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!