9 months old...

Here is a super image/media-heavy post in honor of Eli entering into his 9 month of life on this past Saturday.  He is into e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. these days.  He's getting a little ornery and never wants to sit still.  Which is fine.  Within reason.

He weighed 20 lbs 14 oz at his check up on Monday and was 29 1/2 inches long.

As far as interests, his favorite things to play with are keys and the carbon monoxide detector.

....

Really though, he doesn't sit and play with any of his toys too much.  He's way more into climbing the back of the couch and pulling the curtains.  He also delights in ripping apart magazines.

Dog toys are okay with him, too.

His sleeping is still all over the place.  It's getting a little more predictable as he generally sleeps until 7 or 8.  And I can generally expect him to wake up 2-3 times a night still.  But it's getting better.  He has also graduated to a pretty regular hour-long nap, which is preferable to his 30 minuters of previous months.

I don't exclusively breastfeed anymore.  He has formula bottles pretty often and I think that helps with keeping his belly full and sleeping longer.  As far as solids, he's had a lot, and he's liked it all.  He's had apples, pears, blueberries, bananas, butternut squash, sweet potato, russet potato, peas, carrots, zucchini, avocado, cottage cheese, and just had yogurt for the first time today.  I was introducing a new food every couple days after he first started eating solids at 6 months 2 weeks, but I kind of dropped the ball after vacation because I was just buying jar food.  Also I hate going to the grocery store but finally went yesterday so I have cantaloupe and broccoli for him to try next :)

Mobility - still army crawls.  He doesn't seem to see any need in crawling on all fours.  He gets where he wants.

As far as words, he says Mama.  Not sure if he knows it exclusively applies to me, but he does say it a lot when I'm around and he wants him, but I don't think he has totally figured out that I am mama.  He says ba, ta, pa, and some other not exactly easy to figure out syllables.  He has said "da" a few times but mamamamama is definitely the clearest and most regular of his babblings.

Aaand I think that's it.  Sorry I totally dropped the ball on month 8.