MAX: 9 months

Max will be 10 months in less than a week, so I'd better hurry and post about his exciting 10th month of life! That would be the one where he learned to walk. Yes, that's right. Max is walking! He took his first steps at a little over 8 months old, and I predicted by 9 1/2 months he'd be walking. At the 9 month mark I he hadn't made much progress so I thought I'd overestimated him. But then at the beginning of November he just started taking off! 5 ... 8 ... 13 ... 15 ... 24 ... we couldn't even keep counting. These past few days he has just exploded and started walking all over the place! He still is a little wobbly on his feet and crawls quite a bit as well, but I would say it's official. We have a little walker. (And oh is he adorable!!)

First, his 9 month stats:

19 1/2 lbs (25th)
28 1/4 inches (45th)
18 inch head circum. (50th)

First of all, I was quite surprised to see his percentile for height is higher than for weight. I guess he is lengthening out and toning up. Who knew?

Second of all, here are the pics:
(FYI, his shirt says "Lock up Your Daughters." Probably good advice.)
But it does look like Max found the key. Hmm.

Max, like every other kid, loves cupboards and drawers. He is already a little climber and loves getting inside. His latest desire is to climb from my bed up onto my nightstand ... he tries every morning and gets mad when I won't let him.

Max also loves books! I was worried for a while that he would be so busy he wouldn't ever let me read to him, but he loves it. We can only do board books because Max likes to turn the pages, and they have to have good, bright pictures or else Max isn't interested. But if he likes the books, he will sit there quietly on your lap while you read the same stack over and over. It is such a fun and relaxing part of my day.
He will also look at books on his own for a while but he hasn't started bringing them to me yet.

It is almost pointless to get out my camera much these days. Max will immediately stop whatever he is doing and start to come towards me and the next couple of pictures will look like this:

But sometimes I'll catch a good one. I love the little belly on this kid.
And of course his cute motorcycle raincoat.
Max and Joe like to "roll" the basketball back and forth. Usually Max's rolls are pretty weak but sometimes he'll do a good one.
And here are a couple of pictures of our little walker and climber.

(and yes we might still have un-unpacked boxes hanging out in the corner ... who says they can't make a fine end table?)
Max doesn't really have any other skills like patty cake, clapping, or waving bye-bye quite yet, but I think he is trying. We spend play time chasing each other around the room, tickling, and giggling. I love how I can never have a bad day with Max around - he makes me much too happy.

So I've pretty much already said everything, but for my own purposes, here is 9 month Max at a glance:

- Is a snaggletooth (in addition to his two bottom teeth he has one on the top that is halfway in, and is working on the other)
- Is sleeping from 6:30 at night until 7:30 in the morning, gets up to eat once around 5 (this is a normal, good night at least)
- Takes 2 naps, about 1 hour each
- Started walking!
- Likes to hide his bink in the corner of his pack n play or throw it on the floor (he's been doing this for a while - and yes he is still in a pack n play since we've had major trouble getting an undamaged crib)
- Isn't shy at all - will crawl or walk up to anyone and try to climb on them
- Likes to yell and is getting rather loud
- Loves to wrestle and headbutt
- Has started getting into food. He frequently has bread, turkey, cheese, sweet potatoes, squash, applesauce, yogurt, and bits of grape (and of course puffs and cheerios). He loves his water and totally gulps it down. Oh, and we tried baby food peas and he cried SO hard. I don't blame him.