Neener Neener: Nine Months Old

Asher has reached nine months in age, and has now officially been out in the world longer than he was in my tummy.

There really hasn't been a whole lot of "new" developments this month, as he's been spending most of his time perfecting old tricks, but one new trick he has mastered is clapping. He claps when he hears music (such as when he hears the "Hogan's Heroes" theme song - don't ask), he claps when he accomplishes something (such as when he knocks over the tower of blocks Daddy has built), he claps when he's happy (such as when he sees me, of course!), and sometimes he just claps to clap. He's perfected crawling and rarely army-crawls, anymore. His spends a ton of time standing up and taking steps while holding onto furniture or our legs. We're really having to watch our steps these days because if we stand still for even a moment, chances are good Asher will rush over and pounce on our legs. I've almost been knocked to the floor on a couple of occasions. He has learned to arch his back, which can be a real pain in the ass when you're trying to feed him or rock him before bed, and thinks that looking at the world upside down is pretty awesome. His facial expressions are becoming more complex and his babbling has increased; sometimes he even sounds like he's trying to speak in sentences. Slow, drunken pirate sentences, but sentences nonetheless.

Unfortunately, the volume of his voice has also increased. We were in Target the other day and Asher decided he did NOT want to ride in the cart anymore, that our making him sit in the cart was somehow the most brutal form of child abuse and he needed to announce it to the entire store by SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER. Stephen pointed out the fact that, hey, our kid is suddenly turning into that screaming kid we hate encountering out in public. We sure did see that one coming. He seems to be suffering from separation anxiety a little bit more than he ever has before, too. It's not really bad (yet?), but he is definitely more wary of going to people he isn't around on a daily basis and gets upset sometimes when one of us leaves the room. That said, he has also become more clingy this month. He will hug onto us when held and wants to climb on us all the time. I have to admit, I'm enjoying this probably more than I should. Of course I don't want him to throw tantrums every time I leave the room and not be social with other people, and I don't want to feel like I'm chained to him, but it does make you feel pretty special when you're one of his chosen people.

Asher had his nine-month checkup on Monday afternoon and, thankfully, no shots were involved this time, although we're still trying to decide if we want to get him a flu shot. (We probably should and probably will.) He weighed in at 20 pounds, 10 ounces (50th percentile for weight), and measured 29 inches long (75th percentile for height). I talked to his doctor about the sleeping and eating issues, and she just got a big grin and said he's being absolutely normal. She said that babies usually don't sleep soundly through the night. Younger babies can't really move around much and aren't that aware of their surroundings, so they wake up without their parents even knowing it, look around, get bored, and fall back to sleep. Older babies, though, not only are more mobile and aware of their surroundings, but they've also got the separation anxiety factor, too. So, he wakes up, starts playing, realizes he's alone in the dim room, and cries. Why don't the books put it that way? Instead, you get maybe he's got an ear infection, maybe he's teething, maybe he's spoiled, maybe he's sick...and on and on and on. With his eating, she said it's completely normal for his appetite to vary so much from day to day and to QUIT WORRYING ALREADY, he's not going to let himself starve. I don't think she knows how much better she made me feel that day. (And yes, Mom, I know you told me so.) So, he's normal, which is good, but we're obviously moving into a more difficult phase of babyhood...

Bring it on, Asher. BRING IT ON.