Jack is 9 Months Old!

Jack is 9 Months Old!!!

Very exciting. Even though this is our second time around the block (read: we're pros), we still celebrate every month. 9 seems big. It's so close to 1. He's doing so much. We're getting glimpses into what he might be like when he's Lauren's age. Sometimes it blows my mind that there are only two years separating Jack, who can't speak to speak of, can't walk, etc., from Lauren, who uses complex sentences and can climb around a jungle gym.

9 months has Jack sitting up like it's no problem, putting himself to sitting on his own (that's in the last week or two), and army crawling. Not crawling like Lauren did, where it looked like she'd broken both of her legs, but real deal army crawling that involves his arms and legs. He gets up on all fours and rocks, and the stomach off the ground crawling is clearly coming soon. Yesterday, he pulled himself up to his knees, so I imagine he's going to be pulling up to standing soon, and then cruising. Every milestone is such a huge victory for us.

Below, an impromptu couch race progression, where Jack gets a head start but has to body check at the end, and Lauren still wins.

Jack is a different beast than his sister. While he's slightly behind the curve like she was as far as crawling, pulling up, cruising, etc. goes, their methods are different. Lauren was so easy, we didn't have to baby proof anything, if she found a questionable foreign object on the floor she picked it up, deposited it in my hand, and then scooted away, like "I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have that." Jack's arms and legs are moving before we even put him down on the ground, and then he surveys the area, finds the most dangerous object, and gets there. In a hurry. Then puts said dangerous object in his mouth. He's taking years off of our lives, but mostly in a fun way. The best part is that he and Lauren can play together more now, when Lauren's in the mood. Sharing is still a bit of an issue with Lauren, but I think it makes for a pretty mellow Jack, so I'm OK with that byproduct.

Jack is still saying dada a lot, and now he says mama, too. I'm not going to say he's saying it directionally yet, but there are some indications that he might be figuring it out. I've just started giving him some finger food little cereal puffs recently, and he's not great with them yet, but I'm sure that's coming. He has his bottom two teeth, and then instead of his top two teeth, he has the teeth on either side. Little fangs, if you will.

We recently had Jack's 9 month appointment, and he is still long and skinny.  Of course I can't locate his stats right now, but I'll edit the post later and update with those; this is, after all, his baby book.  If I'm remembering correctly something like 85th percentile height, 15th weight.  Get this boy a cheeseburger.