Good morning my love!
You slept all night, from 8 til 5 and now you're playing in your crib.
You're almost 9 months now!
You're crawling, pretty well..but mostly prefer to army crawl REALLY well.
You still love to stand and hop, and if we hold your hands you'll take steps all by yourself.
You are able to sit up from laying down, and I often find you that way in your crib when you're playing.
You make a lot of sounds. Sometimes you babble with mamamama and dadada and yayaya, you still say your HI sound and YEAH sound. You blow raspberries a lot.
You still hate puree foods, you seal your little mouth shut after the first bite. I thought you really liked bananas because you did actually keep opening your mouth for bites, but the next time I tried it, nope!
You seem like you'd love to eat 'real' food, but you aren't quite ready yet. You choke/gag and sometimes throw up when you get a TINY piece. You don't chew very well, or you don't know how to yet I guess.
Just yesterday I started making you 8 oz bottles and you drink the whole thing!
You are napping really well, usually 2 really long naps a day, maybe one other little nap usually in the morning.
You giggle a lot, and screech and squeal.. still no big belly laughs.
You don't have any little teeth yet..
You're very attached to the people you love, and of course you still really love the dogs.. they bring a smile to your face when nothing else seems to work.
You are really obsessed with specks on the floor (or wherever) and you use your pointer finger to try to get things you see. You're working on the 'pincer' grasp, your thumb isn't quite cooperating yet, but almost!
When you crawl you seem to want everything you shouldn't have.. cords, specks of dirt, strings on the carpet.
You love to hit me in the face with your pacifier, or your hands. sometimes you use your little pointer finger to touch my face and then SCRATCH me, it hurts! I'm trying to teach you to be gentle, but I have to be gentle too, because it scares you and makes you cry if I am not careful when I tell you no. Redirection and distraction are way better at this point than trying to teach you right from wrong.. you're too little for that yet.
In 2 days, Mommy and Daddy are going on a trip really far away, to Italy for your Aunt Rachel's wedding.
While I've been excited about the trip, which should be fabulous.. it's daunting to me to have to be away from you for that long, 9 days! The only other time I have been away from you was when you were only 8 days old and I had to go to the hospital for a few days. And I think the only other time I went a whole day/night without seeing you was when I had my gallbladder taken out in March.
I'm going to miss you so much. You are so precious to me, and you make every single day such a pleasure. We have so much fun, you're my little pal. I take you with me to lots of places now. We go on walks pretty much every day in your stroller. I still rock you to sleep, and for naps.. and I hold you a lot. My arms are going to feel so empty without you to grab up and love on. There's no better feeling in this world, than when I'm holding you and we're rocking.. and you're smiling and talking to me before you drift off to sleep. You smile so easy, and when you smile.. you smile with your entire body it seems. Your eyes light up and everything at that moment is perfect in the world.
I love you my little baby-son.. You are everything that is wonderful and perfect in my life, and I try my best to make you feel the same about me.
Love, Mommy
