nine months with our man

1. He stopped napping.  Waaaah! It seems like he must have been going through a growth spurt or something around the time he hit 8 months because putting him down for a nap was a cinch. Now, he shows all the signs and even rests his little head on my shoulder all the way to his room.  And even while I sing him a little song or just hold him and sway, but the second I make the motion downward towards his crib, he looses it.  The white noise used to at least surprise him and he would just lay there listening to it and eventually fall asleep,  but nope not now.  His screams are so loud that he can't even hear it anymore (or stop crying long enough to realize the calming sounds of our noise machine).  The only way he'll nap with us now are if Joel takes him for a drive (such a gift that man is to me) or if I just feed him early and he'll sleep while he's latched (if I try to unlatch and bring him to his crib once he's out, cries erupt.) There are times where it really gets me down that he won't nap for us, but a few days ago while he was eating/sleeping for his nap, I looked down and thought how wonderful it was that he was here and happy and how much joy he brings to our lives, as cliche and overused as that is. But it's just the truth. As exhausting as it is to entertain/tote around a 9-month-old for hours on end, I know my window is small, so I'll take it gladly (with minimal venting here and there. :) ) and be thankful that Judah sleeps wonderfully at night, has a wonderful temperament, and smiles and gets excited at the smallest things. I love that boy so dang much.
   
   
2. He is babbling up a storm. I wish I could record all the sounds he makes and expressions he gives.  When we play on the floor, he fills the room with sounds like "ba-ba," "da-da," "ah-oh," "coooo" and the occasionally screech and scream.  Joel likes to take his sounds and turn them into words that fit the situation we're in.  It's so funny and usually very fitting. 
   
   
3. Right now, he is obsessed with doors.  Anytime we let him loose to explore the house, he eventually makes his way to one of the 80 doors we seem to have in our house.  You never realize how much of something you have until your baby tries to open and close them constantly.  The funniest thing to watch him do right now is open a big door and then crawl over and then close it and then crawl over and open it and so on and so on.  It takes so much effort for him to do it when it's something that I don't even think about when I'm doing.
   
   
4. He is a baby gate Houdini. We got one of those play gates and enclosed an area after spending an entire weekend chasing him around the house.  Little sucker is fast.  Well we don't close it so he has most of our living room to explore and we just put one end around a chair and the other end touching our loveseat with our ottoman holding it shut.  He gets antsy about once or twice a day and wants out, so once I'm distracted with something else, I all of a sudden hear a lot of grunting only to look over and see two tiny feet disappearing. I don't know how he moves the ottoman and gets through!  But after that I usually chase him on all fours while he looks back grinning and then scurries toward the next open door.
   
   
5. Little man is pulling up!  He also treats us as his person jungle gym.  Anytime we're on the ground with them, he'll be playing with something and then he gets this look on his face and darts toward us, mouth open panting.  He'll then just crawl up and stand using our arms, legs, stomach, head, etc.  Also, if we're on the couch or chairs, you suddenly see these little fingers grasping at our piping and then his head appears.  Of course he terrifies us when he gets bored from standing because he'll just let himself fall to the side or back.   Thankfully, we're able to catch him in time or he lands on a pillow (wiiiiith the exception of a couple times...whoops).