Well Maverick, Mommy let another month slip by without updating your blog and now I will probably sit here for 4 hours trying to recap the last two months and all the changes you have made. You are growing and changing so fast! Developmentally, the last couple months have been huge. At 7 months old, you were just starting to crawl around and had mastered sitting. It seems like a million years ago that you were that little baby boy. You are now nine months old and busy and into everything, crawling at the speed of light and pulling yourself up on every and any thing. Chairs, doors, windows, whatever! This month, your top two teeth came through, about a week after you turned 8 months old. You started clapping and love to incorporate that into the stories you tell, along with the baby talk you do. You have made both the sounds "Dada" and "Mama". With Tula, I thought that meant you were speaking, but now that I have a toddler who really is talking, so I realize this is just baby babble still. Although, Tula didn't even make the "Mama" sound till she was over a year old, so I am letting myself believe you call me Mama. Either way, you light up whenever I enter a room. You basically eat whatever, I am not even going to sit and try and list what you have tried and not tried because you are pretty easy in that department and have tried lots, and eat most. Unless it's vegetables, of course! You are still pretty easy at this age. You take two fairly long naps, morning and afternoon. You go to bed easily around 8 and usually wake for the next day around 7, with two feedings throughout the night. You don't mind your carseat, which makes travel or even errand running so much less stressful You seem to be fine with strangers, are okay to be left in the church nursery still, but are starting to get more and more attached to Mommy or Daddy if we are in a room and will usually chose one of us to hold you, if we are and option. You love to be held and let me know when you do or don't want down. You cry, but rarely, and usually for a pretty specific reason that I can kind of peg and figure out right away. You are not whiny and I don't feel like I ever have to play guessing games about what is wrong when you are upset. You are becoming so independent with some things, I love watching you find a little time and area and just kind of hide out and play alone. A second child doesn't get a lot of alone time with a toddler running around the house, but you sort of create it for yourself.
Your favorite things right now:
-carbs (must be your mama's boy)
-finger foods (aka NOTHING pureed!
-your sippy cup and cow's milk. Didn't bat an eyelash trying it, you love it and would drink it all the time if I let you.
-sucking or chewing on the washcloth during bathtime (Mommy used to do this when I was little too)
baby babble. You have BIG stories to tell right now and love to use your hands to tell them. I think you tell jokes too because you will stop mid-sentence to laugh. Your baby babble stories are the cutest.
-nursing. You love to nurse but are at a busy age where it's hard to get you to sit and be still for it. Your head is usually all over the place looking around if there is anything else going on in the room so usually we just do it for naptimes and bed time and first thing in the morning. And twice throughout the night.
-nighttime cuddles. You still wake around midnight and at 3-4ish am. I am usually still awake for the midnight feeding and s I just go in and nurse you and out you back in bed and then that is mu queue to go to bed myself. When you wake between 3 and 4, Daddy goes and gets you and brings you to me and you nurse a little and go back to sleep with us, snuggling in nice and close to Mommy for the rest of the night. Daddy usually brings you back to your bed when he leaves for work and you seem fine with that, it's Mommy who is having a hard time with being dedicated to helping you sleep in your crib throughout the night. I guess I just have gotten used to those nighttime cuddles too. Chasing a toddler around all day makes my snuggle time with you a little more scarce than I would like, and this my chance to give you some extra time. This month, because I go to Brazil next month for 9 days and won't be here to snuggle, I will be working on trying to get you to sleep the whole night in your bed so you are used to it by the time I leave. I will miss our nightime cuddles. We'll see how I do this month, I will miss you in my bed like crazy though. You are the snugliest, cosiest, comfiest little thing. Love you.
-Mommy's singing. Anything that requires me to make a very expressive face makes you smile from ear to ear. I would do backflips to see your smile, but I don't have to do anything close. You give them away for free, and always remind me to smile and enjoy the moment.
-Water play. This month, you got to go swimming for the very first time. Although you seemed to like the big pool, you love your water table and smaller splash pool a whole lot more. You could spend all day in the back yard splashing in the pool and leaning over the edge of the water table, and crawling back and forth between the two.
You and your sister are entering the whole love/hate relationship stage and it's not easy for Mommy to watch. Especially because, at this point, you are completely an innocent babe and big sis picks on you more than you deserve. Now, through it all, she is your bestest friend and you never stay mad at her for long, but you guys, just recently, have begun to bicker. Let's call a spade a spade, you fight. Well, she picks on you and then you get mad. Sister is just learning her boundaries and limits socially and with me, and you are kind of taking the brunt of it. Sometimes, I feel guilty for and wonder if it would have been easier had you and your sister had a little more space between you. She is still so young and learning so much, and in a way, you are the teacher. I hope and pray that you guys are close enough when you are older and as adults to make up for any of the baby beats you are currently receiving. I guess it's not THAT bad...just the usual stuff. Pushing you when you are trying to pull yourself up on something, rocking the chair she is sitting in when you are standing at it watching her read (she has figured out the rocking motion will knock you over) wrestling you, doing stuff like straddling you and saying "horse" and then bouncing on you, yesterday I saw her pulling your hair and today when we were in the car you started screaming in your carseat and when we got home I could see that she must have been pinching at your arm because there were little scratches on it. Sometimes, she will take the toy you were playing with right from your hands and replace it with something else, usually something you do not want and that gets you really angry. Now, this is all pretty new within the last couple weeks and I hope it passes as quickly and abruptly as it came, but it's new and I wanted to let you know, I'm on it. Mommy to the rescue! You guys play together all day long and we can go hours with a problem, so it's not all the time. Know that your sister loves you so much, I guess so much that she just wants to give you big squeezes to show you. Or something. I know that you forgive her because you follow her around still all day long and love to watch and copy what she is playing and doing. If she is reading, often times I will find you in her room with your own book. If she is cooking at her kitchen, you are standing either right beside her or at the table. You both love to dump the buckets of "little" toys we have and you could spend forever just going through them, of course you like to chew on all of them while big sister plays. Watching you two play together is my favorite thing to do in the whole, wide world. Although your sister can get a big rise out of you, she can also get the best laughs and smiles. I love when you are just sitting with a toy playing and she will look at you then wrap her arms around you and say "snuggle?" as if you are going to answer with a yes or no. And Tula loves in the mornings when I put you in her crib with a couple books and she can be the big sister who gets to read to baby brother. You seem to love it in there too, and watching you both in that small, little space be so happy and playful with each other just melts a Mama's heart.
Maverick, you are growing so big and fast. Your two new top teeth make your smile look all sorts of grown up. You have these beautiful, thick blondish brown curls growing on the top of your head that are just adorable. You spend so much time outside and have the cutest little tan, I love how the insides of the rolls on your arms and legs are still bright white. And your big blue eyes are amazing. I was told your eye color could change but it has stayed the same so far and I am hoping that those gorgeous baby blues are here to stay. I know I am so biased, but to me you are the most perfect little boy and I could stare at your little face forever. Perfect hair, smile, tan, dimples, and eyes. Stealing hearts already, and of course you had mine first.
I love you so much, my boy. You are your mother's joy.
Happy ninth month Maver!
