Milestones galore - 9 months!

 

As Austin nears 10 months this week, we've definitely realized that 9 months was full of milestones (except for teeth, still no sign of any!).  At our 9 month pediatrician visit we were asked questions like 'is he cruising, pulling up, getting to a seated position on his own?...' and my answers to all of these were, no, not really.  It wasn't really until Christmas that we saw him start to army crawl and go from room to room.  At least we learned that he was still in the high 80th percentile for height and weight, and as expected off the charts for his head circumference!  Then to our surprise, within a week of his pediatrician visit he started to be able to sit up from a crawl.  About a week later he was up on his hands and knees crawling around, following us from room to room.  And then, this past week he pulled up on the coffee table and began standing!  Its amazing how much he learned in such a short period of time!  Now in the mornings he's standing in his crib ready to greet us, its pretty cute! 

I'd say his favorite thing is really just pulling up on his knees, whether it be to open cabinet doors over and over, play on his music table, or demonstrate that he can kneel hands free.

 

We've also gotten to see him learn to clap, which he is quite good at.  Sometimes when you sing, and most of the time when you say 'yay', he starts clapping and smiling!  And in the last week or so he's even starting waving bye bye when we leave daycare and sometimes when daddy is leaving in the morning.  We are loving all of his new skills, we are really getting to see so much more of his little personality every day!

Along with getting around alot easier and quicker has come a whole knew level of curiosity.  One of the first places he went when we got home from Texas was the basement door to explore the mini door that Julian can go in and out of.  Thankfully he can't fit through it, so it seems safe at the moment!

We finally set up a gate at the top of the stairs too, especially since the stairs are the first thing that Austin seems to see when he leaves his room.  He spends alot of time crawling up and down the hallway in the morning while I finish getting ready for work!  Of course, its hard to get pictures mid-crawl, so here he is just taking a look around:

Another change this month has been bottles and food.  We've been able to switch to Pratima making him food for lunch and snack, which has been both convenient and fun to hear what other foods he's been trying.  We're feeding him alot more table food these days, he can easily finish off an entire pancake for breakfast as well as strawberries, blueberries, bananas, string cheese, chicken, green peppers, pasta, black beans, and several other things.  He really wants to feed himself, so purees aren't as popular as they were before.  Oh, and he can also hold his own bottle, which is both adorable and slightly sad.  We still mostly snuggle up for a bottle though.

Together, Austin and Julian make quite a pair.  Julian is equally as interested in some of the new toys in the house.  Austin lights up when Julian walks by and rubs up against him.  Its been really cute watching them get used to each other.  I think Julian is going to love when Austin figures out how to open his feeder and give him extra bites of food.  Here they are helping unload the dishes (okay, not really)!

Since its been fairly warm for January, we have still had the chance to get outside a bit.  A few weekends ago we went to Patapsco State Park for a beautiful hike.  Austin seems to be pretty happy in the backpack, so we try to take advantage of that while we can:

We are excited to see what 10 months has in store for us!  Our little guy seems to just be growing up into a little boy.  I'll leave you with a few pics at bath time, which has become quite a bit more fun now that he splashes around and tries to eat he bubbles.