8 and 9 months with Little Man

I am kicking myself for not writing this post earlier because I have surely forgotten little things about Peter in this stage. But there is nothing I can do now. So here is a glimpse of things I remember from Peter at 8 and 9 months of age (mostly 9 months since that is more recent).

-Peter now has 7 teeth. It was a few rough weeks of teething before he was 9 months. He was SO grumpy and just gnawing on EVERYTHING. I kept thinking they would poke through any day but they took their sweet time. He cut two more on the top and a third tooth on the bottom. I love when they aren't even for some reason. Afton had three on the bottom until after she was a year old and I just loved it. Peter's teeth are some of his most prominent and memorable features. Heart-eyes emojis. Always.

-Peter LOVES his Daddy and lights up when he comes home. While he is a HUGE mama's boy and prefers me to anyone else most of the time, seeing his dad right when he comes home is easily the happiest time of the day for Peter. 

-At Peter's 9 month appointment with the Pediatrician we brought up the fact that he was not babbling with consonants. Everything he did was either blowing raspberries (bubbles) or a squeal. He even mimicked saying a drawn out "hi" a few times but would never babble using M, D, B, etc. Since this is typically a 6-month milestone, our pediatrician thought it would be a good idea to just have his hearing checked, even though we didn't think he seemed to have any problems hearing (he has always been a light sleeper being bothered by even the smallest sound. And he also turned toward sounds without an issue). So we had an audiology appointment on Afton's birthday and what would you know Peter literally started babbling THAT DAY with D and G sounds. He has progressed to other consonants and has been doing that for a while. He just wanted to take his sweet time. Silly guy. (The hearing results came back normal).

-Peter started and mastered crawling and going from tummy to sitting up (and vice versa) during this time.  He LOVES to be chased while crawling and has gotten quite fast. He likes to pull himself up to his knees on things but not quite to his feet yet.

-Peter loves hanging upside down. After I feed him he will throw his head back and just lay like that.
-Peter loves to be part of a joke. When others are laughing or just conversing he will give a hearty, fake laugh just so you know he is part of the conversation, too. It's pretty great.  He loves to really laugh and when you tickle him he will bury his head and laugh really hard. This is a nice change because for awhile there he mostly just gave courtesy laughs when you tried to play with him-which was funny but not as fun.

-Peter likes to play shy with other people. This is a great improvement from his intense stranger danger phase he went through. Now he just lowers his head and then slowly looks up from the tops of his eyes and then quickly looks away again. He will still cry sometimes if people he doesn't know give him too much attention. I am so surprised by his natural coyness.

-Peter has found a favorite spot within the little playhouse Grandma Rita made. He crawls in and out and just hangs out in there. I think he enjoys the solitary atmosphere after hanging out with us chatty girls all day. It's hilarious how much he enjoys just hanging out in there alone.

-Peter can DOWN the solid food. Some days he feels like a bottomless pit that I can never feed enough. If he is grumpy, a sure way to make him happy is to put him in front of food he can feed himself. While he will eat multiple jars of baby food he likes to have something to feed himself as well. His new favorite thing he discovered during these months are clementine oranges. He will eat 2-3 of those in one sitting along with other food.

-Graduated from the infant bath to the big tub!

-Now that he is mobile, I have to watch him SO close because he has such laser focus and can find the tiniest thing to put in his mouth. I am sure he has swallowed way more than he should of non-food items but at this point if it's not toxic or big enough for him to choke on I just call it good. We have only had 1 or 2 close calls when I thought I was going to have to do the Heimlich.  It's a constant battle.
-Took a liking to "Mr. Monks" (Afton and I named him) the sock monkey my sister, Amy, made. He crawls around and finds him throughout the day and then gives him kisses and just holds on to him. I think this is so fun because he used to stare at that monkey when he was a newborn. No other stuffed animals interested him as much as this one. It must be something about those button eyes.