9 Months!

A little "pre-photo shoot" smiley-ness! He LOVES his blocks, especially knocking down the elaborate towers that daddy makes.

Big smile and BIG FEET!

A little more somber.

This is a "face" he's been making a lot lately. He sucks his top lip...I keep telling him it's going to get chapped!

Tired of holding still.

"Can I see what's out there?"

Oooooh!

Abram had his 9 months doctor appointment and they said he looks great! He was 29" long (75%) and 19 lbs. (25%). Long and skinny!

He's a good eater though. We've had to start offering him some formula because my milk supply has been dropping (leaving me feeling helpless and frustrated). He wasn't crazy about it at first, but he's been doing better taking it in his cereals and at least one bottle a day. He's tried several new foods lately including, multi grain cheerios, egg yolk and cottage cheese. I need to buy some broccoli and cauliflower so we can introduce those veggies soon.

He's been moving faster and faster by the day. Last weekend he left army crawling behind and now gets everywhere on hands and knees, pulls up to everything and will even let go of things for a few seconds and try to walk. I think he'll be walking before Thanksgiving for sure. We're going to buy a baby gate tomorrow to block the bottom of the stairwell!

He jibber jabbers a lot now. A lot of "yayayaya, bababdabagada". It's so fun to converse with him. He knows his name and will hold up his arms when we say "up". I think he understands "no" and "let go please" ( I say that a lot), but he thinks its a game. We'll keep working on that:)

Sleep. He's been consistently putting in 10-11 hour nights for several months now. For some reason I never take advantage of that (oh yeah, cause I stay up to pump one more time). He takes two long naps during the day and he's usually pretty easy to put down. He likes to stand up and bounce at the rail so we might have to go up once or twice to lay him back down.

Such a good baby. Love you so much, Abram!

Just Cute

This is the position of choice lately. He'll stand like that and "jump" and watch us while we're doing stuff in the kitchen or living room.

Curtis and Abram went with me to a festival where I actually got PAID to paint faces. It was a long day, but fun. Very nice weather and decent crowd.

Here's an example of my work. After I took the picture, I painted her lips black too and that really improved the overall appearance. This little girl was sweet, the granddaughter of the woman who asked me if I wanted a booth at this festival (she'd kept my card from an event at church), and I had painted her full face rabbit that morning, but lunch had pretty much destroyed it, so she came back for the tiger.

Abram was SUCH a good boy that day. We took a tent so I could nurse him. Curtis took him on walks in the stroller and he slept some that way. He was so happy and everyone cooed over her him.

Grandma got Abram some classic wooden blocks and he loves to knock over the stacks we build. We also noticed a little misprint that cracked us up.

Gypsy is the most tolerant cat in the world. She'll just lay there for a while while he pats, smacks, stomps or pulls. I would feel sorry for her, but she's perfectly capable of moving...which she does eventually, but usually only a foot away where he can reach her again in 2 seconds.

Mamaw and Papaw visited for a few days and Abram spent some quality floor time with Papaw.

Occasionally I wake Abram up from a nap...but more often I find him like this, or standing like in the pack n play. I've also found him with his legs dangling through the slats below his bumper and that cracks me up. He still takes a paci when he sleeps or when he's just really fussy. It will probably be a while before we can wean OURSELVES off of this sleep aide!

Body in Review

It's crazy the abuse a woman's body can take during pregnancy. I'll be honest. I was scared and a bit worried that I would never be able to lose all the weight (65lbs!) I gained with this pregnancy. I knew I started underweight, so I had no intentions of getting back to my starting weight (125)...but I did really want to get back in my pre-pregnancy pants. This post is a celebration of that accomplishment! I'm back down to 135, fitting in most of my jeans and with my "Women's Fitness" program that I'm running twice a week at work, I should be ready to ski down a mountain again by Christmas!

Here's a recap of the transformation!

One month pregnant.

9 months pregnant.

8 months post delivery.

My Big Dog

Abram LOVES the dogs and cats. He is constantly watching for them. And the pets have been surprisingly tolerant of his advances...or at least they retreat rather than reacting negatively. Curtis did a little photo shoot with Abram and Tyson and it is so cute. Tyson's practically asleep and Abram was just loving on him. This picture makes me a little sad too, because Tyson is 10 now and Abram will probably not even remember his first big sweetie of a dog.

The Menu: 6-8 months

Abram has decided that he needs to start fixing his own meals. He "runs" to the fridge when we open the door and rattles all the bottles.

I'm still breastfeeding/pumping but Abram has now been trying solid foods for 2 months now. It's been fun and pretty easy to cook for him (steam, puree) and freeze the food in ice cube trays. He is a good eater and is even beginning to pick up pieces of banana off his tray and bring it to his mouth successfully!

So far, he has tried: rice cereal, oatmeal, apples, bananas, mangos, peaches, pears, plums, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, butternut squash (new one for me too, very yummy!), carrots, green beans (his least favorite), peas, summer squash, zucchini, chicken, turkey and whole milk yogurt (peach yo baby is very good!)

8 Months!

Getting so big there's no room for "Beary"!

"'Beary' you're so hilarious!"

"Hear me singing? I'm singing for you!"

Showing off the teeth (still only two).

What a handsome boy he is!

The Army Crawl

So Abram has had an aversion to his belly, which has gradually lessened over the past few weeks. He started purposefully going to his belly more to play with his sesame street toy. Then he would pull himself up and over things (like us). Two days ago he was thrashing and rocking on his belly but not really getting anywhere and then yesterday when Curtis' picked Abram up from the "frat house", JR said "he was going everywhere!"

So Curtis came home and did some videos. Abram very much likes Hobo's blue brush. The audio on these videos will probably be redundant. Curtis was trying to film a variety of videos for me to choose from, but of course I couldn't choose just one! Enjoy!

I love his intensity in this one!!



Has to take a break first...



I think he'll be ready for a Christmas 5K!