Marshall: Nine Months

Happy nine months, Marshall!

You weighed 20 lbs 5 oz at your last appointment (around 60th percentile) and were 30 inches tall (95th percentile--tall boy!). You've really leaned out since you started crawling! Thank goodness you still have those chunky legs, although they may not last too much longer!

This month opened up lots of new, fun opportunities for you. Your smile and laugh brighten our days, and your sweet face when you sleep gives me a sense of peace I never knew before you came along.

(I know the day will come when I won't want you to fall asleep on me anymore, but that day isn't here yet.)

You're quickly becoming a pro at crawling, exploring the house more and learning how to conquer previously daunting obstacles, like daddy's legs. You love opening and closing doors, cabinets, and drawers. We haven't really baby-proofed those yet (we just keep an eye on you and only put baby-safe stuff in the low shelves/drawers). Your favorite toys seem to be balls of any size or material, board books, anything you shouldn't play with, toys that play music, and rattles. Oh, and of course your favorite: the lion!

You clapped one day this month and haven't done it since. That was a fun day. But you did learn to turn pages in books and seem to love doing that now when we read to you!

You're getting better at eating on your own, too! You shove as much food as you can into your mouth, so we have to give you one or two pieces at a time and wait for you to swallow. You then grunt/whine loudly until we give you more. Restaurants are not really fun these days because you get excited (and loud) or grumpy (and loud). This month you started working on your pincer grip, occasionally grabbing small pieces of food between your thumb and forefinger. Impressive, little dude! You also started showing a bit of preference in tastes; you can indicate foods you aren't as excited about (tart yogurt) and foods you love (everything else). We get excited to feed you new foods in new ways, and we're at a point where you can eat almost everything we do.

You've developed some quirky habits and continued old ones. You wag your head side to side, like you're saying no, but we can't figure out why. We thought it was a tired sign, and maybe it is, but you do it all the time. It's adorable but a little weird. You also scream loudly, either out of pleasure or frustration, and you are LOUD. You like to blow raspberries and stick your tongue out, too. You also stood up once this month and then never did it again.

Oh, and you got a tooth! Your first tooth was bottom left. It's sharp and tiny and seemed to bother you only a little bit (you kept us up one or two nights to yell about it, but from what I hear it's pretty brutal pain, so we tried to be patient).

Sometimes I catch glimpses of you and you don't look like a little baby; you already look like a little boy. I know you're still small, and I know we have time to giggle and crawl with you and cuddle when your teeth hurt and laugh as you react to new foods. But I also can't help but think how far you've come since your arrival into this world and how quickly it's all gone. Thanks for being so fun, so humbling, so sweet, so unpredictable, so lively, so silly, so curious, so you.

We love you!