Athan's Ninth Month

Three quarters of the way through the first year. Where has the time gone?

As we coach Athan on crawling and walking, I keep thinking to myself maybe I would rather not teach him these milestones just yet. I know he is not content to sit in one spot anymore, but he will really be discontent once he gets that taste of freedom. He has continued to get stronger and stronger, closer to both types of mobility, but still not yet moving on his own. He does roll around more and can scoot on his bottom.

Sweet Athan really is engaging to people and draws so much attention with his beautiful smile. It's fun to hear people comment on how happy and beautiful he is, instead of just his size. Yes, I know I am carrying around a heavy baby- you don't have to point that out to me! We enjoy his babbles and delightful kicks and bounces when he is happy. I think he holds the record for longest time happy in the bouncy seat at the church nursery. When he is really excited, he will tighten up his entire body and grit his gums together. Love it! He babbles "ma, ma," which I love even if he may not know exactly what he is saying. One day Hudson asked, "is he saying mama?!" He also says "ha, ha, ha" when he is happy.

He keeps eating more and more foods. We've added lunch and started progressing to chunkier foods. I use baby food only about half of the time now. It's fun to get to serve him something similar to what we are eating.

Night sleep is making a general positive progression, even though he STILL doesn't sleep through the night. This month, many of his afternoon naps weren't longer than 45 minutes, which has confused us, but he is old enough now just to get through the rest of the day okay even if he's nap wasn't long. So thankful for that! He also has really improved on drifting off to sleep while drowsy.

Athan's interests are not so much in baby toys anymore. Rattles may be fun for younger babes, but Athan is moving on up! He prefers to play with anything that belongs to Hudson (big brother is handling this pretty well) or is something he's not supposed to play with. He is often lunging after cords or strings of all kinds.

Love our little A!

Letters, We Get Letters!

What fun we have been having with letters at our house! A few months ago we taught Hudson how to recognize and then write the letter h- "one line up & one little hill" for the small one, and "two lines up with a bridge across" did the trick. Hudson's interest in letters has developed on its own. I have always heard and believed that reading comes naturally for a child given the right environment, and it's fun to see that take place now.

He can now recognize all the letters in his name, and write most of them. He loves to write on the marker boards at the youth house. Another fun development is seeing him take interest in silly word play. He enjoys changing words around and coming up with his own take on words. He is so talkative and loves to engage in conversation with adults. We have now started to work on polite interruptions and turn taking in conversation. Jay's parents were here recently, and said that Jay was just as talkative as a young child, so that must be where he gets it! :)

Here is a video of him "reading" Panda Bear, Panda Bear by Eric Carle.

What a Man...

Undoubtably, I don't mention my fabulous husband enough on my blog as I ramble on and on about our wonderful children, so this blog is just about him!

Now that we are in the process of selling our home, it's fun to look back at all the changes that we have made. Thanks to Jay's hard work, skill, and ocassional recruitment of cheap labor (you know who you are!), he has updated this house and transformed it into the perfect home for our family. We will certainly miss living in this special place.

Thank you, Jay, for all you do to take care of our family!