Stats: At Ben's 9.5 month check up he was the following:
Height: 29.5 inches
Weight: 21 lbs.
Head Circumference: 18.5
Teeth: 4ish (his two front teeth are so close to popping all the way through, I expect to see them by the end of the week--two more teeth are in as of today!)
Movement: Ben is a speedy crawler. He loves to crawl around the house and if he is being chased, he really picks up the pace. He climbs up the stairs, over the dogs, and over any obstacle on the floor. He pulls himself up on everything and can transfer from one thing to another. He tries to stand on his own but doesn't have much balance so he quickly tumbles to the ground. He does not want to walk. If I hold his hands in mine to try to get him to walk he simply kneels to the ground and tries to crawl. I'm okay with this and we are not encouraging walking too much.
Games/toys: Ben loves peek-a-boo and "find mommy." If I am in another room and say, "Where's mommy" he will crawl as quickly as he can to try to find me and laugh when he has accomplished his task. He has started to figure out his toys and makes an effort to sort shapes, put puzzles together and bang on things that look like they need a good hit. He likes to open and close cupboard doors and bang on pots and pans. He loves music and it is both very soothing and enjoyable to him. He will "dance" by bouncing up and down. He loves it when Andrew plays the guitar when he is around and tries to touch the strings.
He likes to dump out baskets of toys, books, clothes, etc. He enjoys pulling things out of our kitchen cabinets and pulling things off of the table. He loves to crawl all over Andrew's guitar cases and play with the latches. He is especially intrigued by the vacuum and Andrew's bikes--more than once I have had to wipe bike grease off of his hands a trend that is certain to continue.
He loves to read. We take weekly trips to the library and he loves all of our books. He has a few favorites that include, Peek-a-Boo (he can flip up pictures to see a smiling animal underneath) Goodnight Moon, How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon and Go to School, Doggies, and a touch and feel animal book. He will turn the pages in a book and if it is one we have read a lot, he will do it at the appropriate time.
Verbal Communication: Ben loves to babble and mimic. If you cough, Ben will cough. If you trill your lips, Ben will trill his lips. He has mastered "dadada," "mamama," "baba" and "dgdg." The later is often said when he sees our dogs so I am saying it was his first word. He has also started to say mama and dada at appropriate times although he mostly says "mama" when he is upset or is looking for me. He uses a lot of inflection in his voice when he is having conversations with us. He has started to test our reaction to things and will drop things or knock something over to see what we will do. When he gets a bump and I am around he will cry, but if Andrew is around and I am out of site he seems to recover fairly quickly.
Social Development: Ben is a social butterfly. He loves to be around people. If we have people over we have a hard time getting him to go to bed because he wants to hang out. If we aren't paying enough attention to him he will talk or shout to get our attention. He will wave "bye-bye" and "hi" if he is prompted most of the time.
Silly things: Ben touches things with one finger. Whenever he feels something he reaches out his little index finger and points to it. Perhaps this is a normal baby thing, but we find it incredibly endearing. He continues to love our dogs and prefers Chopper over Tessa. He loves when we give them bones and tries to hold their bones for them. He doesn't always understand that there are dog toys and baby toys. He gives very wet sloppy kisses . He loves the dogs crates and enjoys banging the doors and only occasionally crawls inside. He is incredibly interested in strings of all kinds--shoe strings, strings on mittens, cords, basically anything that looks like he could strangle himself with he tries to grab.
Eating: Ben's favorite food is yogurt. On a typical day he eats yogurt for breakfast, fruit and vegetable for lunch and a vegetable/meat dinner. I make most of his baby food but we keep some on hand from the store just in case. He is doing better with feeding himself but he doesn't like when there are "chunks" in his baby food--he spits them out. When he is full he starts spitting which brings laughter from his audience (especially his dad). He nurses about five times a day. We are still working on a sippy cup but he doesn't really "get" it. He will drink out of an adult cup very carefully.
Sleeping: This past month was so much better for sleeping. On average he only woke up once a night and slept for longer stretches. He goes to bed around eight o'clock and wakes up at seven. His in the middle of the night meal is not predictable at all which has helped us to see that he is not just waking up out of habit. He is better at self-soothing in the middle of the night when he wakes up and isn't hungry he will settle back to sleep on his own. He takes two naps a day--one in the morning around 9:45 and one in the afternoon around 2:45. When we go outside for walks we do not go anywhere close to nap time because we've learned that if he gets a catnap he won't take a real nap later. When he wakes up from naps and in the morning he is very cheerful and talkative and tries out every sound he can make.
Clothing: Ben wears all twelve month clothing. A few of his nine month sweatshirts still fit but pants are out of the question. He hates to wear socks and pulls them off of his feet as quickly as he can. He helps me dress him now which is really nice.
Monthly Highlights: During this month, Ben took his first trip to his Aunt Hilary and Uncle Dan's house in Dayton. We enjoyed going to their churches Trunk-or-Treat where Ben was an adorable elephant. He also liked hanging out with their dog Lander. November had unseasonably warm weather for New York and with that weather we enjoyed many trips to the playground, walks around Fredonia and hanging out on our porch swing. Ben overcame his first cold which I took him to the doctor for making it very evident that he is our first child.
Every day our little guy becomes more of a big boy and we are enjoying watching the transition. Andrew mentioned the other day that it is really like having another human around now instead of just a little grub. He is a joy to parent and we love him more than we ever imagined.
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