9 Months

9 months has been such a fun age for Christian. He is so much fun! He laughs and is learning some independence. He is cruising all around using us and the furniture to get from place to place. I thought for sure that he would skip crawling because he just had absolutely zero interest in being on his stomach, but he surprised me and started crawling one day! I think that Jared posted a video of it on Facebook. We saw him start moving a bit and decided to entice him with Daddy's iTouch to get him crawling. Each day he gets a little faster and now that he isn't resigned to stay in the place I put him, he is a lot more content sitting and playing because he knows he can get somewhere else if he wanted to.

Having Elaine live with us has been an absolute blessing. She and Christian are already thick as thieves and although they steal each other's toys and scream with jealousy sometimes, for the most part they just play and laugh together. I am glad that even though Christian doesn't have a sibling, his cousin has filled a big part of that void for us. She was very influential in helping him learn to crawl, I think, because even though she can walk, she would get down and crawl around Christian and show him how it's done.

His temperament is still happy-go-lucky and that is a huge relief to me. I know now how absolutely blessed I am to have such an easy-going, fun, trusting baby. So far he has shown no signs of "stranger anxiety" that sometimes hits kids as they get older, and I hope that he will continue to be such a joy for everyone he comes in contact with. He is still growing like a weed, no surprise there. At the last Doctor appointment he was weighing about 23 lbs and was a full 33 inches long.

Christian brings us such happiness and I can't wait to see what else is in store for our little family.