Jack is Nine Months Old!

How is it possible that my baby boy has been outside at this point as long as he was inside? And can I just say how much faster these nine have gone compared with the first nine? I promised I wouldn't get all sappy about my last baby, but, HE'S MY LAST BABY. I'll never have an eight-month-old baby again :( 

As for Jack, nine months has been good to him so far! In the past week, he's begun standing for a second here and there on his own, which was a pretty quick precursor for Ava to walking - it seems like only weeks elapsed, if that, between her standing and then walking! I feel like this month is going to be a big one for him :)

At nine months, Jack:

- weighs roughly twenty pounds, though I'll have an exact weight after his well check Tuesday. Same for his height :)

- is fast as lightning when it comes to crawling, and is starting to move from an army crawl to a modified crawl on his knees...partially.

- has stood on his own on several occasions for a handful of seconds at a time.

- is cruising around on the furniture like a champ! He can move between the couch and coffee table and side table and chair in the blink of an eye. He can also pull himself up on anything - things you wouldn't imagine - even if it requires a hand over hand motion. It's really pretty impressive.

- says "mama", "dada", "baba", and "gee gee" (he says this often but we're still not sure what it means!).

- loves going to baby story time, reading books at home (or anywhere for that matter!), loves music toys and music, including tapping the piano downstairs with Ava, enjoys his mailbox toy downstairs, thinks jumping and bouncing in someone's arms is the best thing ever, and favors fake food from the play kitchen over just about anything else, particularly a pretend ketchup bottle. 

- is getting increasingly into trouble exploring things around the house. Some favorites include eating bunny bedding that's thrown out of the cage (eww), playing in the dog's water, pulling up on the toy organizer and getting into Ava's tiny toys, getting into absolutely anything of Ava's he can find, climbing underneath exersaucers and tables, etc. Definitely alllll boy.

- eats like he has a hollow leg or a parasite. Again, all boy. Still receives only breast milk - straight from "the tap", along with a mixture of solids from my plate and some baby food when he'll take it. Today, for example, he ate some of my oatmeal at breakfast, along with a teething biscuit made from organic kale, spinach and green apple. Later, he had a mixture of blueberries and raspberries cut to where they weren't a choking hazard, and for dinner with us, we had burritos, and he had rice, beans, shredded chicken and pieces of tortilla from them. I also fed him half a jar of baby food for some veggies. He's a great little eater! He nurses 6-10 times a day still as well, including a middle of the night feeding that I barely open my eyes for, thanks to co-sleeping.

- we still share a bed, and he sleeps facing me on his left side, which has made his hair pattern a bit laughable. One side is longer, while the other is rubbed off from consistently sleeping on just that one side. He likes to spoon and cuddle ;) So sweet!

- though he sleeps far better at night than Ava ever did, he doesn't exactly nap like a champ, with his preference to nap in my arms (not usually an option), or catnap in between errands or on the way home from a morning of playgroup, etc. Eh, you win some, you lose some. 

He's dwarfing that bear these days :P

Happy nine months, Jackson! We adore you, and couldn't imagine our lives without you. Though you've officially been on the outside as long as you were in, it feels as though you've been a part of our family forever!