Nine Months

New Year, Nine Months!

This little explorer is pulling himself up (confidently to his knees, cautiously to his feet), bouncing/dancing to music, hiding and finding things, and crawling like a maniac all over the place! When he wants something, he is FAST. Pulls himself up on our legs and loves it when Daddy comes home from work and they play! He likes turning the pages in his books and knocking down block towers. He weighed in at 19 lbs at his 9 month checkup, so hasn't gained too much in the past 3 months (around 18 at 6 months), but this is still normal. He decided to learn how to crawl up stairs ALL BY HIMSELF (we had finished a class and I left him with friends to go pull up the car since it was a super cold day, and found out he had followed someone up the 3 little stairs at the studio!) and now likes to practice stairs at some of our favourite places to go (Baby and Me Fitness, Children's Storefront). He has learned how to hold his cup by himself too and likes drinking water from it at dinner.

Gavin got a pretty bad cold, enough to take him to the doctor because of his bad cough. Just a virus so nothing to worry about, but it meant a week off of classes to not spread germs, followed by a week of Mommy being sick, so no classes again! January was a long month of going a bit stir crazy in the condo...super cold outside most days but we try to get to classes or the Storefront as much as possible. Gavin's best friend is David, born 7 hours earlier on March 31! They are very similar in mannerisms and it's nice to be able to talk to his mom about going through the same stages. We meet up at Baby and Me classes and the Storefront for lunches and playtime. Gavin's favourite soup at the Storefront is the split pea soup! He loves playing in the basement with the kitchen set, climbing the little steps to the book area and pulling books off the shelf and will play with and kiss the baby dolls. So cute! He also went through a "scrunchy face" stage:

He seems to know what we mean when we say "be careful" and will consistently "sit down" when told. "No" is sometimes listened to, sometimes not! He has started clapping which is the cutest thing in the world, and might be close to signing "more". Bedtime has been challenging - maybe we are trying to get him down too early since he will often nurse but then pull away wide awake and want to play. Sometimes we'll just let him play to get his energy out and find it's best to wait until he's SUPER tired before even trying to nurse him down. Had one 6 hour stretch of sleep this month!!! Unless I fed him in my sleep and never remembered...