Ira: 9 Months

I am so obsessed with this 9-month-old boy of mine. He is smiley, sweet, cuddly, and overall delightful. Such a great age! 

Ira is curious and overall just happy about life. He has started to have a little stranger anxiety or get pretty nervous walking into a big group, but will warm up before too long. He has done great going to BSF each week, which is probably because his teachers are amazingly sweet and he's grown to love them.  I've been amazed lately how he communicates his needs and wants and definitely has an opinion about things such as attempting to lunge out of my arms when we walk by the piano because he wants to play. 

Ira just started crawling a week or so ago and is still kind of a slow mover. He's more interested in standing than crawling at this point. I haven't minded that he's late to the crawling game, because mobile babies change everything. Henrik hasn't enjoyed the competition for 'his' toys...so that'll be interesting going forward. 

Sleeping is fairly consistent with him, though not ideal. He's great at going down for his morning and afternoon naps and great at being in bed by 7 PM. Some nights he'll sleep 10-12 hours, but most of the time will want to be fed after about 8-9 hours and then go back down for a couple more hours. Somedays I feel really sick of feeding him at 4 or 5 AM but also have gotten used to it and remind myself he won't do this much longer and he'll only be a baby once. 

Ira is becoming a good little eater. He's excited to eat "table food" and seems to enjoy complex flavors and various textures. Lately some of his favorites have been soups and stews. He also finally started taking bottles! I fed him his first bottle at 9 months which was a weird feeling, but my milk supply has tanked lately due to my body getting back to it's normal cycle so it was kind of necessary. I've traded in one nursing a day for a bottle. It's a little sad because I've loved nursing him exclusively, but also really freeing to leave for the evening and know Devin can give him a bottle and put him to bed with no issues. 

I can't believe we're on that last stretch before he turns one!