Austin is 9 months!

Well, I'm a little late with my Austin update this time. He turned 9 months on April 11. He is growing up so fast and so many new things are happening!

The first thing that jumps out is teething! He has 5 teeth now, and it seems like a new one is coming in every few days. When the nose starts running, tears start flowing and drool starts flying, I reach for the teething tablets. He handles it all pretty well with the exclusion of our recent trip to Kansas when my entire family, all 7 of us, were in the car for 7 hours coming back home and it seemed like nothing could soothe his crying. That was a bit rough!

Austin loved playing with his older cousin Maren on our trip to Kansas. Too cute!

Austin had his 9 month check up on the 13th, and he weighed 22.1 pounds (65%) and his length was 29 inches (75%). (I'm going off of memory on the percentiles) So, he's starting to even out a bit I guess, since he was 90% for length at 6 months. He isn't crawling yet, but he can sort of spin in a circle while on his tummy to reach things. Pretty funny. So, I think he'll be crawling before too much longer. He does love to stand up while holding on to things. He sometimes bends his knees a little like he's dancing. And he just smiles and giggles! I love this! I just fall in love more and more each day.On that note, he's also pretty good at walking forward while I hold his hands. But I'm trying not to get him too excited about that so he'll still want to crawl. First things first, you know!

Austin is such a happy baby. Strangers often comment on his smile, his bright blue eyes, and then they always ask "how did he bump his head?" Ah yes, still explaining that one. We have the MRI for his cyst on Thursday. Poor guy can't eat anything after 8 am...only water or juice. The MRI is at 2 pm. I'm not looking forward to that day. I'm praying it all goes well.

Back to the fun stuff....so he smiles all the time, is trying his best to crawl, loves to stand while holding on to something, loves to walk with assistance, loves to eat, and is sleeping so much lately! This past week he's been sleeping from 8 pm til about 9 am each day! So that's sort of messing up the morning nap. But I was warned that just when you get a schedule down, they change things up. So that's where we're at. Hopefully things will regulate again soon.

Austin is a bit tired of his exersaucer lately, so now we are checking other things out like his new little fire truck!
What else?......

Oh! He's eating more solids now. Exciting right? Well, for me it is. I got this cool food mill and now I just give him what we're eating once it's chopped up. He also loves cheerios and is doing so well with his dexterity. He uses his little pointer finger to find each item of food and then he pulls it in to his hand. I guess you have to see it. It's kind of funny. He's also very good with his hands and picking up things, passing them from hand to hand, and banging everything on the table or whatever is closeby.

He is talking all the time now saying "ba ba ba" and "da da". He used the "m" sound for the first time the other day, so I'm hoping "mama" is next. We work on it ALL the time. He concentrates so hard when I try to get him to say it. I think it's a bit of an injustice that most little ones say the "da da" sound before they are able to make the "m" sound. What can you do?

Lastly, Austin just LOVES Bailey. As you can see from one of my recent posts, they play together all the time. Bailey is so good with him. I have to occasionally remind her to be gentle once Austin gets to giggling and she gets really excited, but we couldn't ask for a better dog. We are so blessed with a sweet little boy and a sweet furchild.

Ok, that's the report! I'll have another update soon as he'll be 10 months on May 11. I can't believe it! Before I know it I'll be planning his birthday party!

Hope everyone is doing well out there. Tootles!