9.5 Months

All I can say is wow.  My little one is growing up.  Too fast of course.  Sometimes I feel like I'm having a conversation with him, and that is awesome.  I'm really enjoying this time in our lives.  He is too because he absolutely loves being around his Nana & Papa & cousins all of the time.  No matter where he turns, there is someone there that adores him.  (In addition to his mother).

He's doing this thing where he will mimic our saying "Hm?"  We will go back & forth, I will post a video of it soon.  He's babbling a lot.  Still the same baba, dada, gaga, meme but lots more of it.  Yesterday & today, apparently he said "meme" all day.  His new thing - saying bye!!  He will wave & say "Baba!" 

At restaurants now, his favorite place to be is in his highchair.  He turns around as if to face his audience & surveys the room, stares at the other patrons until they engage him.  Then he waves & smiles & laughes.  What a performer.  The other night we were out on a Friday night.  Girls flocked to him all night.  Marcus told me to be careful leaving them alone. 

He loves bath time now.  Because he can sit up & hit the bubbles & the water & play with toys. 

He is eating almost everything these days.  All of a sudden it was time to move from fruit & veggies to everything else, and I was so not ready.  I mean I felt like I was just getting used to the veggie thing, and he hadn't even started fruits with me (His babysitter fed him some bites of fruit).  We are adjusting well though.  He loves everything we put in his mouth, especially if it's something we're eating.  He's eaten rice & beans, chicken, mac & cheese, mashed potatoes, turkey, whole wheat bread, strawberries & bananas, guacamole, & pears.  This weekend he had some Chicken Poblano soup from one of our restaurants.  It was so spicy that when Marcus got back to the table he rushed to stop me from letting him try it.  But I had already, and he loved it!  We also realized today that he loves black & green olives. 

We put him in a swing for the first time a few weeks ago.  He was a little afraid at first, but now he loves it. 

He is just so so happy all of the time.  Except at bedtime.  The smiles disappear when he can't play anymore & when mommy & daddy leave him alone in the room.  We are trying lots of different things to get him to go to sleep & keep him asleep, but that's a whole other post too. 

He loves pulling up so much that he does it when he's half asleep.  He never trys to crawl; he only refines his pulling up & standing skills.  He's getting pretty good at it.

I just love him so much.  I am so lucky.