We got ourselves a...climber

I wish that said walker...although I probably will regret that wish when he does start walking.  I'm not sure if him walking will make his mobility easier or harder as he seems to have no limitations with just crawling now.

Anyways, Noah is 10 months old today!  Birthday party plans are well underway and he is well on his way of being the cutest ever 1 year old :)

Other than just being more and more mobile and agile I don't think he's made any specific developments in the past month.  Unless you count climbing...or escaping through our broken doggy door.

Neither of which make Mommy too happy but so far nothing terrible has come from it (not that I encourage this behavior in any way lol)

Oh, he has at LEAST 2 teeth just about popping through on the bottom with potentially a 3rd on the bottom and 1 more on top!  As eager as I am to see a little grin with teeth, I am already anticipating missing his gummy grin and the biting....*wince*

His favorite things right now are (in no particular order):

~Taking a bubble bath or getting to play in the shower
~Going outside (with or without Mommy or Daddy as you can see...)
~Books, being read repeatedly (especially The Ear Book & Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?)
~Uncle Caleb
~Ellen DeGeneres, Clinton Kelly & Jay Prichett (from Modern Family).  For some reason he is entranced whenever they are on TV.
~Clapping to music

I have so many things I'd love to blog about (attachment parenting, co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding/nursing in public) that I "write" in my head at night as I lay nursing him to sleep but I very rarely get a chance to actually type with 2 hands so I'll leave you with this as far as that goes: Read Mayim Bialaik's book, "Beyond the Sling".  While I don't necessarily implement everything she talks about, she has a PhD in Neuroscience that backs up the evidence for many of the "controversial" ways I choose to parent my child.  It also helps that she plays Amy Farrah Fowler on one of my favorite TV shows, The Big Bang Theory so I get to read it hearing Amy's character in my head haha.

And with that I will leave you with a picture that literally made me LOL for a few minutes.

The big 0-9....months that is...

Well, as of yestery Noah has been outside of me for as long as (or longer I guess technically since he was 10 days early) he was inside me!  9 months is last "big" one before the BIG ONE!  I've been a birthday party planning spree this week because in 4 weeks I'll have a baby shower to give, Easter, Noah's birthday party and then a bridal shower to give!  The baby shower and bridal shower are all being planned with other people so I can't just make all the decisions.  That leaves me with Noah's party to just hunker down and get things done in advance so as the time comes I can work on the other showers.

Let's see...Noah's SOOOOO close to walking.  He often bear crawls (up on his hands and feet, knees off the ground) due to the cold tile and/or his knees being a little raw from crawling around so much with no pants on and his skin dry from the weather & heater being on.  We're lotioning him up a lot and trying to keep pants on him.  He's been pulling himself up onto furniture basically ever since he could crawl but now he walks along furniture, let's go and lowers himself down to sitting slowly or will let go to turn to grab onto another piece of furniture.  He's also walked a big with his walker toy we bought him for Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, I'm so pleased with all the gifts he got.  All but one are NOT electronic and so far he has been able to actually play with and enjoys them all!  You just never know when babies what they'll take to and what they could care less about.  So good job grandma's, aunts, cousins, etc!

Last night, in celebration of his 9 months, he started clapping for the first time.  He gets SO proud of himself when he does it.  All you have to do is start singing "If You're Happy and You Know It" or Patty Cake and he starts clapping and laughing.  This morning he had been awake for about 5 minutes before he sat up and started clapping.

As I'm typing his nursing and napping but once I can grab the camera and get some moments away from him I'll post Christmas pictures.  Here's a video of his new talent!

2/3 of a year old!

Today Noah is 8 mos. old.  He's had a bit of a rough day.  He fell over the bed rail on our bed (he likes to pull himself up on it and this time leaned too far over) hitting his forehead on the frame of our bed.  He's cried pretty hard but got over it quickly and the bump wasn't too bad so I didn't feel the need to take him in to get checked out.  Then in the shower tonight he slipped and fell face first onto the tile and hit the corner of his eye.  I realize with his increasing mobility comes increasing opportunities for injuries like this.

His newest cutest thing is to fake laugh.  He forces it out if he likes something with the goofiest, widest grin he can do.  He likes to look at pictures of cute puppies on Pinterest and always forces out a laugh for them.  He's also officially waving in response to people waving at him.  Since it hasn't been too long since my last update, there isn't as much as usual but I did finally upload and sort through a bunch of pictures so here's a few of my favorites from the past couple months.

He decided the tube of toothpaste was his favorite toy one day.  He took it with him when we left the house.

He LOOOVES to watch Ellen

Don't be fooled, he is sound asleep

Helping Daddy build a computer

Family visit to the pumpkin patch

Our son, the energizer bunny...

So it seems that Noah is never happy to enjoy his latest accomplishment; as soon as he's mastered one new skill he's on to the next!  He's only been crawling for about 4 weeks and for the past 3 weeks he's been pulling himself up on furniture and laundry baskets.  He's already good at lowering himself down slowly, instead of just plopping down.  He can even stand unassisted for about 3-5 seconds sometimes.  A few things he loves:

~Oranges, or anything sour (lemons, kiwi, etc.)
~His "Mr. Brown Can Moo" book, he will sit still and quiet while I read it over and over again
~Daddy's keyboard and/or Mommy's laptop
~Cuddle time before bed with Mommy & Daddy
~Timmy Time on Netflix
~Mommy signing the Winnie the Pooh theme song
~Showers with Mommy or Daddy and getting to crawl around naked for a bit after

For the past month or so he's started to prefer to be with Daddy than Mommy unless it's food or nap time.  As soon as Daddy walks in the house from work all he wants is for Daddy to hold him and walk and explore the whole house and yard.  Matt says he feels like the chef in Ratatouille, being controlled by wherever Noah leans towards.  Noah knows to look for Daddy in his office.  He knows to crawl from the living room, up the step into the hall and into the office.  When he does it in the morning when Daddy's at work he's quite confused and disappointed when he doesn't find him.

He's also gotten really good with his pincer grip.  He's able to pick up small things and lately has been using his pointer finger to point/poke/touch things.  He also has finally started to take a bottle occasionally.  Usually I only try if we're in the car and have no choice or if he's really distracted while we're out and about.  He just wants to keep looking around and interacting with people so the bottle can move with him.

Here are some pictures of Noah's first pumpkin

It's official!

We have a crawler!  Noah took his first official "crawl" on his 6 month birthday (10/7) but it's only been the past week that he's really used it to get from point A to point B.  I think he's been fully capable of it for a while but he just didn't realize it was a useful accomplishment!  He still doesn't seem to grasp that it's the most efficient way to get places and he still ends up going backwards sometimes but he does it often enough and for long enough now that I know he's mastered the actual skill.  I think the funniest part is that he often will be on his hands and knees and he'll pick up one or the other hand and he constantly pushes himself up on one or both legs.  He's been going from hands & knees to sitting for a while and he seems like he's going to be pulling himself to stand very quickly.  He already does when holding on to my hands as he tries to get to me, so I feel like it's only a matter of time before he realizes he can do it to get to other things.

He's also doing well eating food now.  His favorite foods are oranges (he gnaws and sucks on them peel and all!), snap pea crisps and string cheese.  He doesn't seem interested in noodles or eggs.  Oh, and we tried lemon just to get that classic "baby-eating-a-lemon" face and he LOVED it.  Didn't even make a face!  In fact, he cried when we took it away! haha

Progress

A few days after I posted my last update (not the pictures) Noah started sitting up.  I can't really pinpoint exactly what day it was because he kind of started doing it gradually and I didn't even realize he was doing it until he had already been doing it for a few days.  He also now rolls from back to tummy and tummy to back both directions and gets up really well on his hands and knees and rocks.  This kid is determined to be mobile - I will not be surprised if he's crawling in a week or two!

He also seems to be getting much more interactive.  He's laughing at more abstract things, not just when you tickle him or make a specific noise.  He'll be sitting next to me and lean over and grab my arm and play with it and laugh.  His new favorite thing is bath time!  He loves splashing and kicking and if he's ever in a bad mood I just put him in the tub and he's happy.

According to our pediatrician we should have started cereal at 4 months.  It kinda of bothers me because that's very much old outdated information.  So not only are we delaying cereal, we're skipping it all together as well as skipping purees all together.  We're going to do a modified baby-led weaning.  Basically, he's gonna eat what we eat as much or as little as he wants to explore food - textures, tastes, etc.  Baby-led weaning's little saying is "food before one is just for fun".  Nutritionally, babies don't need anything other than breast milk (when fed on demand 24/7) until they're one.  Since we're doing that, I don't need to worry about him getting a certain amount of any one particular thing since nutritionally, he's getting all he needs from me.  You start letting them have/play with food when they act interested (after 6 months).  I say we're doing it modified because part of baby-led weaning is to never feed your baby on your own (with the idea of letting them control what goes in their mouth).  Well, sometimes when he wants to suck on my apple or a piece of melon he can't really hold it so I'll hold it in his mouth, thought I never force him to eat or swallow anything.  Anyway, today he did really well with a 1/2 stick of low fat mozzarella string cheese and a couple pieces of honeydew.  Surprisingly he seemed to like the cheese more though that might have been because it was easier to hold (that honeydew is slippery!).  Technically you're supposed to wait until they're 6 months so I've only been giving him some food here and there when he's really grabby during my meal times.  We'll see how it goes!

The heat makes Noah crabby....