Saturday, September 27, 2014

General Update: Bean

Time for some general update posting! I'm going to start with Bean.  Bean is now 9 months old and is dashingly handsome!
Reality check: He usually isn't dressed quite that stunningly - we'd just gotten home from church when I snapped that photo.  Typically he looks more like this: 
or this: 
Last time I checked his mouth he had four teeth.  His central incisors on the bottom are through and his lateral incisors on the top are through.  He absolutely hates people sticking their fingers in his mouth so it is really hard to get a good look at how many teeth he has. 

He is having a lot of fun playing with solid foods.  We are loosely following Baby-led weaning, which for us means that whatever we are eating he gets a little bit to eat, with a few exceptions.  He does not get any grains, nuts, or dairy yet.  Other than that, it's pretty much all good.  He goes through phases where he has a particularly favored food.  Right now it is peas and carrots, often meat is right up at the top of his list as well.  If mama has it, he wants it.  If daddy has it, he absolutely must have it!

Bean is becoming increasingly more mobile.  He can crawl with lightning speed and is pulling himself to stand and walking along furniture and such.  He also loves to climb.  If it can be climbed, he will climb it.  We picked a climber up for him at a yard sale yesterday and he loves it.  I don't have any pictures of him on it yet though. 

He has also discovered the piano.  If the door between our apartment and the big house is open, he will frequently make a beeline for the piano.  He can pull himself up to reach the keys on his own, but particularly likes it if someone holds him on their lap so that he can reach more of the keys.  In a pinch his highchair also works as a piano chair.  The hardest part is keeping the music out of his reach because he is very much at the stage that everything and anything goes in his mouth!

Bean is not great at taking naps yet, but is getting much better at sleeping during the night (not that he was ever bad at sleeping at night). He will usually nap on my back in a carrier during the morning and we often lay down together in the afternoon for "milk and snuggles" or if that's not an option, he goes on my back in a carrier again (or on my front, depending on what is going on).  On very rare occasions I get him to lay down in his bed for a nap and then I take picture as proof that it actually happened:
We are still waiting to get a definitive "pass" on his hearing test.  We had one in September and it didn't go so well - it was neither a pass nor a fail.  We have another one coming up this  month, so hopefully we will get a definitive answer.  He does appear to hear things okay, so we aren't too worried. In the meantime I occasionally use some sign with him, but that would happen whether he could hear or not. 

All in all, he's a pretty great kid and I think we'll keep him around :)

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