beau andrew | nine months

Well hey, y'all! I've missed you guys...a little bit. Life has been good and I'm kind of enjoying not blogging regularly these days. For those of you that have said you miss it - don't worry! I'm not gone for good. I'll keep doing these updates and I'll do some random posts with pictures and stories of Beau. Plus, I'll blog after we travel, so look out for a few posts on Charleston coming soon! Thanks for all of the love, it makes me feel good to know that so many people enjoyed this blog. 

So Beau is now NINE months old! What?! This is another big milestone, much like 6 months. He is so, so, so fun but also a little bit of the toddler attitude is starting to show it's face. Uh oh. For real.

So here is what Beau is up to these days:

-pulling up! He now wants to be standing 80% of the time. It is much harder to supervise him this way and also I can't really leave him in the living room (the most baby friendly area in the house) because he will try to pull up on something and then fall and hurt himself. 

-arching his back when he doesn't want something (that's the toddler coming out). He will do it in the stroller, car seat, and even the high chair (although he loves to eat!). 

-refusing to bend his legs when we want him to sit down and he doesn't want to. This one is fun. Sometimes he will finally sit but as soon as we let go he will throw himself backwards. He did this yesterday and bonked his head so of course I had to pick him up after he started sobbing! 

-crawling. He still has a unique way of crawling but he is getting much faster. I'm not sure that he will ever decide to crawl the 'right' way.

-had his first sickness/ear infection while on vacation (of course). Everything had been good and Mark woke up with him on Saturday morning and took him on a walk to the coffee shop. When they got back, he started crying and would. not. stop. We tried all of the normal things but he would not nurse, would not eat, nothing. Typically he will stop crying as long as you pick him up but he was not having it and he was inconsolable. It took about 5-10 minutes for me to figure out that something was wrong so we got in the car to head towards an urgent care. Of course, he fell asleep as soon as we got in the car. Since he had already lost sleep and was thrown off of his nap schedule, we decided to let him sleep in the case that maybe he was just super tired. That lasted for about 30 minutes while we drove around west of Charleston but when he woke up it was full on tears again. We turned around and went to CVS to get Tylenol before we went to the Urgent Care. I got him out of his car seat in the parking lot while Mark was inside and facetimed with my mom for some reassurance. He broke his tears and smiled at her but then was back to sobbing. She ended up singing him to sleep over facetime! I couldn't even do that and I was right there! Anyway, she agreed that something was wrong so we took him to the Urgent Care. As suspected/hoped (although teething would mean nothing was really 'wrong', I didn't want to have to endure that kind of crying every time Beau cuts a tooth. And nope, no teeth yet), he had an infection in his left ear. We got a prescription, the go-ahead to give him the Tylenol, and we got out of there. He was asleep for about 30 minutes as soon as we got back into the car and when he woke up he was his normal, happy self. Hallelujah! We went to the beach that day and as long as we gave him some Tylenol for the pain, he was completely fine. I'm so glad that was all it was! It is so hard seeing your baby in pain!

-first plane ride. Beau's first plane ride was on our trip to Charleston. He did so great! We had an extra seat in between us on both flights and that was nice to have the extra room. He was a little bit needy (always wanting mama these days) but otherwise he was silent and perfect. We got no evil glances and the people behind us said they didn't even know he was there. Yay! I can only hope all of our flights will be that easy.



-still nursing. The frequency has dropped a lot and I'm trying really hard to not push him to keep his old schedule but it is hard! I am letting him pretty much nurse on demand. That means sometimes he goes 5 hours without nursing and it is so weird. Selfishly, though, I am looking forward to when he will just nurse a couple times a day, hopefully at night and in the morning. I loved the ease of nursing for the first several months but now that he is harder to keep still and it is summer (I want to wear dresses!!!) I am ready for the downhill process of weaning. Still planning to nurse until 1 year though.

-he has said 'mama' a couple of other times but not consistently. We are working on other words and signs so hopefully he will start doing those soon!

-napping much better these days but bedtime is still a toss-up. He is waking up pretty much every night at least once. I'm feeding him but trying to shorten the session every time so hopefully we can eliminate the habit once and for all.

-started working on using a munchkin360 cup (thanks to the recommendation from Mark's cousin Kelly!) but still doesn't have it 100% down. Since he doesn't take bottles often, he can't hold a cup/bottle for himself but we will be working on it.

-signed "more" and continues to do so! He usually just does it after he takes a bite but, you know, it's the thought that counts? haha!

                                  

-swam for the first time. He had his first pool swim at the house in Charleston and he did it in the nude! He seemed to like it but it was about to storm so I got him out. Then, he had his first ocean dip in the Atlantic at Folly Beach. He wasn't so much a fan but he didn't really fuss, either. We will be swimming lots at our neighborhood pools and at nana's house this summer. Can't wait to see if I have a little water baby!

As a bonus, here are some iPhone pictures from the last few weeks. Thanks for reading!

My grandfather passed away last month so as sad as that was, we were happy to spend time with lots of family that we don't see often. First, we got the great-grandkids together:

Then, there was almost a series of unfortunate events. Note my nephew Noah holding Beau...

Nice save! Beau wasn't amused, though. 

Thanks, Little Tikes!

Baby's first Byron.

We put up this gate between our living room and kitchen area so Beau stops making a bee line to Motley's water dish (which he proceeds to shake and splash water everywhere), among other non kid friendly things. It is this brand but I got the standard (not the tall) on craigslist. :) We love it! It's really sturdy and I love that we don't have to step/trip over anything.