Everett is nine months old

I love that we have hit the milestone that he has been on this earth longer than he was cooking. There's a really nice feeling to that.

Here are his nine new facts and then some pictures and even a video!

1. Everett crawls. He had been working at it for a while, but just a few days before nine months he really understood it. And this video shows that at 9 months and one day, he is all about it!



2. We've added baked chicken, lentils, blueberries and strawberries to his diet.

3. He has learned to communicate his displeasure. Not a full-on two year old fit, but he is developing opinions about certain things and can throw his head back with the best of them. I know this is just a glimpse of raising of kid, but right now, I enjoy seeing his preferences, and thankfully, he is quickly distracted or soothed.

4. He gives kisses. This is the best thing, and maybe only thing, that I have taught him. If you ask for kisses, and he feels like it, he will open his mouth in a certain shape and lean towards you. Kiss me now! We ask him to give kisses to other people, and sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't. He gave kisses to my board president this past weekend, and it was uber, uber sweet.

5. He is back to sleeping. We went almost two weeks where he was out of his routine and not sleeping through the night. We've experienced this before, where he gets off schedule, but it doesn't make it any easier. He just stops sleeping. But it tells us that something is changing and we need to pay attention. So we tried. And Everett moved his bed time later about an hour. Previously, we had been putting him down around 6 or 6:30pm and he would sleep all night. After this recent upset, we watched him, and we put him down around 7:30 or 7:45 and he is back to sleeping through the night. It's amazing how he is communicating with us by getting off schedule. He mixes it up to tell us something is changing. That's how we've known to move his bedtime later when he was an infant, and now to adjust is a bit later. We always know we've struck gold when he goes back to sleeping through the night!

6. He has 8 teeth. Eight! Four on the top and four on the bottom. The fourth bottom one is the most recent. It's not in fully, but it's in enough that you can see all the top ridges of the tooth, etc. This will finally even out his smile.

7.  He holds his own bottle. This is new because we upgraded to the 8oz bottle, as opposed to the 4oz bottle. He had learned how to hold the 4oz, but the 8 oz was a new struggle. It's great to see him manage it now and move it from hand to hand, lean it back and then re-situated with it. It also frees up a lot of my time, which is nice!

8. He loves his daddy! Chris keeps E every Saturday while I work the market, and they have a big time. When Chris is home, Everett always wants to play with him, and that makes me happy.

9. His favorite games are to dump things out of containers and tear paper. These two activities keep him busy for long periods of time!

Now for some photos!

The End!