James at 9 Months

James turned 9 months old yesterday!  This is such a busy stage, but such a fun one.  There are of course wonderful things about every age, but I love how interactive and full of personality James is now.

He loves playing back and forth games, babbling, and generally being silly.  It’s been a great month!

Eating

James continues to love food.  The biggest change with eating this month has been his new ability to pick up small pieces of food, like peas.  Eating peas is one of his favorite activities right now.  It’s kind of funny though because he often just keeps the peas in his mouth, so they’ll roll back out when he starts talking or takes another bite.

Now that he can eat small pieces, he can eat almost anything we do, which is very convenient.

He tried Thai green curry this month (light on the curry paste) and seemed to really like it!  I hope he continues to be an adventurous eater.

We also introduced peanut butter and he did not have a reaction, which was a relief!  I now sometimes add it to his morning oatmeal.

Gross Motor

As always, James was very busy on the movement front this month.

He started pulling up to stand and cruising.

This has been a big change, but a fun one!  It’s also allowed me to update his shelves with a second level of toys, which I’ll post about soon.

James also started “traditional” crawling, though he still army crawls when he’s in a hurry.

He also finally learned to sit reliably!  As soon as he started pulling up to stand, he also started sitting for extended periods of time and playing.  (He previously hated sitting and would lunge out of it if we ever put him in a sitting position).

Size

In a word: Big.  James is 20 pounds, 15 ounces (73rd percentile) and just under 29 1/2 inches (95th percentile).  He is getting heavy and we’re taking bets on when he’ll be taller than I am!

Personality

James is so friendly!  He has still not shown any real signs of “stranger danger” and loves hamming it up and getting attention wherever we go.

*I wrote that Monday…he freaked out with the nurse and doctor on Tuesday.  I’m not sure if it was “stranger danger” or because he’s teething and was really tired.

He will often choose one person to focus on when we’re out and stare at them hard, following them with his gaze wherever they go.

He has been particularly happy this month and is almost always in a good mood these days.  When he’s tired, his attention span shrinks and we need to entertain him more, but he’s still not usually too grumpy.

The exception to this is when he’s trapped in the car.  We had several long rides back and forth from Houston and he hated every minute of them.  I don’t blame him.  His two bottom teeth are also coming in this week and while it hasn’t made him too grumpy, it has definitely impacted his sleep.

One other development we’ve seen this month is a love of books.  I’ve always loved reading to James, but he has started frequently choosing books for himself this month and he gets the biggest smile when I take the one he chose and read it to him.  He loves turning the pages too.  He has a definite favorite book (Hello Bugs) that he chooses first every time and I find it so adorable!  He also really likes “touch and feel” books and books with photos of babies.

He also likes shiny things, water bottles, cups, and balls.  He particularly loves these gold hedgehog coasters we have and will carry one around the house with him while he explores.

He loves watching cars go by out the window – we often do this when I’m tired because he’ll happily do it for 20 minutes or so and sometimes it’s nice to be still 🙂  This is even more fun when we time it so he sees his Dad arrive home from work – SO EXCITING.  He starts shrieking and banging on the window and grinning, it’s pretty hilarious.

He’s also started really saying “mama” and “dada” to refer to us.  He’s said the sounds for months, but there were a couple of times this month where he clearly said them when one of us entered the room – so exciting!  He also has his own way of saying “no,” which sounds like “neh neh neh” and is too cute.  He says this mainly when we wipe his face and hands after a meal.

Life is at once busy and quiet right now.  It takes a lot of energy to keep up with the little guy, but it’s also so relaxing to have many days where I wake up and realize we can do whatever we want all day.  I’m loving every minute of this particular stage and trying to really savor the last few months of James being a baby.