Max: Nine Months

Nine months is, hands down, my most favorite age with my babies, and Max is no exception to this. I can hardly believe that we are here already, that in three very short months I will have a one year old. It is so unbelievably crazy to think that nine months have already passed since that crazy whirlwind of a night. But here we are.

I love this age for so many reasons. Max is completely coming into his own, and his personality is shining through in a very big way. Much like Lucas at this age, he is incredibly laid back and so, so happy. He loves life, loves his parents, loves his brother (even if that love isn't returned from Lucas!), love his Grandma and almost always has a smile on his face. It is such a joy watching his bloom and figure out life!

Max started crawling around six and a half months and has been non-stop ever since. He is QUICK, and smart. Often as soon as I turn my back, he is off and gone before I even realize where he went -- although usually it's straight to his brothers room. He puts everything in his mouth, and no matter how hard I try to keep the floors clean, he manages to find something. He makes this hilarious grunting sound when he is happy and laughing, and is finally starting to string some noises together, almost sounding like "dada" and "mama." He has two teeth on the bottom still, and one side tooth that popped through, with three others slooowwwllly making their way down.

All in all, he is truly a joy. We struggle with sleep, still, and we have readjusted our schedules more times than I can count to find something that works. Things have gotten better, but we are still pretty unsuccessful on that front. Another post for another day.

He LOVES food. As you can tell by the miles of rolls on his little body. We didn't last very long on puree's, and have gone the way of baby-led weaning (something we also did with Lucas). There has been zero rush with food, and we didn't start with solids until well after six months when he started showing more of an interest. We are still doing mostly one meal a day (dinner) and sometimes two (breakfast) with some snacks in between. This month we will focus on a more steady schedule of two meals a day, and next month start introducing a third. Appointments are hard to get around here, so we haven't had his nine month check up, but I have no doubt that he is growing steadily and continues to be a healthy baby boy.

I love the way he snuggles and nuzzles into my arm when he is sleepy, and the way he props his foot up on my shoulder when eating (Lucas did the same thing. Weird boys). His laugh is completely infectious and you absolutely cannot help but smile and laugh with him when he gets going. He still completely adores his older brother and already so badly wants to follow in his footsteps. I hope that one day they are the best of friends, event though all Lucas wants to do right now is beat up on the poor little guy (although he won't be smaller for long. Max will definitely be the bigger of the two boys). He is incredibly ticklish, loves to shake his little booty when we are listening to music and has so much courage to try new things, with zero fear following along.

There is some sadness knowing that these are the last three months of having an infant in our home, but Max is such a wonderful, joyous baby. He makes our days brighter and I cannot wait to see the changes that come between now and January.