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We have been pretty bad about keeping our blog updated lately! And it’s not that we haven’t been doing much, it’s just nothing really exciting, though we did go for a hike today and used our new backpack. Anyway, on to the stats:

- Length: 29.5″ (50%)
- Weight: 21.5 lb. (25-50%)
- Head: 19″ (90-95%)

Miles continues to change and grow every day. He is so active and into everything. When you put him on the floor, he’s off, speed crawling through the living room, down the hallway and trying to find something that he’s not supposed to have. I’ve finally given up on trying to keep him away from things and have just moved them. It’s amazing how fast he can move. He just is not happy being kept in one spot or given only one toy to play with.

He also is not happy sitting if he can stand, including in the bathtub. He just will not stay seated in the tub and I probably say “Sit down” about 50 times to him each time he’s in the bath, for all the good that it does. He has these little Shrek squirt bath toys that came in the Cheerios boxes and he loves them. Tonight he was standing up (of course) and making them “walk” across the edge of the tub and then smashing them into each other. It was really cute.

Bedtime has been so much better lately. I don’t know if it was due to my sleep plan or what, but I haven’t had to crawl in his crib with him for probably 3 weeks now. I gradually shortened the time I spent in his crib and then I’d just sit next to it while rubbing his back, and soon I could just sit next to him. After awhile, he was ok with me just sitting on the floor and reading and now I don’t even need to be in the room at all. He’ll sometimes cry a little bit, but for the most part he’s ok and he doesn’t do the “mama!” sobbing that he did.

He’s eating more “real” food now, and some days he won’t even try baby food. We give him a bit of whatever we’re eating and some things he’ll eat and other things he spits right out. He’s definitely his daddy’s boy, because most of what comes back out is fruit. Yesterday it was pears and peaches, though he ate some salsa and olives. He loves those Gerber Graduates wagon wheels. He gets excited when he sees the container.

I’m still pretty careful about what he eats. I don’t want him to be one of those kids who only eats hot dogs and spaghetti-ohs (in fact, I would prefer it if he never ate those at all, though an occasional hot dog over the fire is fine).

He is starting to say actual words a bit more in the past few days. Yesterday he was saying “Daddy” and today he’s been saying “hi.” He also will say “all done” when you ask him if he’s all done. I was holding him one time while asking Greg if he was done and Miles said, “all done.” It was cute. The “Miles speak” is still pretty much nonstop. He talks to himself when he’s falling asleep and talks to his toys and animals and the sky and the cats and us and everything. It’s rare for him to actually be quiet. I keep thinking that one day there’s going to be a connection that happens and I’ll go to get him out of his crib and he’ll say, “Good morning, mother, how are you this fine day?” I’m kidding, but only kind of. I have a feeling that we’re going to be playing the quiet game with him a lot!

He’s started “dancing” a little bit lately. We usually have music on when we’re at home and he’ll bob his head to the music when a few songs come on (he seems to like hip hop!). He’s also interested in reading again. For awhile, he wanted nothing to do with books, but his bedtime routine now involves reading him some books, brushing his teeth and then down to bed. He has this set of four Sesame Street books and he loves them. He smiles when you open the package.

Today I was rocking him in the chair right after his nap and remembering when he was a small guy and would just lie in my arms and be rocked to sleep. Now he’ll only tolerate being rocked if he’s half-asleep and only for a minute or two until he’s awake enough to want to get down and play. I also miss being able to cuddle with him in our bed. If you bring him in there now, he turns and flops and kicks and hits and you have to be on guard or you’ll get hurt! My baby is turning into a big boy!

Miles and Percy at 11 months (he wouldn’t stay down for the picture, so this is the best we could do):

Miles developed at a far greater rate in his ninth month than any others, in terms of achieving new milestones and motor skills. Before I explain, let’s get his stats out of the way:

- Weight: 20 lb., 14 oz. (25-50%)
- Length: 29.25″ (50-75%)
- Head: 18.75″ (90-95%)

So he’s still growing at a good rate, which is great! So, what has Miles done in the last month?

As I mentioned previously, he learned to crawl. He went from army crawling to hands-and-knees crawling within just a couple of weeks. Two days after that, he started pulling himself up on things. A few days after that, he attempted to take his first steps by shaking my hands off when he was standing and trying to walk by himself to his toys. At this point, he and I had a little discussion where I told him that he was getting too big and he needed to stop this walking nonsense. He didn’t listen and he’s still trying to stand by himself (he’s managed it for a bit) and walk (still not working too well, but I’m sure it won’t be long).

He also is now talking and understanding more. I mean, he’s always talked and talked and talked, having whole conversations we just can’t understand, but he now knows that I’m “mama” and Greg is “da.” When he’s crying, he’ll sob, “mama!” and it’s so sad. (He doesn’t cry too much, just at bedtime (which I’ll get to in a bit here) or if he bonks his head pretty hard. People are always saying that my head was like a rock and apparently he inherited that, because he’ll bonk his head pretty hard and doesn’t make a peep.) Anyway, when he’s in a silly mood or wants to play, he wants “da.”

He knows what his kitties are, and when I ask him, “Where’s the kitty?” he’ll look around for Henry or Josie. For awhile we had checked out a board book from the library called Grover’s New Kitten, and Miles loved it, I think because the little orange kitten looked like our cats. He would sit and hold the book, staring at that kitten. He likes to “read” books now, where he’ll hold them and “talk,” I think because he knows that that’s what you do with a book, you hold and read it aloud. It’s so cute.

We’ve also discovered that we need to start baby proofing. Miles has found power cords and loves them. The laptop cord is a special favorite because if he pulls on it, it comes out of the laptop and he can chew on it. He also loves remote controls, so we cleaned up one of our old ones and that one is “his” remote now. Though he knows it’s not the right one, so he still wants the one that you have.

His top four teeth came in at the very beginning of June, but he’s getting two more on the bottom now, so he’s been kind of crabby and drooly lately.

Last weekend was his first time in the lake down at my parents’ and he seemed to really like it. The first day it was windy and wavy and he didn’t like that at all, but the next day was calmer and he sat in it for a good while. He was sitting on my lap in the water and at one point, he must’ve seen something in the water that he wanted to grab because he face-planted right into the water. I sat him up and wiped his eyes and he never even cried.

Over the last month, Miles has decided that bedtime = EVIL. As soon as he feels you lean over to put him in his crib, he starts crying. It’s so weird because he naps in there just fine. But bedtime? No way. So, we’ve worked out a routine. I climb in his crib (yes, that’s right, I climb in his crib), then Greg puts him in there and I feed him. After he eats, I give him his binky and sit up and rub his back for a minute and then I climb out. If he’s still awake, I sit on the floor next to his crib and fold laundry or read or something, but don’t make eye contact. He falls asleep pretty quickly. He seems to be getting better about this; the first few nights he cried as soon as I climbed out, but lately he’s been alright. This past week, I’ve also been putting him to bed earlier and he does fine.

The weird thing about his sleep routine is that during the day when it gets close to naptime, he yawns and rubs his eyes and looks tired. At night, he does none of this (or rarely does this). One night he was up until 11 and never yawned the whole time. The later it got, the more hyper he got, giggling and thrashing around until I eventually wrapped my arms and legs around him so that he couldn’t move and he fell asleep. I even tried swaddling him in a big blanket, but he busted out of that in 10 seconds.

On the eating front, he’s still been not all that fond of “real” food. His gag reflex is so sensitive that he chokes (and sometimes throws up) almost every mealtime. Since “food before one is just for fun,” he doesn’t actually need to eat any solid food until he’s a year, so I’m not worrying about it.

Below is his picture with Percy (look how small Percy is getting!) and some others from our trip to the park last night:

Enjoying some blended vegetable baby food

At the local park, swinging for the first time

Mommy's turn to push

Not too sure about the slide

Every time we’re out in public, someone always calls Miles a girl. I know it’s the long hair, but I can’t bring myself to cut it yet. I tell myself he wouldn’t sit still for a cut (which he wouldn’t), but part of it is that he’ll look like such a big boy then, and I still want him to be my little baby.

When you have kids, everyone tells you that they grow up so fast, and while you can *know* that, it’s a whole other thing to actually experience it. I tell myself that I’ll remember how he looks and all the sounds he makes, but when I watch videos of him, even from just a couple of months ago, he seems so much bigger now.

Anyway, so while I just can’t have his hair cut yet, I decided we had to do something about his bangs. When wet, they reached the bottom of his eyes, and we were always trying to sweep them to the side when they’d fall in his eyes. So last night, I finally trimmed them. The problem? The trim makes him look like he’s got bangs and then long hair, kind of like he’s got a pretty good mullet going. So now do I need to trim off his curls? The thought is heartbreaking.

Oh, and last night after his trim, what does he do? He goes and CRAWLS. He’s been doing an army-type of crawl, but he finally figured out the hands-and-knees crawl. So apparently he’s ready to become a big boy, but I’m not. Dear God, I’ll blink and he’ll be off to college. He’s also pulling himself up, so yesterday during nap time I had to lower his crib so that he won’t fall out.

He’s just getting to be too big. I need to figure out ways to keep him a baby for a little while longer.

Here are some pics from the haircut:

Before:

After:

I know I say this every month, but I can’t believe our baby is 9 months old already! Where has the time gone? Here are Miles’ unofficial stats:

- Weight: 21.5 lb. (50-75%)
- Length: 28″ (25-50%)
- Head: 18.5″ (90%)

He was moving around so much while I was trying to get his measurements, so I’m not really sure if these are right, but close enough. He’ll go for his 9-month appointment and shots in 3 weeks. Because of six-month shots being postponed for a week, it’s thrown off his entire shots schedule. So now he’ll be a few days away from 10 months at his 9 month appointment. Oh, well.

Miles has been doing so much lately. He’s not crawling yet, but it seems like he’s just days away. He’ll get up to his hands and knees and then reach forward and belly flop. He also has started clapping, waving, kissing (more people than just me), banging toys together to make noise, pounding his hands on things like a drum, lifting his arms up when he wants to be lifted, and just being ridiculously silly, to name a few things. He also loves to talk. He jabbers and talks all the time. The only time he’s quiet is if he’s really tired or has just woken up.

When he’s tired, Miles will laugh and laugh and laugh at the goofiest things. Sometimes when he’s like that, he’ll laugh at nothing, which makes us laugh, which makes him laugh harder. Oh, and last week, we were outside when Greg tripped on a rock and almost fell. Miles thought it was hilarious and laughed huge belly laughs. So of course Greg kept pretending to trip and Miles loved it. A few days ago, the three of us were trying to take a nap. I had my eyes closed and was nearly asleep when I felt a tiny little finger reach into my open mouth and poke my tooth. I ignored him, hoping he’d go to sleep, when he leaned over and kissed me. I opened one eye to look at him and he laughed at me. I ended up having to pin his legs between mine so he would settle down and nap.

A few weeks ago, he cut his top four teeth, though one of the front ones isn’t in as far as the others yet. While he was teething, he didn’t want to eat much solid food, but now he’s been eating more. He’s not a big fan of pureed baby food and would much rather feed himself, so he eats some baby puffs (the sweet potato ones are his favorite), graham crackers, and tonight he had some of my grilled chicken. That is, until he choked on a piece and threw up all over his highchair tray.

It just seems like he’s doing something new every day. He’s started pulling himself up to standing when you try to help him sit up when he’s lying down, and he’ll walk a bit holding onto your hands. I wonder if he’ll skip crawling completely? He doesn’t like his jumper or exersaucer as much anymore because they don’t let him move around. He would much rather be rolling across the floor, grabbing at toys or trying to get at things that he’s not supposed to have.

We are having so much fun watching him learn new things and try new things. Though I feel mixed feelings about the speed that he does this, because I don’t want my little baby to grow up so fast! I love seeing his face light up and the big smiles he gives me when he sees me and I know that before too long he’ll be running all over!

Below are some pictures of him and Percy from tonight:

So here are our totally unofficial measurements for Miles at 8 months:

- Length: 27.5″ (25-50th percentile)
- Weight: 20 lb. (25-50th percentile)
- Head: 18.25″ (75-90th percentile)

Does Miles really have such a big head? Maybe I’m just used to it, but it seems fine to me. I need to find another 8-month-old so we can compare.

Oh, and another thing. If Miles is in the 25-50th range for both height and weight and he’s only 8 months old, why is the 9 month clothing getting too small? Shouldn’t they make the clothes to fit at least the 50th percentiles at 9 months? It makes no sense. And Gerber’s onesies are the worst. He’s currently wearing 18- and 24-month sizes of the Gerber onesies. What the heck? Ok, rant over.

So, what has Miles been up to in the last month? A lot. And most of it involves MOVING. He is now sitting up all by himself and will put a hand out to stop himself if he starts to tip to the side. If he tips backwards, though, he just tips. He’s usually on his thick blanket when he’s sitting by himself, so it doesn’t hurt if he tips backwards.

He’s also rolling and scooting all over the place. It’s funny to watch him try to get something by rolling, turning around, pushing himself with his feet and wiggling over to it. He’s getting pretty good at it. He still isn’t showing any interest in trying to crawl, though he will push up with his arms and then push himself forward a bit with his toes.

Oh, and I can tell we’ll have to baby-proof the house soon. He rolled/wormed over to a shelf I have with figurines and tried to grab one of them. I found some baby gates that have a cat door in them so that we can block off the area where the litter box is.

His two bottom teeth are probably about 1/3 of the way in now. I still can’t believe they came in two days apart. And he started cutting one of his upper teeth that is next to the two front ones. Part of it came down and you could see this little white dot in his gum, and now it’s gone, but the little hole where it was is still there. Maybe it will come back later?

On the food front, he’s eating only so-so of the solid food. He’d still much rather nurse (and it was a short nursing strike, thank goodness, around the time of his teething), though he’s trying some new foods. It seems like he would much rather feed himself, and now that he’s 8 months, he should start developing techniques to enable him to feed himself finger foods, so hopefully he’ll enjoy that much more. We’re still making our own baby food (www.wholesomebabyfood.com is a great resource if you want to do this), and now he can start eating some spices (cinnamon, ginger, basil, stuff like that) and some different foods. Yesterday I bought blueberries, watermelon and a kiwi to try with him.

He tries to grab things off of your plate, too, if you leave it too close. He also wants to drink out of your glass because he doesn’t seem to like his sippy cup so we’ve been giving him sips of water out of a regular glass. So now you can’t drink when you’re holding him because he tries to swat/grab it out of your hand.

He’s talking so, so much lately. Babababa, dadadada, hadaba, and squeals and loud yells. It’s so cute! Last weekend in church was our first time moving to the baby room because he was talking so loud.

He’s not really into his books as much lately because reading requires sitting still and he is so not about that. He does seem to have two favorite books, one called Count that is just simple (“Blue bird, blue bird, what do you see? I see 1 (2, 3, 4, 5) bird up in a tree.”) and he loves for you to read it 5 times in a row. The other is Baby Faces and he just loves to look at those babies. He smiles at them as if they’re actual people.

Bedtime is another thing that he is not enjoying lately. When you put him in his crib, he cries like his tiny little heart is just broken and I can’t STAND it. So, though I know they tell you not to do this, I lie down with him on our bed until he falls asleep and then move him to his crib. He’ll sleep there until 7:00 in the morning just fine, so I’m ok with doing things this way for now. I’m pretty sure this is just a separation anxiety thing that he’ll hopefully grow out of soon.

One really cute thing we’ve noticed lately is that he likes to flirt with pretty girls. At the grocery store and restaurants, he’ll stare at a pretty girl until she smiles at him and then he’ll give her a big smile back. Guys get totally ignored. It’s funny because it’s not even girls in general that he does this with, it’s always pretty girls. Though he’s not picky about blondes vs. brunettes.

It’s so much fun to see him grow into his personality and he’s such a wonderful baby. It’s so amazing how much he changes in just a month!

And instead of just one picture of him and Percy, here are three, just so you can get an idea of how difficult it’s getting to take these pictures!

Here’s the entire series of monthly photos with Percy.