Chase is barely a baby anymore-- he's getting closer and closer to being a toddler. It's amazing how many skills he's developed in the last month alone, making it like something new every day. He's telling us his preferences, but also giving us hugs and smiling at people in the grocery store. Yesterday he learned how to "high-5" from Caleb and his dad.
At 9 months Chase is:
Crawling: Everywhere! And he's pretty fast. He also quickly transitions from crawling to sitting so that he can play with whatever he's crawled over to.
Pulling to standing: This is new within the last week and is very stressful for his Mommy. We've found him standing in his crib when he wakes up in the morning and after naps. He pulls himself up on our coffee table where he finds fun things like the remote control. The only problem is that is that he hasn't quite mastered getting down yet.
Getting more teeth: His bottom left tooth broke through the skin early this week and today we noticed that his top left tooth has broken the skin (we didn't even realize it was that close to coming in). He's been teething a lot, but not as much as in previous months. Hopefully this part of the teething process doesn't hurt as much, but I suspect he's too distracted with moving to put his hands in his mouth. You should be able to see the little white nub of his tooth in the picture below- you may have to click on the picture to make it larger.
Expanding his vocabulary: Chase says "bababababa" and "rararara" in addition to "dada." No mama yet, but he does make more "mmm" noises now when he babbles. He may say Mueller before he says Mama.
STILL waking up at night: He's down to once or twice, but he's still waking up. Aarrgh. We're trying some more interventions that are cry-free. I hope I'm not writing this again at his 10 month post!
Dancing: Not sure that he has any rhythm or not yet, but he is starting to shake his booty and bounce up and down when he hears music!
Socializing: Chase is smiley and flirty. He checks out people (especially other little kids) when we are out. He even makes noises at kids (which is hilarious). He's still working on waving but is developing the high-5.
(we call this last one "Desktop Background")
Eating new foods: This month Chase became attached to "french fries" (sweet potato sticks that have been baked) and teething biscuits. The attached part of them is that he squeezes them in his hand and they dissolve! Chase has also discovered how much fun it is to feed Mueller. He hangs his hand over the side of the tray and lets Mueller take whatever he's eating. We have to sweep after every meal and it turns out that Mueller is not such a big fan of potatoes or puffs!
Banging together anything that he can get his hands on: We've yet to let him play with pots and pans, but it will only be a matter of time before he finds them on his own. Right now his favorite things to bang together are his maraca and tambourine and his multiple sets of nesting cups, thanks Grammy!!
On his 9 month birthday, we went to visit the Baca-Ashers. Chase played with Caleb and we got to meet little Lalo. Unfortunately we didn't get any pics of Chase and Lalo smiling at each other, but we did get some of Chase and Caleb playing.
Happy 9 months, sweet boy!
