The spectacular weather earlier this week allowed us to spend some quality time outside. This was O's first extended encounter with grass. He didn't seem to mind it at all.
An added bonus to the cooler weather is to wear warm pajamas again! I think our "Lil' Cowboy" was talking to me in this picture.
And here's a video of the excitement he shows every time Daddy comes home in the evening. If he had a tail, it would be wagging!
He's been interested in the stairs. Don't worry, we've got the gate, but they recommend leaving the bottom few stairs for the baby to practice on.
When I checked on him one night, this is how I found him. Who can sleep like this?
We've had an interesting week: starting with successive overnight stays by Granna M and Grandpa P, successive bouts with apparent food poisoning by O's Mom and Dad, and continued teething drama (on closer inspection, it looks like O's working on 3 more top teeth to go with the 3 he currently has). This translates to a fussy, biting baby and tired, weak parents! At least the latter has been mostly remedied (can we ever get enough sleep?).
In the mean time, he's been perfecting his pulling up and standing skills. Check out how casually he's leaning on the table, just hanging out...
He enjoyed watching Daddy work outside through the French doors. I should have videoed this, since there was much squealing and laughing accompanying the cross-window communications! Oh well.
We retired the old playmat this week. It was bittersweet, as it was invaluable for the first 6 months, but O was ready to move on to bigger and better things. Cue the Leap Frog table! It's amazing - he can pull up on it or play with it sitting down, silent or music, lots of musical instruments/songs, as well as educational numbers/letters/shapes. So far, so good. And no, I'm not getting compensated for my ringing endorsement!
I couldn't resist putting a hat on my laundry helper. I started to wash the next size of clothes, so hopefully we'll have hat weather soon!
We had a bon voyage lunch with my friend (and O's favorite babysitter), Kim, before she headed off to new work-related adventures on another continent.
And we drove down to South Austin to say "Hi" to James and Lynn. Believe it or not, O's got 4 months on this baby, but it would be a close match-up. At least O can crawl away if he's losing. :)
He finally smiled for a portrait session! So place your orders - we have way too many pictures. :) And you can see his teeth (he's up to 3 now and already grinding them together!).
Today marks 9 months for Owen! We went in for a well check-up, but no vaccinations, just a flu shot and a hemoglobin test, which was fine. His stats are 19.4 lbs (30%, which is normal for breastfed babies, apparently) and 28.5 inches long (50%). He did really well, except he cried every time I brought him over to the paper-covered exam table. I guess he remembers!
And a picture to commemorate baby's first bruise. (He face-planted while crawling to the door to see where Daddy went (to work) in the morning.) He's so excited when Daddy comes home in the evening, and sad when he leaves in the morning. It's very sweet.
So much for "partially" pulling up. He's been trying the full-blown pull up on furniture, people (including other babies), and his crib. I caught him in the process of the latter when I went to get him from his nap today.
Ta-da!
He would pull up on the cats if they'd stay still...
He was also my laundry helper. He's surprisingly strong and could tilt the whole basket despite it being full of clothes.
And here's the little piggy face alluded to in an earlier post. He was making that face/sound a lot today during cheesy potatoes. Who doesn't like cheesy potatoes? Apparently Owen.
Owen made his first official crawl on Labor Day. Now he alternates between scooting and crawling, since he's still a little faster scooting.
He also pulled up for the first time on the same day (with a little protective bubble from Mom) and has been partially pulling up on lots of things since. "Partially" meaning he doesn't get much off of his knees.
And we've started finding him sleeping in funny positions (i.e. fanny up in the air). Whatever works, I guess.
His current favorite activity is walking around holding onto our hands (my back!). He still walks like a drunken sailor, but he protests quite a bit when we try to end the walk by steering him toward the big foam mat. I wonder if it's worth buying one of those baby harnesses to walk him around but save our lower backs (like a marionette)...?
Woohoo for mandatory holidays! This weekend we packed up and headed to Houston where John went to the UT-Rice football game, and I caught up with some old friends. It was Owen's longest car ride to date and it went pretty smoothly. The only hang-up was naps, but we managed to get a couple in each day. He was a trooper!
Family Play Time with Uncle Dan and Jen
Owen and I watched the game with my UT friends Ruby and Kathy at Ruby's house.
Ruby's newest addition: 2 month old Elliott
Owen enjoyed chasing Kathy's dog, Josie, who was gracious enough to play along.
Family Meal Time with Uncle Dan and Jen and Aunt Loni
He's becoming more and more vocal. This includes cute baby babbling, excited screaming upon a cat sighting, and competing with everything in the house to be the loudest. He frequently uses "mamamama" in his chatter, but it doesn't seem to correlate to anything in particular yet. In related news, it seems that Family Dinner Out will be on hiatus because he does not enjoy quietly sitting still and watching us eat like he used to!
Here's a better picture of him playing with the neighbor. They look like they could be related, don't they? (Owen's on the right.) :)
Getting him out of the crib is becoming more interesting. Since he's been practicing his tummy-to-sitting skills, we often find him sitting up in his crib now. And the other morning I was surprised to find him kneeling on his knees with his hands on the crib rail peering out over the top. Guess it's time to lower the crib again. And maybe pulling up is not far behind...?
He's drinking water out of the sippy cup now, but he still usually needs help tipping it up to get liquid out. If left on his own, you can hear him sucking down air because we haven't had our lesson about gravity yet.
He's also making the rounds doing his army crawl. Baby Swiffer coming through!
