NINE MONTHS!!! There is so much to write about on this one, so hang on!
At bath time, Eddie has a definite preference for the yellow rubber duckie. Den puts the green frog, multi-colored hippo and the duck in the tub with him, and every single time, he goes for the duck. Jams it into his mouth.
Loves books!! I set him on the floor of his room with toys and books and he always goes for the books. The same couple books too. Fascinating to think about what he must be processing. Seems almost to like looking at, chewing on, and going after the books more than being read to. But, he does enjoy a good read too.
Squeaky toys crack him up. Without fail. Other things that crack him up are: his mom's singing, mom and dad blowing their noses, someone imitating the noises he makes. His game repertoire includes 'the wheels on the bus', 'patty cake', and 'sooo BIG'. He's also learning that what he drops gets picked up.
At the risk of sounding like the naive first-time parent that I am, Eddie has a shoe fetish. He especially likes shoe laces. He'll take really any kind of shoe, but he seems to always go for mom's--possibly because dad's shoes aren't left out like hers are. He fakes you out because he plays with the shoe for a little while and so you think he won't put it in his mouth. But everything goes in his mouth. All of a sudden when you think it's all clear, he'll make his move and try to eat/suck on some part of the shoe. It is a continual battle to keep him from shoes that have walked in who knows what. I mean what do I do about when I'm *wearing* the shoes? Eddie also has a thing for Mom's hair. I don't know if it's other people's hair, but boy, he just likes to eat it and play with it.
He continues to enjoy the mirror. Definitely knows his name (but responds about 60% of the time). Knows when I tell him to let go of something (again, doesn't always respond) and he seems to recognize several other words. We're teaching him sign language -- although I need to be more consistent with that.
There has been a lot on the physical development front. As I said in the previous post, he has gotten himself to a sitting position several times. He is moving around lighting fast (mostly via a 'commando crawl' and speed roll) and as Dennis says, "to think we used to sit around waiting and watching for him to roll over". He rolls faster than I could if I'd sat on hot coals. He loves to get on all fours and rock back and forth. He sometimes makes a 'tripod', where he'll support himself with his arms and legs stretched out. He can also hang onto something while standing (with almost no support). We are in absolutely no rush for increased mobility, but it's exciting when one of us notices he is able to do something new.
The chicken pox are fading, but he has several deep indentations on his face. Apparently a baby's skin renews itself far more often than an adult's, so he does have a chance that they'll go away before too long.
We are trying to get him to eat chunkier solids--like cheerios. On Monday he fed himself one for the first time (previously it had been Mom and Dad trying to get him to eat them, or mixing them with his food). The mixing never seemed to work, as he was able to isolate the more solid food and spit it back out. Dennis has also been making him baby food with good success--cabbage, green beans, and acorn squash.
I'm finding one of the more difficult things is to not let him do the 'cute' things that in a very short period of time we don't want him doing at all. I'm trying to let him explore and play with what catches his eye (obviously no electrical cords or sharp objects), but I walk a fine line between making sure he doesn't think something is permitted, when soon it won't be.
We have our 9 month appointment in another 2 weeks, but at this point, he's over 21 pounds on our home scale and well over 28 inches, as he was that long a while ago. He pretty much can't fit into 9-month clothes anymore. We understand he's supposed to start slowing down the rate of growth pretty soon here, so we'll see how he fares on the charts.
Attached is a picture I took this morning--not in the kitchen--in our office. Our computer is still out of commission, so we're a little low on pictures at the moment.
No comments:
Post a Comment