Nine Months!

I have a 9-month-old. All of a sudden, Madden is really starting to look like a little boy! Maybe it’s because he now has six teeth, or it could be that when I look over at him he is pulling himself up next to the coffee table. Part of it kind of breaks my heart, but also I’m loving how active and mobile he is. More than anything I love that he’s growing more and more attached to me and hearing him say “mama!” The only downside to motherhood is that these precious days won’t last forever, so we make sure to savor every minute with our little man. He makes our life so happy. We love you Madden boy!

This month…

1.       Madden really likes it when I say no to him. He’s become quite the little biter. He bites anything and everything, but most of all…me! He bites when he’s nursing which has been a bit of an issue. But he also bites my face, arms, fingers…well just about everything on me. It’s really surprising and it hurts so I usually react with a loud, “No Madden! We don’t bite!” For whatever reason, Mad thinks my reaction is hilarious. He just laughs and goes in for another bite. Over and over again. After looking up online how do deal with a biting baby, I realized that I’m doing it totally wrong. I’m not supposed to react at all, I need to just put him down and walk away. Looks like this next month I’ll be trying to reverse the damage I’ve done!

2.       He is still a little copier. Sometimes when we’re holding him, he will all of a sudden blow air really hard out of his nose. So we do it back at him, and then we spend a couple minutes of blowing air back and forth at each other. I don’t know why he likes it so much!

3.       Madden started feeding himself! I brought out the cereal puffs that I bought forever ago and almost forgot I had, and within a day he was eating them all on his own. It is so cute to watch him focus so hard on one little puff. Even when he accidently drops the one he wants, he won’t just move on to one of the other puffs on his tray. He stays determined to eat that one that dropped. He is also doing better with his sippy. When I’m sitting with him he still wants me to hold it for him, but when he’s in the car seat he’ll do it by himself.

4.       We’ve been experimenting with more foods lately. First of all, he is a great little eater all of a sudden. Messy but great! He eats solids in the morning and then at night before bed. I realized he wasn’t sleeping through the night very well because must not have been getting enough calories. Anyway, he still loooooves sweet potatoes, avocados, bananas, and applesauce. He seems to like vegetables better than other fruits though. And lately I’ve been mixing a little quinoa into his baby food and he loves that too! He also loves zucchini bread. He can’t get enough of that stuff.

5.       We’ve established a nice little routine these days, and I’m hoping it stays for a while. No thanks to day light savings our mornings are now starting a 6:30 instead of 7:30am, but my sweet hubby is already awake then and just keeps Madden out in the family room for a little bit and lets me sleep a little longer. So we play and snuggle in bed for a little bit, give kisses to dad and send him off to work, then we go out and play with toys and read our morning stories. Madden then has his breakfast and makes quite the mess, so I usually strip him down right there in his high chair and take him straight to the tub. In the past, I’ve gotten ready during his morning nap, but I have so many other things I want to do during his naps other than my hair. So I just let the water run in the tub, and he rolls around and plays with his toys while I get ready for the day. We get out of the tub, snuggle some more then go down for the morning nap at 9. It’s working out pretty nicely so far, hopefully this schedule will go on for a while. He usually sleeps until noon then takes an hour nap around 3 or so. Lately Jeff has been getting home from work around 3 so we spend some of the afternoon with him, and usually go for a walk at the park. Our nighttime bed routine starts around 8pm. We eat dinner, get in our jammies, read stories, and usually Madden and dad wrestle quite a bit before it’s time to wind down. I just usually nurse Madden to sleep in my bed and then I knock on the door to signal for Jeff to turn off the kitchen light before I walk through to Madden’s room. If Madden sees any lights on its dooms day for us, and it takes a while to convince him that there isn’t a party that he’s missing out on.

6.       I always miss Madden when he’s in his crib on the other side of the apartment. I usually go to check on him and smooch his cheeks a couple time before I go to bed. Sometimes after he’s asleep and Jeff and I are lying in bed Jeff will say, “Just go get him and bring him in here with us!” Sometimes we do and we have a little cuddle fest in our bed, until Madden gets too crazy and starts smacking us in the face. One of our favorite things is going to get Madden out of his crib in the morning or after one of his naps. Jeff and I usually race to see who can get to him first! Madden is always so smiley and happy when he wakes up and he wiggles and squeals when he sees us.

7.       Now that Madden has his top teeth and his bottom ones, he’s trying to figure out how to use them. With that has come a lot of teeth grinding. I’m cringing a little just thinking about it. It’s awful!

8.       Madden is so smart, he has started clapping his hands by himself to the patty cake song. In the past I always clapped his hands for him when he did patty cake and now anytime he hears someone singing it, he looks around and starts clapping all by himself!

9.       Now that he’s started pulling himself up onto the furniture, he’s figured out how to sit on his knees. He looks so old yet so tiny when he sits on his knees, it’s really the cutest.

10.   He laughs when we nibble on his shoulders, tickle his sides, eat his hands and feet, and make sneezing noises. He also laughs at himself after he sneezes. Who wouldn’t? It’s a funny noise!

11.   Jeff and I are trying not to caudle him too much when he falls or bonks his head or something. Jeff doesn’t want Madden to be a sissy pants, and to be honest I don’t want to deal with a whiney kid later on either. So instead of making a big deal out of a fall we just let him roll over and realize that he’s fine. It’s totally working by the way, Madden is a tough guy.

12.   Madden has finally said “mama!” except I don’t know if it really counts as the real things yet because I’m not completely sure he’s associating the word with me. Lately he’s been scooting around following me around the house saying “mama, mama!” until I pick him up. That’s the only time he says it so maybe it’s a fluke, but I still love it.

13.   This is one of those mom things I guess, but I love how Madden’s breath smells. I can’t even describe it, but it’s just the smell of my baby and I’m sure that ten years down the road I’m going to get a whiff of nostalgia and I’m going to miss kissing my sweet baby boy.

14.   Mad is a paper hoarder. Jeff sometimes leaves his papers around, and somehow Madden finds every single one and attempts to shred them into bite size pieces. He LOVES paper! He sucks on the sacrament meeting program until I notice that the whole corner is missing. And every time I know exactly where to find it…in a slobbery wad stuck to the roof of his mouth! Every time! I should be a little worried that he might actually eat the paper, but I really don’t think he has any intention of eating it. He just packs it away on the roof of his mouth like a little hamster.

15.   Madden is a little speed demon and he cruises all over the house on his tummy. Whenever I’m in the kitchen and I look over to his toy blanket to see him he is long gone, and almost every single time, he has pushed open the bathroom door and is playing with the little knobs on the base of the toilet. He is obsessed with the toilets and it’s driving me crazy! The only good thing is that it’s been a good incentive to keep my bathrooms squeaky clean. Or I just keep the doors shut.

16.   The only time he crawls with his tummy off the ground is when he’s nakey and in the kitchen or the bathroom where we have tile flooring. It’s just too cold for his little tummy.

17.   Madden has the highest pitched little screams. Sometimes he goes into screaming rampages and makes a ton of noise. Sorry to our neighbors, and everyone in sacrament meeting. It’s amazing how noisy he is for being so little. He’s got some pipes! They are pretty girlie screams though, super high pitched and shrill. I think we have some good ammo to use when it comes time to embarrass him as a teenager.

18.   He’s starting pulling himself up on everything! It’s amazing how fast this has happened too. He’s even starting to walk along the furniture. He might skip the whole crawling phase and go straight to walking. Yesterday I went in to get him out of his crib after his nap and found him standing up in his crib!! I told him to stop growing, it’s not allowed anymore.

19.   The other night Madden and I went to my Activity Girls activity. We were in one of the primary rooms and I held Madden up to one of the pictures of Jesus. It was so sweet to see him look up at Christ’s face and smile. Madden just stared at the picture and jumped up and down in my arms and reached out to it. Such a sweet reminder of who we are and whose we are. I’m almost positive that the veil is still very thin for our little ones.

20.   Madden has the brightest eyes. Whenever he smiles, his face lights up and makes everyone around him just swoon. He really is the best thing that’s ever happened to us and we couldn’t be luckier parents. We love you Mad man!