9 Months

As we recovered from ringing in the new year, our little chunky butt turned 9 months old.  He also became mobile.  Sunday or Monday he figured out how to pull himself forward instead or pushing backwards. It's an army crawl, but it's efficient.  He gets where he wants to be.  He also tries desparately to pull himself up on stuff.  He isn't quite strong enough to get his chunky butt up yet, but it's not from lack of trying.  

I noticed a lot of changes in Connor while I was home on break.  He definitely got more curious in the 10 days I was home.  We went to the grocery store and used one of the carts with the cars on the front for kids.  (I hate these carts....but that's another story for a different day.)  This cart in particular had 2 seats at the top for infants.  The problem with this scenario is that it puts Connor closer to the edge. This is ordinarily not a problem, but this was the day that Connor decided to be curious about EVERYTHING.  We had a couple of near misses with him grabbing stuff on shelves.  I had to remove him from the cart at checkout and hold him because he could reach waaaay too many cool things.  

The combination of these 2 new characteristics is that Connor is content to crawl around on the floor and explore the toys that Kaden has laying out.  We've had some minor incidents where Kaden takes something away from him and makes Connor less than happy, but Kaden quickly learned to give him one of his own toys to help diffuse the situation.  

Connor continues his stellar eating skills.  I don't think we've found anything that he WON'T eat.  The latest is that he wants to feed himself.  So we are officially on full table food.  We keep canned veggies and fruits in the fridge to start him off each meal.  Kaden likes canned carrots, so we started with those, but we did mixed veggies this week.  He also likes fruit cocktail.  Then, Connor usually gets some of what we are having for supper.  If supper is not ready yet, we will give him leftovers from a previous meal.  When supper gets ready, however, he still insists on sharing my meal.  I am jokingly calling this my weight loss plan for 2012.  He's pretty demanding when he decides he is going to eat my food.

We pushed a new tooth through last weekend too.  We found it on New Year's Day.  It isn't one of the top two, it is to the right. The top two are soooo dangerously close to pushing through.  This week you could see white on the corners, but they weren't through.  Yesterday you could see the white line of the one, but it still wasn't through.  Someday?  We have been using tylenol and ibuprofen a lot to dull the ache, and he has stayed pretty happy for the most part.  I really wish they'd just come through already.

Overall Connor is a pretty happy baby, but when he wants something, watch out.  He can scream like a 4 year old!  We usually only have problems when he is getting hungry and I'm trying to finish something up before I sit down to nurse him.  

We are talking a bit.  Dadada, mamama, and nanana mainly.  He seems to use dadada appropriately.  He likes to say dadada while he rubs his had on daddy's goatee.  We are starting to mix the 18 month clothes in as the 12 month clothes get too small.  We still don't wear shoes yet.  There is no need to.   He wears the 24 month Cars winter coat that Kaden wore.  The first coat Kaden wore was way to small for Connor and the 24 month wasn't that big, so he is wearing it this winter.  

We still love the bath tub.  I put Kaden and Connor in together and they play while I fold laundry.  Connor is not afraid of the water at all.  He's the only kid I know that laughs when you pour water on his head.  He took his first shower with Chris the other day, and Connor was putting his own head into the spray from the shower head.  Silly kid. 

That's about all I can think of for now. Back to snuggling my slightly crabby and definitely teething little boy.