Cedar is 9 months old today
Cedar is nine months old today. He's got more hair on top these days, and is starting to lean out a bit and lose some of his cute baby chubs.
He's been eating solids for about 2 months now. He's a pretty good eater and great about sitting still and opening his mouth wide, although lately he's getting more interested in getting his hands involved, and wants to grab the spoon and do it himself. You can tell he'd like to do more "chewing" with those new teeth, but since he's still not crazy about textures, he doesn't get far with trying chunkier things. Most of his attempts have consisted of him gagging/choking, so most of the time, I just stick with purees. During the past month, I made a ton of baby food from scratch, so he has various fruit blends apple/peach, apple/blueberry, apple/banana, apple/carrot, etc. His favorite still seems to be pears, with sweet potatoes or bananas as runner-ups. His favorite veggies are squash, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and carrots. He tolerates peas, but he's not crazy about them.
After getting all 4 upper teeth in the last couple of months, we had a break for a week or two. Now we're definitely back to teething, and he's working on some more bottom teeth. He currently has 7 teeth now, the 3 lower teeth, and 4 upper teeth. I suspect we'll see #8 any day now, which officially makes him the toothiest 9-month-old baby around. Poor guy...
The past couple of weeks have been full of catch-up developmental moves (mostly gross motor, so we'll call this the "Gross Motor Week"). He's sitting up like a pro, but still can't get there from a prone position. Since he figured out how to roll back and forth last week, he likes to roll over and back again. He'll roll one way and look at you. Then he'll roll the other way and look at you (see what I did?). He's still scooting backwards instead of forwards, but he's doing more push-up-y things right now and is getting his back end up a bit more. It looks like he's really close to figuring it out. Once he figures out how to get his feet in on the action, I think he'll be off in search of trouble to get into. I'm dreading the possibility of increased mobility.
Since he's so busy working on gross motor skills, he's usually content to work on that by himself, and thankfully is more able to entertain himself for longer periods of time than he used to. That makes my life a whole lot easier.
He really likes to play. His favorite toy is still the rainbow caterpillar rattle that Deb gave him. He still likes to play with his pacifier. He's also gotten better at grasping, so he really likes the soft balls that Grandma Q made him. If you drop them from above, he'll catch them. Another favorite toy is a water bottle that has a little bit of colored water in it. Aside from objects, he still is really into hand-play (a current favorite is clasping his hands together in front of him), and playing with his feet. He figured out how to clap the other day, and really gets into that too. He's starting to get the idea behind squeaker toys, and occasionally will hand me toys.
He still takes 2 naps during the day, although the times are shifting around a bit. One is usually around 11 or 12 (the long nap) and there's usually a shorter nap around 4 or 5. He still wakes up in the middle of the night, and since we've hit 8/9 months, he seems to be going through the sleep regression, which means most nights he's hard to put to sleep (would much rather learn how to sit up or work on crawling) and with the added joys of more teething, he's usually up at least twice. The considerate little devil will often sleep in until 9 AM most mornings, which is totally fine with me.
He's a very smiley, laugh-y, bouncy boy right now. He likes to bounce himself whether he's in a lap or in his high chair. He's always bobbing up and down. He still likes to be held and carried, but would rather face out if possible. He smiles and laughs about everything, and doesn't show any signs of stranger anxiety--when we're in public, he flirts with everyone. He's definitely a people-person.
Most of the time, it's easy to take him places because generally he likes the stimulation of being out and about. After getting all wound up, he still falls asleep in the car, especially if you're on the road for more than 15 minutes.
He's currently going through a phase where he's really into animals. He likes going to the park and seeing the ducks and geese and squirrels. When we walk around the neighborhood, he enjoys the dogs and cats. A few weeks ago, I took him to an Alpaca farm at Hood River, and he saw some additional farm animals on that trip. His eyes grew huge when he came face to face with a black Angus cow that came up to the fenceline. It had a big nose, and probably looked like a huge black dog. He giggled when it came sniffing near him.
Since he doesn't seem to have any stranger anxiety, and rarely has to endure any separation from me (since I'm not working), he's usually Mr. Happy-go-Lucky and generally only cries when he's really hungry or tired. He still thinks his daddy is the coolest thing ever, and likes to grab his beard and play wild games with a willing party.
His eyes are still grey but they're equally brown. They're kind of a hazel grey/brown. They haven't changed much lately, and I'm not sure that they're going to. I think they're kind of cool.
During the course of this month, he's going to have a lot of new experiences. Since I'm not working, I'm going to take him on a roadtrip to meet some of his relatives on the other coast. So among other things, he'll get to fly on a plane, and experience the beach (sand!).
Labels: baby
posted by freebox @ 2:40 PM
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