Dane is 9 months!

 

9 months in, 9 months out! Time is flying. Dane is developing into such a fun little boy. And boy oh boy is he all boy! I grew up in a family of all girls and helped raise my little sister so this is a new experience for me. I love it. It seems that every day now he is amazing me with something new (and with his amount of energy).  He is silly, strong, fast, sweet, mischievous, smart, and just so much fun.

Here are Dane's 9 month stats:

Weight- 22.5 lbs 75%
Height- 30.5 inches 96%

This month brought a big change for Dane (and for Aaron and me). Dane's best friend, Roan, moved away. These two boys have seen each other every single day of their entire lives. Roan was here to greet Dane when he came home from the hospital, they shared a bath, went to the park together, shared a crib during nap time, laughed together, cried together, and just had so much fun together. It was a hard adjustment for everyone involved. I probably cried the most. And now, I am seeing the difference in Dane. He has become much more dependent on me for attention during the day. Before Dane had a playmate and now all he has is me and sometimes I really think he gets a little bored with me:-) He is thrilled whenever we have guests or go places where there are other children. I asked around to see if there is a playgroup nearby but can't find one so I guess I'll have to start one or start setting up a lot of play dates. Good thing Dane has a little brother or sister on the way.

Dane is vary active. He stands and lets go and then just stays there for a long time. He doesn't seem interested in taking steps while balancing but I'm sure he is getting there. He has perfected his crawling and is really fast! All sorts of gates have been put up in our home. As well as the pack and play being set up for temporary holding:-)

 

Dane is vary vocal and has lots of baby talk. He is now saying Mama when he needs me and it is adorable. He is getting really good at his "Dadadadada" and I'm sure Dada is not far behind. He also know/says "num, num" for food and will recognize the hand sign for milk.

Eating is getting fun. He is eating a lot more variety and also finger foods now. He likes to talk a lot while he eats and sometimes blows bubbles. Fun.

Dane is getting better at sleeping through the night. He has had several night where he will only wake up once and sleep of a stretch of 7 hrs. Unfortunately it isn't all the time and will still wake up 2 times some times.

Blanket training is going really well. I don't think I have mentioned it before on here. I have a special blanket and a special bag of toys reserved for blanket time. When he is on the blanket he will sit and play with those toys and stay on the blanket. When he goes to crawl off I just put him back on and remind him to stay. We try to practice once a day for about 15 min. He is very active and wants to crawl off but I can actually see him learning. When I put the blanket down he seems to calm down and focus on his toys. If it works as it should as he gets older he will learn some self control and boundaries and it will be like a portable playpen. It's an experiment:-) We'll see. I have to admit I'm a little nervous about having 2 babies so close in age and I'm hoping that this will help when we need to go do visits or in church. (If you are wondering, there is no hitting or spanking involved in this:).

Dane has started dancing. It is adorable. He shakes his head back and forth like he is saying "no" but he does it to music. He will also bounce his knees:-) So if you see him and he starts to shake his head no at you he is just trying to be cute.

Dane has 6 teeth. 4 on top and 2 on the bottom. We had some teething this past month that was rough. I guess my son gets a fever when he is teething. So scary but he is fine the next day.

I am so looking forward to the next few months and having a little boy to share the holidays with.

Starting with Halloween!