Army Crawl

As I believe I've mentioned before, our child will only crawl for food.  He is officially all BOY, motivated by his stomach (better than other things he'll be motivated by 16 years from now, right!?).  Because of this, we have to to "bait" him with food in order to practice crawling.  We've tried toys, but apparently he doesn't care about a single toy enough to try to crawl for it, he instead chooses to roll over, or just find a closer toy. 

But he's getting better at his crawling [for food] - it more resembles an army crawl, but hey, he's moving!

We have sad news that we have yet to break to Mason...this past week he's had a light rash along his belly that this morning was much darker.  After asking a pediatrician friend, we believe it's a reaction to berries - he's been eating lots of blueberries and yesterday tried strawberries.  He LOVES them, so will not be happy to hear that he can't have them for a while.  Hoping the pediatrician will tell us on Friday that we can try again in another few months though!

9 Months Old

Yet again, another month has flown by, and Mason is now 9 months old!  Hard to believe he's been around as long as I was pregnant with him, and how far he's come.  He is still an absolute joy - just the happiest baby.  He is still sleeping 11-12 hours at night, and is a great napper.  He loves his crib so much that when it's time for a nap he doesn't even want to be rocked or cuddled - as soon as we take him into his room he's reaching for his crib, where he uses his monkey "lovey" to cuddle, chat, and put himself to sleep.  And he wakes up with a huge smile on his face ready to play and EAT. 
He eats EVERYTHING - he's on all kinds of baby foods, and also loves grapes, cherries, blueberries, bread & butter (Gigi's contribution), cheese, black beans, rice, cereal, peas, chicken, turkey...the list goes on & on.  He can feed himself which makes going out to dinner so great - put him in the high chair and he is in heaven as we feed him little pieces of food from our plates.  Meal time is definitely his favorite.
He is starting to scoot, but is not crawling yet which is totally fine by us - so great that we can still leave him somewhere for a minute and when we come back he's still there.  He loves to stand and can hold himself up for a few minutes at a time, but we're trying to encourage him to crawl some before he walks.
He also talks all day long, and his "words" are getting better.  Bababa has turned into bla bla bla, etc.  We are constantly working towards "mama" and "dada".  He knows how to wave and clap (well it's an air-clap), and think "hi" or "bye" may be one of his first words.  He also loves to giggle...in case you haven't seen any old posts :)
Size-wise he's gotten so big, and is actually in 12-month tops.  This makes us so happy, since he was so scrawny for so long.  We go for his 9-month appointment next week, I'm interested to see how much he weighs, and if he's bumped up in percentiles or not.  Don't get me wrong, he's still pretty small, but you should see that root beer belly!
All in all, life is great and it keeps getting better.  He's so easy that I am actually at a place where I can imagine us having another :)

This Never Gets Old

Makes me laugh every time :)

Gigi is Here!

Gigi came yesterday to spend the week here and watch Mason while we work.  In true grandma fashion, she had Mason giggling hysterically within 20 minutes of her arrival.

They've already been having a blast together today, riding in his new car (please note the shirt):

And are now at the park having a picnic.  Ok the first one is from my picnic with him yesterday but it's still cute and relevant :) 

Looks like it's going to be a great week for Mason & Gigi!

First Signs of Movement

So, for those of you who saw the cherry video (sorry, WAY too long to post here, but if you would like to see it, I can email it to you!), you know that Mason is pretty much obsessed with cherries.  So much in fact that Tristan is using them as crawling bait.  And it's actually working!

Hand to Mouth...and Repeat!

Look who's getting the hang of feeding himself!

Strawberries

Now that's attractive, Mason.  As daddy says at the end, we're so proud.  But seriously...it's pretty funny to watch!