Nine Months

And, here we are!  Nine months later.  The fun is only just beginning! 

Climbing is his new favorite pasttime.  He climbs entire flights of stairs with ease.  He has moved on to improvising stairs out of common household objects.  For example, he used the toybox as a stepladder to get himself onto the coffee table.  He used the Christmas decoration boxes as a stepladder to get his hands up onto the kitchen counter.  If it even remotely resembles stairs, he will climb them.

He figured out how to clap on command. When you say "hooray!", he claps with gusto in response. He also sometimes claps for Daddy when he does football signals for him. Touchdown and illegal procedure are especially worthy of applause (and laughing).

He really enjoys chasing his big brother around, or if this brother isn't around, he also likes to torment the dog.  She continues to be a great sport as he sits and jingles the tags on her collar or uses her collar as a way to pull himself to standing.

He's still very much into things that roll -- balls, cars, etc.  We can spend quite a long time racing cars across the kitchen floor and rolling balls down the treadmill while LB laughs and laughs. 

We've moved onto eating a lot of finger foods.  He likes noodles and all types of canned fruits, plus steamed veggies, Saturday morning oatmeal pancakes and, of course, Cheerios and Puffs.  He gets three meals a day of solids now, plus a bedtime snack and around 24 ounces of formula.

Sleeping might be getting a little better.  We re-discovered that he has a white-noise toy and the sound of falling rain as we lay him down in his crib seems to help him settle into comfortable slumber.  He realizes that he's been tricked into sleeping in his own bed a few hours later, but at least I'm getting to lay down in my own bed for a few hours a night now (up from about 15 minutes per night, so that's definitely progress).

We saw the pediatrician today and here are his stats:

• Height - 29 inches (75th percentile)
• Weight - 18 lbs, 7 oz (30th percentile)
• Head - 17.25 inches (17th percentile)

We opened up the 12 month clothing bin (his big brother's hand-me-downs) and it was all shorts and t-shirts, so it looks like he's going to luck out and get himself a new wardrobe again in this size.   One day, I'll open the hand-me-down bin and actually find things that are in season!!

Oh, and we went and got him his first pair of shoes.  Size 3.5 Wide.  Isn't he snazzy?