Grady at 9 months

It seems like I just won't be posting much of our current lives, but I do want to give an update on Grady since he's the one who is changing most rapidly. Here is a random assortment of photos from the last couple of weeks of our Christmas travels.

Our handsome 9 month old.

1st Christmas!

Happy baby!

Grady with Ava Parrott who is only 10 hrs older than Grady :).  Lovely babies!

Grady's first official flight!

Grady playing with my baby toys at my parent's house.

He's a trooper and does really well when we drag him lots of places!

Aunt Ashley and Grandma Hoogie with Grady!

Grandpa Hoogie and Grady!

Sleep:
Grady was a champion night-time sleeper while Andy and I were both teaching in October and November - he typically slept about 12 hours per night and rarely woke up. His bedtime was routinely about 6:30 pm which helped us out a lot because I would go back into campus two evenings per week for office hours. So yay! However, since Thanksgiving (so for the last month) something switched and he now will get up 1-2 times per night which leaves us a little puzzled and well, quite tired. But he's still a fun loving kid and we know that this too shall pass so we're trying to give him time to get back on track. Naps so far are still typically 30 minutes long, although this last week he did have about four 1-2 hour naps (amazing!) which we are praying will start to be the norm rather than the exception. Carsten started taking longer naps at 9 months so we are hoping that Grady will follow suit.

Eating:
Grady eats almost everything we give him including all of his foods all mashed up into the same bowl, for example: sweet potatoes, blueberries, apples, peas, turkey. We have actually found that he doesn't really eat straight fruits like peaches because it's just too sweet for him at the moment. He has been doing really well with finger foods (he loves puffs!) since about 8 months and now at 9 months he is very proficient and makes them disappear rather quickly. Grady has also been doing pretty well with a sippy cup the last month which has been great because he doesn't take a bottle. We are excited to try some new finger foods soon!

Teeth:
Grady has had 7 teeth since he was 8 months old (4 on top and 3 on the bottom). I'm not sure where that 8th tooth is, but he's been cranky the last couple of days which is unusual for him so perhaps we'll see that 8th tooth soon!

Playing:
Grady loves cords. I mean it. The kid will make a beeline for cords any time he sees them and well, he's fast and determined. :) Grady is really good a free-playing and loves to play with Carsten. Carsten and Grady are starting to be able to interact more which has been a lot of fun to watch. Grady also usually knows exactly what he wants and will go for it which is fun to watch.

Movement:
Grady started army crawling at 7 months and now at 9 months is a super fast army crawler. To date he really hasn't crawled on his hands and knees yet. Just this last week he started sitting up on his own, and instead of backing up onto his haunches which I would guess would be easier, he sits up using a true 'sit up' from laying down on his back. So, kudos little man - you have abs of steel :). Grady is also attempting (with marginal success) to go up the step at Mom and Dad Huisman's house, so I guess we better get our babygate up on our stairs at home once we make it back to NY.

Size:
Grady has been in 12 months clothes for a couple of months now, and they fit him pretty perfectly, so I'm guessing he'll move up to 18 months clothes sometime in the next 1-2 months. He seems tall when we have him next to other kids, but he is skinnier than I remember Carsten being and he is skinnier than most of the other babies we have had him next to lately. He doesn't have the wrist and ankle rolls that I remember Carsten having, and actually, he has slimmed down quite a bit since he started crawling.

Personality:
Grady loves to play and interact with others and really doesn't like to be left alone in the room. Recently, he went through a little separation anxiety phase, but thankfully all of our traveling to Iowa and Michigan this Christmas seems to have cured him of that for now. Grady also seems to study things like Carsten did so it can be difficult to capture a smile on camera (even though he's a very happy guy!) because he just wants to know what you are babbling nonsense with that box in front of his head.

We love our little Grady baby!