Nine months old

Dear Gabriel,

You continue to be the sweetest, most smiley baby ever.  I adore you.  You are such a treasure.

As I look back at your six month post, I'm amazed at how much has changed in the past three months.  You weren't sitting up on your own yet, something that you were able to do shortly after you turned six months. 

You didn't have any teeth, but got your first two (bottom middle) sometime during your seventh month as well.  I tried to get a photo of them one evening, but you weren't having it. 

You can see them in this pic though.

You weren't sleeping through the night at six months either.  Thankfully, during your eighth month, you began to do that as well.  I got to the point when I could tell that you really didn't need that middle-of-the-night feeding.  So I didn't feed you when you woke up, and you went back to sleep without too much trouble.  After a few nights of still waking up, but not eating, you slept through for the first time.  Of course, your sister woke up at least once that night, so it had still been 7+ months since I'd slept through the night.  But now I'm happy to say that there have been some nights when everyone has slept through.  And so I'm starting to feel a little more human again.  Some days I'm more tired than others, but there are days when I actually feel rested.

You are also eating solids now!  You weren't too crazy about the whole solids idea at first.  You seemed interested when we were eating so I thought you'd be all for it, but not so much.  The first (many) times we tried feeding you solids you made terrible faces.  Sometimes you'd manage to swallow a bit; other times you'd spit things back out.  Never did you take more than the tiniest bit.  So I tried here and there, but wasn't too motivated to expend the effort if you weren't going to eat anything anyway.  Right around when you hit eight months though, that began to change.  You seemed to be having a growth spurt and then...bam!...you were a solids-eating master.  In less than a week, you went from eating virtually no solids to eating the equivalent of about two baby food jars three times a day.  It was a quick transition!  The thing that you finally decided you were okay with eating?  Meat.  Beef, chicken, salmon...you were crazy about them.  Now you are willing to eat nearly everything we try to give you, although you continue to dislike avocados and bananas...probably because they are one of the easiest foods to quickly prepare for you.

The day you turned 8 months, you accomplished another developmental hurdle: pulling yourself up.  I'd sat you in the laundry basket for a minute before heading downstairs, went into my room to grab something, and heard Lilah say, "Look, Mama!  Look at Gaby!"  And there you were, standing up in the laundry basket all proud of yourself.  To this point, you have yet to repeat that anywhere other than inside the laundry basket, although you have repeated it there a number of times.  Here's one of them:

So you began pulling yourself up before you had shown much interest in crawling.  In the weeks that followed though, I kept noticing how much stronger you were getting.  You had much more control of your body and were moving around in ways you hadn't been before.  You started rolling from your back to your tummy, which you hadn't really done before.  And you were able to get from sitting to lying on your tummy a little more gracefully than before.  You even succeeded at dragging yourself forward slightly as you lay on your tummy.  And pivoting around while lying on your belly.  I'm sure that crawling is not too far behind!

Other things you've been up to... 

You celebrated your first St. Patrick's Day on which we subjected you to a little photo shoot that you weren't really in the mood for.



You attended your first wedding.

 And celebrated your first Easter.

Nicknames: Gaby (there are other variations, but that one seems to be #1)

Weight: 19.1 lbs (35% percentile)

Height: 27 3/4 in (10% percentile)

Teeth: 2

You are growing and changing like crazy, my little man.  And I feel like I can say, although I know it's not exactly true, that I'm enjoying every moment of it.  You are a true joy, Gabriel Jacob.

Love always,

Mama