9 Months!

Our little Taylor Alexander will soon reach the milestone of being outside my tummy longer than inside. Woohoo Taylor-man!

Here's some cool stuff that our little guy is doing:

- He can't crawl, but he scoots. Very well actually. He can now get to whereever he wants to go simply by scooting his little self on his little bum around the house. We're thinking he might just skip crawling all together because he enjoys scooting so much.

- He no longer just eats rice cereal (shout horray!). He's eaten the following Gerber baby foods: chicken, squash, bananas, carrots, green beans, peas, and apples/strawberries. He won't eat an entire jar, or even a half. But hey at least he's starting to be a little more open minded. He will, however, eye whatever is on your plate and try to swipe it. Oh, and he now will tiny little teeny broken up pieces of Cheerios.

- He has a tooth! Yes he does. It surprised us as well. We were sitting in church 2 weeks ago and I was just randomly feeling around in his mouth and noticed a sharp little tooth in the bottom front. Since then, he's been trying awful hard to get a 2nd one in and the poor guy has really suffered. Last weekend he teethed pretty bad and was the crankiest and most uncomfortable I'd ever seen him. He had a fever of 102 for 2 days straight (thank goodness for Tylenol's fever reducing abilities), and swollen gums. He also wouldn't take naps and wouldn't be put down. So we took turns toting him around and he was happy. He just needed some love. Still no 2nd tooth either.

(Taylor during his teething weekend)

- He has become VERY vocal. I'm not sure if it's becuase he just likes the sound of his own voice, or he has realized that in order to compete with Preston he needs to stick up for himself. Either way, he can be extremely loud.

- Wears mostly 9 month sizes, but also occassionally wears (smaller) 12 month sizes, and still fits into some of his 6 month sizes. He is a bit smaller than Preston ever was, but compared to other peoples kids he's still huge. He doesn't have his 9 month wellness visit until next Monday, but he's right around either 20 or 21 lbs.

- Still a total mama's boy. He'll be hanging out with his daddy for a while, and if I even come into the room or he hears my voice, he'll squawk for me.

- He's still nursing about 4 times during the day, and a couple times during the night as he still doesn't sleep through the night. We've become too sleep deprived and lazy ourselves to try sleep training the stubborn guy anymore. I plan to nurse him until 12 months when he'll be able to start drinking cow's milk. I nursed Preston until 15 months and when I finally weened him, he was so over me. So I'm going to just go to 12 months with Taylor. That's the goal anyway.

- Has the most gorgeous red hair, especially out in the natural sunlight.

- Has become good friends with Preston. It's fun to finally see them interact more together. When Taylor wakes up in the morning, Preston will go into his room and talk to him through the crib bars in a baby voice "Taylor you want a toy?" (in this high pitched baby voice). It's really cute. Taylor watches Preston do everything and I think that is where Taylor has learned to become so vocal. Preston talks nonstop. They sometimes have yelling matches, which I don't really like but have to admit are kind of funny.

- Still has an eczema patch on his chin and on his elbow. They've both been there since he was about 3 months old. They come and go depending on how well we medicate, or how much he scratches.

- LOVES Baby Einstein. We will put this on for him on Sunday mornings so we can get ready for church, or if we are in an immediate need for him to be entertained while we tend to something else. He is simply mesmorized by it. He'll just sit and stare and won't take his eyes off of it -for the entire half hour. Preston was never this way with that show - he could care less. But Taylor really digs it.

- Preston seems to like to put things in Taylor's mouth lately so we sort of have to watch that.

Here is a little video of our little scooter.