Nine Months

Felix turned 9 months old on Monday.  Wow!  Every day he's getting bigger (chubbing up, even), and doing more and more things.  He figured out how to say ba and ma last weekend (which have been added to his repetoire of repeated-sound babbles and growls).  Still no crawling per se, but he is able to move himself backward very slowly.  That's progress, I guess.  He's much better about tummy time now, and rocks when on hands and knees, but he hasn't figured out how to use his hands for movement yet.  He wants to stand up more than anything, and last night surprised us when he was standing holding on to a bar stool - he took his hands off the stool and made to step toward me before tumbling into my lap.  It gave Nick and I an "OMG, are you about to walk?!" shock.  Maybe he'll end up walking instead of crawling.

He may finally be getting a long-awaited pearly white.  He's certainly showing all sorts of signs (again).  Drooling, crying at night*, but now it looks like his gums are a little swollen and red.  Maybe soon!  *Felix has been waking up at around 4 am the last few nights, pretty wide awake.  We tried letting him cry himself to sleep one night (after giving him baby tylenol and baby orajel), but I didn't like doing that.  Last night, I rocked him back to sleep for a half hour.  I really hope that this waking at 4 doesn't become a habit.

We go to the doctor this afternoon for his 9-month checkup.  Dreaded shots, but this time is a little disconcerting also because I had to fill out a developmental survey for him.  Is he doing this or that, how often, that sort of thing.  Nothing like making me feel like my baby's behind in some way.  Sheesh.  We'll see how it goes, plus get his length/weight for the baby book.

Felix: 9 mos