Months 9 & 10

9 Months

• First teeth!! Cut his bottom two teeth at the same time.
• Army crawls still -can be super quick when he wants something!
• Sleeping 12 hours with one night nursing session
• Starting to cruise around when standing up on items
• Laughs a lot and is starting to play and be silly with us
• Loves to eat green things : ) broccoli, peas, green beans, and also loves cheese!
• We now do pee diaper changes with him standing up. I’ve given up trying to keep him laying down!
• Takes 1 nap a day. We usually still try for nap #2 but it is hit or miss.
• New babble: says “mama!” : ) Yay! But he doesn’t seem to say it with purpose yet.
• Likes to read books and help flip the pages and explore the pictures.
• Plays with his paci while nursing. As in he will nurse then switch to his paci for a second, back to nursing, switch to paci.
• Laughs with a loud gaspy wheezing sound
• Will hand items over to Daddy
• Likes to put his paci in my mouth and pass it back and forth as a game
• Has discovered gravity! Loves to throw/drop items. He will chunk his pacis from his crib. Likes to drop items through the gate in the playroom.  Drops items off of the changing table.
• Feeds Callie when in his highchair! He will either just slowly lower his hand that is covered in food for her to lick or he drops chunks of food to the floor where Callie sits eagerly waiting.
• Started walking by pushing his walker!
• LOVES bath time! Splashes like mad, drops/throws his bath cups over the side, and tries to turn around and stand up in the baby tub.

Eager for bath time!

Owen LOVES books!

10 MONTHS - 17 ½ pounds

• Cruises from item to item
• Constantly on the move (this isn’t new!) and eager to explore
• LOVES the kitty cats at Grandpa and Grandma’s!
• Squeals when super happy
• Puts his fist up in the air to hold things up
• Likes to pick things up and place them up on top of items
• Smiles and stares when Mama brushes her teeth and wants to grab the toothbrush
• Still loves bath time and eating a variety of food!
• Flips the pages when we read books and gets engaged with certain pictures
• First trip to the Zoo!
• His army crawl is starting to transition to a traditional crawl, right now it’s kind of a hybrid between the two
• Naps are SO difficult and sometimes nonexistent besides a 20 min catnap in the car
• Nursing a lot during his night feeding and in the morning because he is too easily distracted to nurse real amounts during the day
• Points at things
• Fascinated by the ceiling fans!

Hanging out with Uncle Aaron! 

Sick baby sleeping with Mama.

First time to wear shoes!!

Separation anxiety has started to appear.

First time (and so far only) in a shopping cart.

Thoughts:

Owen has been active and on the move from early on, but this month his activity level has increased a ton! His army crawl has gotten really quick when he wants something and is transitioning into the traditional up on all fours crawl.  He can almost instantly pull to stand up on anything and has no fear with cruising from item to item, even if it means stretching his little body to reach between them. He has several times just about body dove/strategically fallen to try and reach other items to stand at.  Sometimes he is successful but he has also done this and just fallen. Thankfully he hasn’t actually gotten hurt yet, but his lack of fear and how he goes so quickly (right now his personality is definitely just “go for it!” and not at all careful and cautious) to try new things makes me nervous for him during this stage.

We have already had several instances that were close calls (or at least close enough for my liking) where he was about to pull TV trays, or the fireplace screen, or different things and I feel like I practically dive in the way to grab or block things.  I guess that means we need to baby proof more, but I feel like we would have to move everything out of most rooms, which obviously isn’t happening. Unfortunately Callie gets super excited when these instances happen and she runs to me when I start to run the few steps to get to Owen, and while Owen has always been fine so far, I have already gotten tripped up on Callie several times and fallen myself.

At night when I nurse and put Owen to bed, he has recently started to be too distracted even when he is so sleepy that I feel like my holding and rocking him is keeping him awake.  When we get to that point I just put him in his crib as he is already so sleepy, and he falls asleep on his own fairly quickly.  I guess it’s good that we start transitioning to him going to sleep on his own in the crib, and I’m glad I feel like it’s happening on his terms as he is ready for it and we never tried to force it earlier. However it makes me sad!  I love our time together when he goes to sleep at night. I love it.  I love nursing him as he falls asleep and holding him while he looks at me and drifts off all snuggled up.  Once day nursing and rocking him to sleep will not be the norm and I think we’re starting to move that way.  

It’s crazy how even just your own thoughts and expectations change before and after a baby.  While pregnant with Owen I remember thinking about things like routines and what I expected us to do in various situations with him.  Pre-baby I thought I would have cut off rocking and holding him to sleep by about 6 months, and now at 10 months I am so sad on the nights he wants to fall asleep on his own. Pre-baby I was just hoping to make it a year with breastfeeding and now that we’re approaching a year I feel like it would be so weird to suddenly stop something that has been such a huge part of his life so far and I’m now contemplating extended breastfeeding past a year. Becoming a mom has definitely changed me in big and small ways.  I would say I was a pretty emotional and sentimental person to begin with, and that has all doubled in me now being a mom.

Mr. Owen's Personality

(Owen is currently 10 and a half months old as I write this post.)

As Owen is getting older and more and more mobile, I'm starting to see his little personality develop right in front of me.  He has always been a cheerful, content, and relaxed baby.  We have seriously had it so easy with him so far that it makes me nervous for a future baby if he or she isn't as easy going as Owen.

He is a happy little guy, mostly content with whatever is going on, and has been eager to be mobile from really early.  He loves to explore new areas, play with his toys (or anything he deems a toy), and crawl, stand, and cruise constantly.  He seems to both be independent liking to be on the go by himself and will play contentedly mostly on his own for a while, but at the same time he is definitely a Mama's boy (which I don't mind at all) and loves to be held and carried and close to me.

We get a lot of things done at home like this : )  

Lately he has started squealing more and more often.  I love how he is just so happy and sometimes he is purely joyful.  He really loves pets/animals.  His first squeals early on were always for Callie and his squeals now are mostly still for pets.  He loves dogs and cats.  He loves to reach out and touch or pet Callie and whenever our neighbor dogs bark he will freeze and sit and focus on listening and sometimes squeals back to their barking.  It is really adorable : )  My parents recently got kittens and Owen has now interacted with them several time and he LOVES the cats!  He smiles and squeals when he sees them, tries to chase them, and he also loves playing with them.  He was holding a cat toy that was like a long pole with a squeaky toy dangling from the end.  He was swinging the pole around and one of the cats was playing with the toy.  He was having so much fun and it was so cute to watch.

Playing with the cats!

He loves to grab Callie's tags!

Owen has become so playful with us too.  He will "give" things to Cody and then quickly take them back.  He likes it when I make faces at him and recognizes when I'm being silly and he will laugh right away.  He likes to try and put his paci in my mouth but often will pull it back and put it in his mouth and laugh.

This is a clip of my current favorite video of me and Owen.  My heart just melts with his laugh and smile!

Owen is a fearless little man and at this stage with him exploring it makes me so nervous! He is not really cautious or slow and careful as he learns new skills.  As soon as he might have it down he is ready to push his limits.  When he was just crawling he would crawl quickly and recklessly (or at least as reckless as a baby can crawl) going up over our legs, knees, pillows, and sliding or tumbling  down the other side.  Now as he is standing and cruising I feel the need to hover as he plays and explores.  He will be standing holding onto an item and set his eyes on something nearby.  I watch him stretch out his arms as far as he can, one hand clinging to the item he is standing at, and the other arm outstretched toward what he wants to move toward.  I can see it in his eyes that he just wants to go for it and leap toward the new spot.  He will inch towards the new spot, lean, and sometimes I have actually seen him semi dive to get there.  He will reach out and move from item to item so quickly that he often slips but fortunately can catch himself a lot of the time.  The times he doesn't catch himself and he does fall or plop down, he quickly jumps up to try again.

Pulling up and standing like a pro.

Two times I have actually seen him dive off of something to get to a new place to stand.  I was letting him explore in our guest room and I was sitting right next to him.  We still have two big boxes from Christmas in there by the bed.  Owen was standing holding onto the side of the bed and leaning out towards one of the boxes trying to reach it.  It was a couple inches too far and I thought he was going to plop down and crawl over.  Nope.  He let go of the bed and dove-fell toward the box.  I was shocked and it was so quick I couldn't do anything.  I was even more surprised when he actually grabbed the box and successfully stood up at it.  He perfectly dove-leaned onto it and was just all "Look at me!"  A bit later in the guest room he attempted a similar move that didn't end as well.  He was standing at the other Christmas box and this time was wanting to reach out toward the bed.  But this box was much father away, probably about two feet.  I certainly did not expect him to dive for it again, especially with this being so much farther with no chance he could reach it.  But to my shock he did.  He reached out toward the bed and let go of the box and fell sideways landing on his arm.  He cried quiet a bit and I was worried he had actually hurt his arm or shoulder, but thankfully he didn't and was fine and calmed down.  Please don't scare me like that again Mr. Owen!

What can I get into next?!

I love his eager excited personality : )  I both want to allow him to do what he is trying to learn and be as fearless as his little self seems to be, but I also want to shield him from hurting himself without knowing limits yet.

I am so in love with our baby and love my job being his mom.  There's no place I'd rather be during this stage in life.

Months 7 & 8

7 Months

• First real babble: says “Bababa” as a happy sound
• Sits well unassisted
• Loves Gatorade bottles!
• Army crawls pretty quickly
• Will start at night on his back when I lay him down, but will eventually roll to his tummy
• Sits up in baths and now he LOVES it! Bath time is now fun : )
• Nursing on demand and eating one solid meal a day - but solids are not really consistent yet and it's still a lot of exploring/learning
• This whole month Owen slept 11-12 hours straight through the night! It was amazing : )
• Loves to try and pull Callie’s tags
• 2 naps a day - most consistent month for his schedule probably.  One long morning nap (long as in between 2-3 hours consistently!) and one shorter nap in the afternoon.
• Loves tortillas!

Owen's First Christmas!

Christmas Eve on the River Walk

Cody, Pop Pop, and Owen each got a Superman shirt for a matching picture.

8 Months

• Pulling to stand up on things
• Still doing the army crawl
• Tries to catch water when we pour it out of a cup in the bath.
• Fights his second nap like crazy!
• Does NOT like to be on his back - diaper changes are SO tricky!
• LOVES to eat!
• New babble: says “Yayaya” as a sad or tired sound
• Can now bang two balls/toys together in his hands
• Still sleeps about 12 hours total at night, but is back to waking up once at night to nurse.
• Nursing on demand still and eating one solid meal a day. Is now pretty successful at picking up and putting food in his mouth.
• Loves green beans, broccoli, and mum-mum crackers!
• Sleeps on his stomach
• Can stand in his crib
• Loves to hear the neighbor dogs bark!

We battled a reoccurring rash for months that is now FINALLY cleared up! We think it was the body wash we were using for Owen.  So thankful it seems to be gone now. (This was a super bad flare up, normally it was more mild than this pic.)