9 Months Is Apparently the Golden Age

The past month and a half have been incredible parenting months. Peatuk is 9.5 months right now, and he is amazing. I mean, downright charming. I mean, heart-meltingly adorable. Yeah, he is that good right now.

Here are some of the oh-too-awesome things he is doing:

• He is stable on his feet when he has something to hold onto. This means he can cruise around the room with limited supervision and not randomly fall on his cute little head when he forgets to hold onto whatever is in front of him. 
• He has mastered the art of bending his knees to sit down, so he can freely go from crawling to standing and back again. 
• These two things make for a highly mobile baby, and mobility allows him to express interest in different things. He crawls to the people who interest him, picks out toys on his own, and is generally developing a personality. 
• He has learned that when he laughs, other people will also start laughing. When there is a lull in the conversation he will look around the room, make eye contact with someone, and then do his fake little laugh to get things started. 
• He wants to walk. The other day, he randomly turned away from the bed, let go everything and tried walking. He immediately face-planted and I nearly had a heart attack. He is okay, but it is something we have to be on the outlook for these days. 
• We have started elimination communication- and he loves using his potty. (We are NOT potty training yet! As far as I know, no 9-month old has bladder control. We are just getting him used to recognizing when he eliminates). He has also learned to clap when he pees, so now we know when immediately when he pees in his diapers because he randomly claps. 
• He is learning soft touch. Slowly. Very slowly. Actually, he is not learning soft touch. We are trying to teach him soft touch. 
• He babbles more, and it actually seems that he is trying to communicate with some of his babbling. I am almost certain his first word will be dada, but it might be banana. 
• He can express when he wants me to do "itsy bitsy spider" for him. :) :) :) 
• He can eat all sorts of soft foods- bananas, steamed carrots, boiled potatoes, sweet potatoes, basically any cooked vegetable. We still have to cut up meat really tiny for him. He also is mastering the pincer grip, so he is able to pick up small pieces and bring them to his mouth, greatly expanding the foods we can give him. 
• He gets very happy when he sees me or his father after we leave him with his grandparents. 

The list goes on. But basically, he is totally at that golden age where he is still a baby but developing toddler skills really fast, which simply blows my mind. 

How much one little human can learn on a daily basis is amazing and inspiring. It makes me thirsty to learn and explore with him. I can't wait to take him to museums and travel with him. It is going to be so very cool. To hear his opinions. To develop our relationship... there is so much to look forward to.

At the same time, it is bittersweet, because I realize that we are rapidly leaving the baby stage. He is starting to self-wean- getting more of his calories from solids and only wanting to breastfeed for comfort or at night. I am definitely not ready for that, and I hope it is just a phase and that he does not fully wean. Of course, that means that we can leave him with his grandparents for hours at a time, which is amazing in its own way. He is outgrowing his clothes every months now. 

Soon he will be walking, talking, eating, and eliminating by himself, and I know that will greatly change our relationship. His 'need' of me will change. So, yes, it is sad. But at least there is so much cool going on that keeps me distracted from the babyness that is fading.