9 months old

The latest on our little Elijah-man:

At his nine-month checkup (a couple weeks late), his weight was 20 lbs, 14 oz (52nd percentile); height was 30 1/2 inches (96th percentile); head measured 45.5 cm (52nd percentile).

He is a great sleeper. Takes about a two hour nap in the norning, an hour nap in the afternoon, and sleeps from about 8 to 8 at night.

He has a husky little boy voice and this meaty baby boy giggle, but squeals exactly like Sydney did when tickled.

He's not saying any words yet, though he babbles and squeals a lot and is very partial to the sound "a-DAH" - sometimes I could swear his little voice is saying "Elijah."

For weeks, the poor guy has had rashy little skin...excema, turns out. A lot of the photos we've taken of him at this stage show it, especially on his face - hopefully it's just a stage.

He's had just those bottom two teeth for nearly three months now, but now we're finally seeing the top front two coming in - just really slowly. His little baby smile is about to change forever. I'm sad about that.

He eats like crazy. We started Cheerios last week and in one short week he's become a master at grabbing them from me with his thumb and forefinger. Sometimes they get waylaid in his palm as The Thumb goes in the mouth. As with all food, he pops that thing right back in his mouth in between bites. The right sleeves on all his shirts are stained from this little practice. I've decided not to be annoyed by it.

I remember when Syd was 9 months, she was crawling up the stairs and turning the pages of her board books. E's not there yet. =)

After teasing us with it for weeks, he finally started crawling last weekend, just a couple days after he turned 9 months. But even before his newfound mobility, he was Mr. Grabby Grabberson, finding his way into things...