9 Months of Fun!

Ethan's 9th month was a blur of fun and energy (his, that is!)...His crawling is in full effect now, which means we are constantly on the go at all times! He wants to be wherever we are, following us around as we move from room to room. He especially likes to "help out" in kitchen when we're working on dinner, which makes me nervous. He likes to crawl up to us and then use our pants or shorts to pull himself into a standing position and hold on to us. Needless to say, he wears us out! He is still sleeping well, with a short morning nap, a longer afternoon nap and then a 7:30 bedtime. He sleeps until 7 in the morning, too, which is nice for us!! :) Hey, I'll take it while I can get it! It's hard to believe that he's already 10 months old today!!! Even Ethan can't believe it!

He still loves playing with his dad...even when he puts him in strange objects for pictures.
We moved him to his big-boy car seat (I still need to get pics of him riding in it) and the box provided days and days of entertainment..."Dad? I know you're in there...I just saw you!"

He wasn't even scared to climb into this dark thing and be shut in there!

"There's Dad!!"

Another recent development is that he has discovered that he can jump on his mattress. He stands at the rail, holds on, and bounces. I guess it's a good thing no one lives below us...this might lead to a bad habit as he gets into his real bed!
Just having a good ol' time...I did have to finally take the mobile down. He kept pulling on the elephants and I was afraid he would break it!
He is doing well with eating. He's pretty comfortable using a sippy cup now, but it's hard to get him to sit still long enough to drink. He also doesn't understand to tilt it back yet, so he has to lay down to drink. It's a work in progress...This is prune juice--yummy!

He's been trying lots of new foods! We've been working on getting him to like chunkier textures, but he has a major gag reflex. Cinnamon was a bust. He didn't like the organic apple cinnamon oatmeal jar...yet! We're going to try again another time. I think that's the first thing he didn't like. He's also eating yogurt now, which he loves.
Finger foods got off to a rough start...I tell you, this kid has a major problem with texture!

Trying to bit REALLY hard!

He is doing much better now! We recently went to Sam's and picked up some fresh blueberries and raspberries and fed those to him in small pieces and he did great! He also loves his cereal puffs and veggie puffs. He's pretty much a pro now!

We have been gearing up for hurricane season and I thought it would be a good idea to get a kid's poncho for his 72-hour kit...but it turned out to be a little (o.k., a lot) too big!

His hair is getting really long! One day he woke up from his nap like this...we didn't do anything to it, it was literally standing on end!!!

It seems like his favorite toys aren't toys at all. He loves to explore all of the things around our house and play with them...I guess it doesn't hurt that Dad teaches him how he can make these ordinary things fun! (In case you can't tell, Tristan is RUNNING from room to room while pushing him in the tupperware container...good thing I moved the coffee table out of the living room, huh?)
Loves playing with Dad

More and more I realize that this kid will make a toy out of anything! He loves to climb in, over, around and under things...It's quite a workout keeping up with him!
I'm sure glad that Tristan has the energy he does...someone's gotta' keep up with this kid!
So it's been 9 months of fun (and exhaustion) but we love it! Bring on month 10!