happy 9-months, sugar plum!

Wow, our Smiles is a whole new baby! He is beginning to crawl! He can't quite crawl smoothly and is still working on getting his hands and feet coordinated, but he can definitely get around.

I remember loving this age with William, as well. Josiah is now "reaching" for us now by lifting his arms up when he wants to be picked up. And he will grab your face or hair to give big, wet kisses. Love those! They are so incredibly sweet.

Smiles continues to be a great sleeper and eater. He is willing to try anything the first time and generally does well with almost all the foods he's eaten. As for sleeping, he is down to 2 naps. We dropped the early evening nap since he wasn't really taking them, but we made his bedtime a bit earlier. He goes down for naps really well, but is a very light sleeper. Overall, he's sleeping about an hour and 15 minutes for each nap. I'd like to see him eventually extend that, since it doesn't seem like he's getting the sleep he needs. He gets super fussy at the end of the day and has to be held constantly.

Josiah still isn't saying anything really consistent. Looking back at where William was at 9 months, he had certain repetitive syllables he was saying. Josiah might occasionally say mem-mem or pa-pa-pa, but he usually just makes the "mmmmm" sound or just does random babbling. Something we will talk to his doc about.

Our Smiles continues to be a joy, but can be demanding at times. It is neat seeing how different he is from William. Josiah is definitely our little Crazy. We could leave William on the floor and he pretty much would stay in the same place and not get into anything. Even when he started crawling, he didn't get into much except his toys. Josiah, on the other hand, gravitates toward playing with cables and power strips, doesn't care about teetering over steps to try and get something, rips pages out of books, takes apart William’s train tracks, etc. Here are snapshots of some of the trouble he gets into...

Getting into his diaper basket… Getting into William’s bin of books… Getting tangled in some of Dada’s cables… Taking apart William’s train tracks… and with a smile!

We gotta keep an eye on this one, but we love him to pieces! We are still in awe of how big he is compared to how he started out. You’ve come so far, Smiles, and though you are certainly a handful, we are so grateful for you!!