9 Months

You always hear parents say how quickly their children grow up.  "You blink and he'll be in college."  In the mere 9 months that I've been a parent, I can already relate to this sentiment.  It seems like just yesterday we brought Frankie home from the hospital, yet here we are with a 9 month old little boy!  A little boy who is crawling all over the place, pulling up on everything and standing, climbing stairs, and babbling up a storm!  He has quite the personality and is such a happy baby; always all smiles.  My heart melts when I walk in the door from work and Frankie's face lights up and breaks into a huge grin.  He sprints crawls over to me at the door and immediately uses my hands to stand up and plant the juiciest, wettest kisses on me.  When he wakes up in the mornings, we can hear him in his crib 'talking' to Jack, his puppet bunny, that he's started sleeping with, and we can't help but smile...How do you bottle all of these memories up so you won't forget?

At 9 months old, Frankie's official stats are:

Height: 28 in
Weight: 21 lb 10 oz
Head 18 in

At his 9 month appointment, he showed off his pipes to Doctor Nicki and talked and yelled sang the whole time.  We think he was flirting with her, which came to an abrupt halt when it was time for his shots.  Everything looked good at his appointment, although we need to have blood work done to test his iron and lead levels.  His initial iron test at the pediatrician office was low, but Dr. Nicki wasn't concerned since he is such a good eater.  Hopefully we just didn't get a good reading the first time.

He's a tough little guy.  When he gets hurt, he pouts out his lower lip and puts on a face that makes me want to cry!  Thankfully we haven't had any big incidents, but while he becomes increasingly mobile, we are trying to prepare ourselves for a few bumps and bruises...and we finally put up the gates.

Frankie loves to talk.  Except everything is da-da-da-da.  Sometimes he'll through in a na-na-na-na.  I'm still waiting for ma-ma-ma-ma.  Last night, Frank and I were in the kitchen, and we peeked in the living room on Frankie and he was sitting on the floor carrying on a conversation with his toys.  Too cute!

Right before our Nags Head vacation, we upgraded Frankie to his 'big boy' car seat - the convertible one.  He was just getting too dang heavy to be totting him around in the infant one.  We also lowered the crib - One time looking at the monitor and finding him standing up was enough. 

At 9 months, we started introducing meat to Frankie's diet.  This boy is like his mom and loves to eat and loves food.  He's had chicken, pork, steak, fish, and we just gave shrimp a try the other day.  There is nothing he won't eat.  I've started feeding Frankie from our meals and have been making his own, plain food less and less.  He seems to love the different tastes and spices - And hopefully that won't change!

Hard to believe only three months until our baby turns one!

In an attempt to distract Frankie from eating the paper, I used his bat, one of his favorite toys, as a prop.