Dear Camden,
Nine Months! Yet again I blink and I have already lived through another amazing four weeks of your first year. This month your Daddy and I continue to remark about what a big boy you are getting to be. You have grown so much hair lately and your features just look so much older! You continue to remain as cute as ever, we constantly state to each other "Gosh, he's adorable" or we are yelling at the other one to run in the room to "look and see what your son is doing now!". The changes come so quickly these days!
You are currently wearing 6 month onesies and up to 12 month clothes, depending on the brand. Your pants still need to be in the 9 month to 12 month area to make room for your adorable little belly. You are still wearing size 3 diapers and size 4 overnight.
For initially appearing to be such a thumb sucker, you have really taken to your paci. You can pick one out of anywhere and you know right where to put it. You sometimes will fuss just because your paci isn't in your mouth! Mommy even found a neat trick, if she wants to get you to crawl towards her while taking pictures, all she has to do is dangle your paci over the camera!
This past month has been SO busy. And I don't mean with running around with errands and such, I mean with keeping up with you! You officially started crawling really well and TAKING. OFF. You first started crawling around 4-16 and then a week later you were pulling up all the time. You were slow at first with the pulling up, now you can go anywhere you want and attemp to stand up, this of course includes the brick fireplace, the glass TV stand, the bathtub and anything else breakable or anywhere dangerous. :) Your little palms slap on the tile as you race across the house and you are pulling up on EVERYTHING.
{This is the SPEEDCRAWL to the dog bowl, of course!}
Your bedtime habits have varied this month. You sometimes still go to bed around eight, other times its not until nine. You sure let us know when you are tired and are ready for your before bed snack! Your napping habits have improved, and I am loving it. You never used to sleep this much as a baby! Now you will sleep 9 hours a night (on a good night - lately you have been fighting going to bed), and then you will take 2 naps during the day, lately one 2 hour nap and one 1 hour nap! Yay!! We are really loving this new change.
You tend to use your head these days as a battering ram. You are always bumping it into things, such as the faucet in the bathtub, the corners of the cabinets and of course great grandpa's old ford truck. We have the adorable pouty lip picture to prove it!
You can be quite content to play by yourself, crawling around and pulling up. Despite this, they said at daycare you have your moments and have become 'needy'. Apparently you have attached yourself to one of the girls there, and when you fuss you want her and only her, to be the one to console you. They also mentioned that you try to keep up with the other boy who is about a month older. They told me that he was eating grilled cheese and you were FUSSING because, HELLO? Don't they know to include you too? Luckily for you they give in easy, and you are now allowed to eat chunkier consistencies of food, including table food at daycare when permitting. They said you put away the grilled cheese like a champ.
This month you have had a few new foods, corn, broccoli, waffles, beef jerky, deer jerky, cheetos, pineapple, grapes, mandarin oranges, chicken, and since I gave the okay, you have started eating table foods at daycare. You are doing just fine they say, you eat things such as cheese ravioli, beefy mac and grilled cheese. They say you are
loving it, and they forget that you are a few months younger than the older two boys as you keep up with them developmentally. You are however, still eating an ounce of food for breakfast, three for lunch, a snack of puffs or yogurt melts in the afternoon and dinner is usually about three ounces of food. You are still taking a bottle of pumped milk about five times a day and usually anywhere from 3-6 ounces. You are turning into a chunky little mister!
A daycare story: Mommy went to pick you up from daycare and almost walked past you in the main common area. The girl with you said "He was getting fussy in there, he needed a change of scenery". I knelt down as you were standing at a play table with all kinds of manipulative activities on it, said hello, and got flat IGNORED. I tried again. Same response. You were too busy with your new task to look up at me at the moment! I told CiCi this story and she said it best, "He sounds just like his Dad, it was time for a new project! Gotta have something to do!"
You still have a big gummy smile. Mommy is afraid that once you do grow teeth she won't recognize you with them! Once this happens, you are going to have a big smile, as we can see so much of your gums when you smile now. It is just too precious! You remain a majorly drooly kid, so we still bib you daily. Drooling and spitting are common occurances. You are a fan of spitting up after bottles and even if you are over-full from a meal. Up it'll come! We keep an old bedspread on the living room floor with your toys on it, in hopes of it catching most of the upheaval of your stomach. So far baby, you make more of a mess on the carpet than Pearl ever has!
Speaking of Pearl, you have taken such an interest in her lately. You will watch her eat or hover around your highchair while you eat. You will taunt her with your food and when she comes to you that is when you break out into adorable giggles. Who knew Pearl begging was so funny? And speaking of giggling, you are giggling alot more these days. It is quite possibly the sweetest sound on earth.
Besides giggling you are also a fan of blowing raspberries. You spent a good half hour the other night blowing raspberries. You are also becoming delightfully more ticklish. Your feet, sides and even when washing your neck in the tub. Mommy and Daddy have taken advantage of this increased ticklishness as an excuse to make you giggle!
You still aren't a huge fan of grass, but we keep putting you in it to de-sensitize you, if you will. Initially when when put you down in it, you just stay seated and you generally don't move. Its as if by not moving you won't 'feel' the grass. Then when you decide you have remained still for far too long, you will crawl but not without dramatically raising your hands in the air as you crawl each step. Wonder where you get your picky-ness from? (throws a glance to Daddy).
As summer nears I am reminded that at this time last year I was eagerly anticipating your arrival. Last summer flew by so fast, and I know this one will fly by just as quickly as your first birthday draws ever closer!
I'll love you forever,
Mommy
