What I love about Caleb at 9 months old

I'm 2 days late on this post, but better late than never.

Caleb is now 9 months old, can you believe it? I can just feel his first birthday getting closer and closer. Charles and I have been making some plans for this summer and it is so strange to think that Caleb will already be one. The past 9 months have flown by so much faster than the previous 9 months. I remember feeling like time was standing still when we were counting down the days until we'd get to meet Caleb, and now time is going by much to quickly. Before I know it, he'll be 5 or 10 or 15. Wow, don't want to think about that.

And while time has sped past, I have loved every minute of the last 9 months. Ok ... maybe not every single minute, but most.

And these are the things I love about Caleb at 9 months old.

*He's definitely what you'd call mobile (has been for awhile) but it was just in the past few weeks that he figured out how to go from lying down to sitting up and sitting up to lying down. So now, no matter how I put him on the ground, he's on the move ... and let me just say ... he is so fast. It's much more tiring, chasing him around all day, but I love watching him explore new things.

*He is now pulling himself to a stand! On anything and everything. Furniture, toys, highchair, people ... pretty much anything that is higher up than him, which is pretty much everything. He's just one step closer to walking. I have a feeling that will happen before his first birthday.

*We are pretty much done completely with baby food. Which makes it much easier for us to eat meals together as a family, which is fun.

*He has said his first word!! although to be honest, I'm not sure it's intentional. He says, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba alot, like all the time. And recently, if we wave and tell him to say bye-bye he will sometimes wave and say ba-ba. That kind of sounds like bye-bye right? Just humor me :)

*He still loves books, but has recently started preferring some books over others. There have always been books that I think he likes better than others, but now, if I start reading a book and he doesn't want to hear it, he will reach up and close it. It is so cute!! And I'm just like, "Ok you don't want this one" and I grab another book and he'll sit there and listen without touching it at all.

I love that we get to spend our days together and that he's getting big enough to do more. He has a swing in the tree out front that he loves. He loves going on walks, and playing with his toys. He thinks he's such a big boy when I go into his room to get him and he's just standing there in his crib, watching the door. I walk in and he gets this look on his face, and I can just hear him thinking, " Can you believe this? Look how tall I am?"

My sweet boy,
You are getting so big and learning so many new things right now. Before long you'll be toddling around the house. It makes me happy to see you growing so healthy and strong. I'm so happy that God gave you to me and that I get to be your mama. I love you baby.

A few things worth mentioning

There hasn't been much going on around here lately. But a few things worth mentioning.

My sweet husband brought me some flowers when he came home from work the other day. I love when he brings me flowers for no reason.



Caleb is really enjoying the warmer weather and his new swing.









He also got to play in the grass for the first time this week. He loved pulling it up and trying to eat it, but was scared to crawl on it. As soon as he would put his hand down, he would sit right back up again.









And he has learned in the past week how to go from lying down to sitting up on his own, and has started pulling himself to a stand. It took him a few days to realize that he could do both of these things in his crib, but now that he's figured it out he spends at least 15 or 20 minutes before each nap sitting in his crib, then standing in his crib before he finally lies down and goes to sleep.



He's getting so big and I feel like it won't be long before he's walking. We'll see. Although on another note, he still has no teeth, go figure. But that certainly doesn't stop him from eating all kinds of things. His favorite foods right now are bananas, sweet potatoes, plums (I kid you not, he ate a whole plum the other day ... I peeled it, handed it over, and took it away when there was nothing left but the pit) and any of the gerber snacks (which probably aren't that great for him, but very convenient).

A Little Update

Here's what Caleb's days look like now that he's 8 (almost 9) months old.

He wakes up around 8am. I worked really hard to get him to sleep this late because I am so not a morning person. When he was younger I was lucky if he'd sleep until 6am, but for the past few months it's been 8am, which is wonderful.

He gets a dry diaper (it's normally SOAKED) and a bottle. Then he has breakfast. He does really great with finger foods, so that's mostly what he eats. Breakfast is normally cereal (cheerios or something similar), whole grain waffles, toast, banana (or other fruit), or yogurt.

Then we play until naptime, which is 9:45am.

When he wakes up he has solo playtime in his playpen. At first he didn't like being put in his playpen, but he has no problems with it now. He happily plays while I do things around the house.

Next is a bottle and lunch. Again, mostly finger foods. A normal lunch for him would be rice crackers with cream cheese or hummus, gerber lil' crunchies, fruit of some kind (banana, plum, peach, mango, watermelon, cantelope, etc.) and a veggie (peas, carrots, sweet potato, etc.)

Then if it's a nice day, we go outside. Caleb has a swing in the tree out front and he loves it. We may also run errands or do something fun, like go to the park or zoo.

Naptime again around 1:30.

Bottle around 4:00pm.

Dinner at 5:00 or 5:30pm. Again finger foods, or maybe some of whatever we are having.

We start getting ready for bed at 7:00pm : bath, PJs, bottle, stories, prayers

He's normally in bed by 8:00pm.

Things have really calmed down alot in the last few months. For the first 6 months or so I always felt like as soon as things calmed down, they changed again. His schedule would finally get fairly consistent (as far as eating and naps) and then he'd need to eat more or sleep less, and I'd have to start back at square one trying to figure out what worked best. But now I feel like things really have gotten consistent. And hopefully will stay that way for at least another few months.

I can't believe he's almost 9 months old. That seems so close to 1 and there is just no way he is anywhere close to 1 ... he was just born ... gosh!

Anyways, this was probably boring for most, but I like to have written down what his days looked like at different ages.

I'll take/post some pictures of Caleb in his new swing in the next few days.

Lions and Tigers and Bears , Oh My!

I've fallen behind ... again. Apparently I'm not very good at this blogging thing. Things get busy or we get sick (which is what happened this past week ... stomach bug ... not pretty) or we just have other things to do.

But oh well, better late than never.

After some very cold weather this winter we had the most beautiful weekend, so we decided a trip to the zoo was in order. It was the first weekend of spring break around here and the first gorgeous Saturday in awhile, so I knew it would be crowded, but that didn't stop us. (and honestly, it wasn't that crowded)

So off we went, along with my sister-in-law, her husband and their son (Caleb's cousin). We had a wonderful afternoon just being outside, and Caleb really enjoyed looking at the animals this time. Remember our last zoo trip.

I think he enjoys riding in his stroller and watching all the other people more than he likes seeing the animals (most of them are so far away).

Here are a few pictures from our day.















And, just so you know, I'm going to try and do better (again) at keeping this thing up to date, but I'm not making any promises this time ... spring is coming, and we have other things to do!

Like Father, Like Son

I think we've got a future Razorback fan on our hands.