Nathaniel is nine months old!

Don't you love babies in overalls?

 If I had to summarize Nathaniel's ninth month in one word, it would be sleeplessness.  He has been going through a stage of waking up 2 to 4 times a night almost every night for the past few weeks.  About a week ago, he started waking up only once at night, and I was thrilled, but the last two nights he's regressed to waking up a couple times.  It is amazing how much more refreshed I feel when he only gets up once at night.  But sleep aside, Nathaniel has been a delightful baby this month.  He still loves to eat baby food, although he wasn't thrilled when I introduced the textured chicken noodle dinner.  He chows down on Cheerios and is starting to use his pointer finger and thumb in the pincer grasp to pick them up.  I've given him little bites of other foods, like hamburger and corn bread, and he has loved all of those, too.  Today for dinner he had watermelon, cornbread and squash, and he made a BIG mess, but I think he really enjoyed getting to eat so much finger food.

He was not a fan of plain yogurt, however.

I've tried giving Nathaniel a sippy cup with apple juice, and he is certainly interested in it, but he seems to want to just chew on the spout rather than actually drink the juice.

 Nathaniel is working on learning to crawl, but he hasn't quite figured it out yet.  He gets up on his knees, then tries to push with his feet and flops onto his tummy.  But he's figured out how to move across the room anyway, with a combination of rolling and scooting on his head.

He is starting to be interested in standing up.  Today I helped him stand up at the end of Ben's recliner, and he crept along the edge of it and tried to play with Ben's toes.

He loves to shake his head, and will continue to shake it when he sees people smiling back at him.  We like to ask him questions like "Do you want to take a nap?" and then laugh when he shakes his head no.

This next photo is specifically for Ben's Grandma Marion, who doesn't believe that Nathaniel knows how to cry.  He doesn't cry often, but he certainly knows how!

 Nathaniel has been dragged around to all kinds of places this month and copes pretty well with having his nap schedule completely disrupted.  He is generally easy going and will take little cat naps in the car seat or when I'm carrying him.  He would rather be carried in the Bjorn or the Moby than sit in the stroller. 

We took him to the splash pad earlier this week, and he wasn't thrilled with the cold water splashing on him, but he didn't fuss at all.  He seemed to prefer just playing with a bucket of water on the ground.

I've started playing around with taking my camera off auto mode, and I've found that Nathaniel is the best subject.  He mostly holds still and he always gives me beautiful smiles.  The only problem is that he tries to eat the grass.  :)

I also am trying out different angles.  I kind of like the slanty bottom one, but I couldn't tell you exactly why.  Other than the fact that the baby is precious!