nine months.

^^^This is what his face looks like when he rolls his tongue.

These last nine months have flown by. It's hard to believe that we're coming up on one whole year with Franz in just a few months. How do I have a 9-month-old?! Franz's personality has always been big and present, but this month it just exploded. Lately, he's been talking back to us with tongue clicks, raspberries, and rolling his tongue (a new trick he learned a few days ago!).

I feel like this is the month when all of our hard work of trying to teach him the names of things has paid off. He's starting to recognize things we see and talk about every day. For example, we read him books about farm animals (cows, chickens, horses, and ducks, etc.) and make the noises they make. We went to the farm a couple of days ago and showed him the cows and mooed at him, and you could see things start to click in his little head, like he was thinking, "Oh! I know what that is!" He also loves to watch the slide show of our recent family pictures (I'll be sure to post those soon!) on our screen saver, and gets extremely excited when he sees his mama and papa and even the little baby he loves to play with in the mirror. It really just melts my mama heart.

At 9 months, Franz...

• still only has his 2 bottom teeth, but his 2 top ones should be coming in any day now. They're so close!
• is an army-crawling fool. He's so efficient and so fast! 
• has started getting up on his hands and knees, and rocks back and forth. He's THIS close to crawling. 
• still doesn't sleep through the night. In fact, lately, he's been waking up 6 or 7 times in an 11 hour period, so that's fun. I'm convinced it's a mix between teething and his [very minor] ear infection.
• still wears mostly 12-18 month clothes, but is starting to fit into some 24 month clothes. What the crap?
• still wears size 4 diapers.
• is 24 pounds & 10 ounces and 31 inches tall. I see 1-year-olds his size walking and running around. It's weird.
• is a huge flirt, and smiles at almost anyone, especially if they aren't paying attention to him.
• loves solids, and is starting to eat more and more (like homemade pizza crust!).
• is fascinated by cars, birds, door stops, buttons, cords, our bathroom scale, and anything shiny.
• growls when he's mad. And sometimes just for fun.
• loves to put things over his face, and then gets really excited and breathes heavily. This morning, it was one of Zac's dirty socks.
• loves to jump and jump and jump.
• can pull himself up to standing while holding onto my hands, and grabs my hands all the time because he loves to stand.
• fell off our bed and skinned his nose (hence the red nose in these pictures).
• sleeps in our bed 80% of the time, and sleeps in our room the other 20%.
• is getting better at taking naps (but maybe it's because I rock him to sleep... just waiting for the right moment to start sleep training him...).
• prefers regular cups for drinking, and sippy cups for playing with/chewing on.
• favors his mama over his papa, and always reaches for me when Zac is holding him (and I am eating it up!).
• is very clingy. He needs to be held every minute of every day, it seems like.
• is really cuddly and touchy feely in bed at night (and just in general). He loves snuggling up close to me or Zac, usually so our noses are touching, with a hand on our face or arm. This is why I'm okay with co-sleeping. :)
• smiles the biggest smiles and gets really excited when Zac comes home from work. I think it's the best part of Zac's day. 
• is starting to put himself to sleep at bedtime. He used to do this, but then stopped all of a sudden, and is now slowly starting it back up again. If only he'd do it in the middle of the night. :)
• gets at least one compliment everywhere we go about how cute he is or how awesome his hair is. I am not exaggerating. It makes a mama proud!
• gives the tightest hugs to his mama almost every time I pick him up, especially when I pick him up from his nap.
• will sometimes give you kisses when you ask for them. Open-mouthed goodness!
• can say "naynaynay" (his favorite), "nanana", "bababa", "mamama", and "dadada".

This baby is a dream. He is so much fun, and keeps me so busy, now that he's a pro at that army crawling. It's so much fun to talk to him and watch him pay attention to what I'm saying. I love to see him take in the world around him. Things that I think are boring and mundane are incredible to him. We watched tractors dig up dirt across the street for a good 5 minutes today, and he was in awe. He can watch cars pass by one by one and still think it's the best thing ever when the next one comes. I love seeing him learn about how this world works. I'm learning that each new stage brings a whole slew of fun things with it, and even though the last one was pretty good, the current one is always, somehow, even better. Being a mama is pretty good, especially to this little boy.

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