nine

I know that I'm running behind this month with Luke's usual post, but life gets tricky when you are chasing a crawling baby!

Luke turned nine months old on Thursday, January 15th and this past month has been filled with many firsts for him. It seems like as soon as he figured out how to pull himself up on the couch, his milestones starting coming at us fast and furious. Within a week of beginning to pull up, he began crawling and cruising around the furniture. His piece de resistance came this past weekend when he decided to stand on his own. That moment was completely unexpected and caught us totally off guard. One minute he was using me as a human jungle gym and the next second he's standing next to me completely independent of any assistance from me.

It's fairly funny to us that he's accomplishing these great feats in such an abbreviated amount of time. Keith and I had just been telling each other how we were in no hurry for him to figure any of these skills out. It's really sad to admit, but we were those parents who were okay if our child was slightly behind the curve in being physically active. As soon as we spoke the words, we were doomed. Maybe he got my spirit and loves a great challenge; he won't let any one's expectations hold him back from what he wants to do. If I think of it that way, I'm glad for him and this eventful week.

As Luke gets older, he continually gets happier. I never think he can get much better than he is at any given moment (he is perfect already), but he never ceases to surprise and awe us. He's developing a very goofy and fun personality that loves to laugh deep belly laughs and to proudly display his toothy grin, even if it still has only two teeth. He makes these crazy noises as he explores the sounds that he can make with different formations of his mouth and tongue and although he still probably has no relation between specific words that he says and their meanings, he has a great time trying to repeat what we're saying just the same.

He tends to gravitate towards the same few toys, even though he was showered with an insane amount at Christmas. He loves balls, drumsticks, and any toy that seems to only project it's noise at a decibel that I'm sure isn't good for our ears. His all-time favorite toy/item is any book. I need to add that I am not prompting him in any way to choose books as we have playtime; I'd like to think that an innate love of books is another trait that I gifted him through my genes. Eight times out of ten, he'd rather choose a book to look at than play with the other items in his toy bin.

After our brief scare shortly after he was born concerning his weight gain, Luke has become quite the large, hefty fella. He tipped the scales at 21 lbs., 14 oz. at his check-up and measured 31 inches long. Due to his increasingly large size, it was time to upgrade to a big-boy car seat. Of course, safety first, so it's installed backwards until his first birthday, but he fits so much better and can actually sit up and enjoy the view as we go places.

Oh, and although he still eats banana baby food and banana yogurt without any issue, he continues to despise actual banana.

Luke, we love you and can't wait to see what you have in store for us this month!