9 months old

Today Cole turns 9 months old. We are so fortunate to have such a happy, healthy, curious, independent, silly, strong, smart, handsome, loving little boy. I was thinking earlier about our good friend Keli, who is heading into her last month of pregnancy. And remembering how anxious I was feeling 9 months ago, wondering what this little guy was going to be like, what he was going to look like, which personality traits of ours he would inherit, and how he would be unique. As we learn more and more about Cole each and every day it just warms my heart, and makes my eyes fill up with tears, to think about how much we all have grown and changed in the past 9 months.

People who have children will always tell you how quickly they grow up. How each year seems to fly by, and then all of a sudden they are graduating from high school. Telling you this as a way to say, stop, and enjoy each day. Don't rush through. Just enjoy. And I am starting to really appreciate how true that is.

We took him into the doctor the other day and he weighed in at 21 lb 8oz, so he's moving up the chart in the weight category. At 6 months he was in the 40%, and now he's more like 62%.

In the past couple weeks Cole has mastered several new skills.
* Crawling: He now does the "normal" crawl more often than the worm, although he breaks out the worm move when he wants to get somewhere quickly.

* Opening cupboards and drawers.

* Pulling himself up to standing. In this picture he's also showing off something else that he has picked up -- the fake smile. That's right. Our child has already mastered the fake smile, and the fake laugh.

* Clapping

* Soooo big!

* No, no, no - shaking his head back and forth (probably not the best one to encourage, but it's pretty dang cute)
* Feeding himself. His favorite (and our favorite, too!) is Cheerios. They will keep him happy and occupied for quite a while. Especially great at restaurants.

* Climbing the stairs

* And this one isn't a skill, so much, but he has a total fascination with Farley. Not so sure that the feeling is mutual, but I think Farley will take pretty much any attention that he can get.