kitchen in the time it takes me to walk to my room and start getting my shoes off he'll be right there, having followed me!


We're letting him try "real" food from time to time so long as it's something easy for him to chew and not something we need to worry about him choking on easily.

He's cruising along the furniture like a pro and has the whole pulling himself up thing down pat, although he still is hesitant sometimes about plopping down on his bottom when he doesn't want to stand anymore. We've taught him the "correct" way to slide down off the couch, however he still likes to dive head first over us, with us grabbing onto him and letting him down slowly so he doesn't get hurt, lol...

He's got seven - 7! - teeth now. The 4 middle ones on top and 3 in the middle on the bottom (the odd one being on his left side).

He's been quite amusing this past week when hubby's watched him.

One night he stood at the gate on top of our stairs and proceeded to throw toys down the stairs at Tiger (our cat) who was just chilling on the steps. She would give him this look like "uh... what are you doing?" and then move further down the stairs - everytime that happened Jay would bust out laughing! And then today, hubby said Jay pulled his phone off the coffee table and was crawling around with it, carrying it by the case. When it rang, Jay started dancing around to the ringtone! LOL...

He says words here and there. He's responded with an "oookay!" several times when we've told or asked him things and he often says "heeeeeey!" like he's Arthur Fonzerelli (aka The Fonz) from Happy Days. He also likes to clap, do the "soooo big!" arm motion, and give high 5's (although he doesn't often give them to females, lol... must be a guy thing!).

He's very close to walking - he's been getting gutsy lately while cruising between the coffee table and the couch, holding onto nothing but my finger as he goes from one to the other. My mom said he was walking holding on my dad's hands the other day too.

He LOVES the show Super Why on PBS and Sprout, as well as Thomas the Train and Nina and Star on Sprout's The Goodnight Show. I read an article recently that stated that babies don't know what they're watching on TV other than it's a glowing box, however seeing how excited Jay is when he sees Super Why is on or how he dashes across the kitchen in his walker to the spot where he can see the TV when the Thomas theme song comes on... yeah, my kid can tell the difference between the shows. There's plenty of shows and segments on Sprout he doesn't care for and would rather pay attention to his toys (or mommy's photo albums or the laptop cords in the corner of the room!) but when something he likes does come on, he's right there checking it out! Sesame Street is another example - he'll watch when Elmo or Grover are on the screen, but the non-puppet segments or segments with other characters on... yeah, he has no interest. He only likes to watch when Grover or Elmo are on.

This month I moved our Pack and Play into the family (from our bedroom) as 1 day I just had a really bad headache and just wanted to lay down but Jay wanted to get into EVERYTHING he wasn't supposed to. So I moved it out there, put more of his toys in it and had kids shows on TV in case one of his favorites came on and he sat and entertained himself without me having to worry while I relaxed. It's come in handy in the mornings too, as he wakes up earlier than I would like and this way, if he doesn't want to snuggle with mommy I can put him in there and he can play safely while I nap 3 feet away on the couch.
I also let him play with my small pot and frying pan too - he enjoys banging on those and carrying them around the kitchen and family room!

He's been enjoying his touch and feel animal book too, regularly flipping through that one and touching all the textures in the book. He likes it when I read it to him, making the animal sounds - especially the monkey's "ooh ooh, ahh ahh" (he cracks up everytime I do it!). He also seems to enjoy flipping through his other board books too, which is neat! I hope he grows up enjoying reading as much as hubby and I did and still do!

He's also fascinated with his wipey warmer, opening and closing the part where you put the wipes in as well as the lid, as he's figured out how to press the button to make it pop up - makes changing him even more of a pain now, lol...

Wednesday is a busy day for us - Jay has his 9 month check-up (I'm guessing he's at least 20lbs, as he was 18lbs back in September) AND I'm taking him to see Sesame Street Live! I'm hoping he'll enjoy it, although he's free since he's under 1.