This carrot, that carrot

Sometimes Caiden enjoys chewing on raw carrots. The other day we broke a big carrot into two pieces to keep it safe. He would chew on one, switch to the other, switch back, etc.

But eventually, all the fun was about tossing the carrots off of the table, as quickly as possible

Who's a big guy?

We think Caiden recently went through a growth spurt. A good portion of his head is above crib level now. The last of the 12 month shirts are just barely making it. 18month shirts are the official size for this guy. What is his pants size you ask? 18 or 24 month shorts. Yes, you read that right... shorts made for a 2 year old fit Caiden like full length pants. Big torso, little legs :)

Jumbo baby!! (OK, it's partially the camera angle...)

An appropriate shirt for this little man

I totally jinxed myself this weekend. On Saturday we were running a longish errand and as we pulled out of the driveway I mentioned to Dan how nice it was that we were no longer slaves to the diaper bag. In the early months I never left the house without it. Diaper blowouts and outfit changes were frequent and unpredictable. But now, I feel okay going out of the house for periods of time without it. Then on Sunday, I took Caiden to watch a local triathlon. We got there after the start and had to park a long walk away from the action. I threw a few wipes and a diaper in the stroller, just in case. Once we were there I pulled Caiden out of the stroller it was evident to me and anyone standing in a 10 foot radius that a diaper change was necessary (p-u). Total blowout...  a new pair of pants was necessary, but yours truly had felt safe enough to leave spare clothing in the car. Luckily Caiden is little enough that hanging out in just a onsie on such a hot day is still acceptable. Next time though... I'll bring the spare pants.

Caiden loved watching the race. There was fun music and lots of people to watch, and we got to cheer on our friend Sasha and catch up with Coach Jesse, whose son is one month older than Caiden.

Blueberries for Caiden

Caiden and I were searching for a store yesterday morning and couldn't find it. Where I thought the store should be was a pick-your-own blueberry and raspberry farm. I thought we'd give it a try.

We had fun, although Caiden was most interested in yanking leaves off of the bushes and dumping the blueberries out of our bucket.

It reminded me of this book

9 months

I have a long way to grow!

I was telling my hairdresser about my "young baby" when I realized he isn't a young baby anymore! He is an old baby now. Sniff, sniff! The ExerSaucer has joined the bouncy chair in the toy graveyard. Just another reminder of how fast he is growing. Caiden is a "developmental rock star" according to his doctor. No shots at this checkup, but they did draw blood. I think that was worse than the shots, poor little guy.

The 9 month stats:
Height: 29.5" (87%)
Weight: 22lbs 13oz (83%)
Head Circumference: 46cm (70%)

What a difference a few months make!

Activity: Crawling and standing are big around here. He is a fast little bugger and by the end of the day his little knees are all red. Well, only one of his knees... he has his own crawling style that involves using his right foot instead of his right knee.
He will stand up whenever he gets the chance. He doesn't need anything to pull up on anymore- he can stand up just using the support of a wall. Sometimes he lets go and will stand unassisted for 5-10 seconds.

Outlets are a Caiden magnet. Even though we've plugged them up, he will go and put his mouth over them. He has zero sense of self preservation.

We gave him this old laptop to play with a few days ago. It seemed like a great idea at the time, as he shows so much interest in our computers. However, later that day Dan fished the red tracker button (visible in the picture below, in the center of the keyboard) out of Caiden's mouth. We're not sure how long he was chewing on the thing, but it was at least a half hour. The laptop went right back into storage.

Caiden loves being bounced. He also loves playing peekaboo.

Teeth: The "is he teething" saga continues. We have yet to see any pearly whites in there, but the last week or two, Caiden always has fingers (or whatever else is handy) in his mouth. Time will tell.

He was even so desperate for something to chew on that he munched on my feet, right after I walked in the door from a bike ride. Gross.

He still doesn't seem to be interested in traditional teething toys, so we give him cool celery stalks or raw carrots to chew on sometimes. He seems to like it.

Food: Caiden has definitely developed  food-specific hunger. It used to be that if he was hungry, he was indifferent as to whether he was offered milk or food. Now he knows when he wants real food. He eats pretty much everything, although he prefers to mix it up at mealtime. A few bites of chicken, a few bites of peas, back to the chicken... etc. He'll get bored and uninterested otherwise. He seems to prefer veggies over most other food. We've been introducing spices and food with lots of flavor. He particularly likes paprika and pepper on his eggs, cinnamon in his squash, and chicken chili. He is getting better about self-feeding, we practice a little bit at every meal. (Other than that he is still spoon-fed).

Sleep: For most of this month, sleep was a great thing. Half of the time he would sleep all night (around 7pm to 6am), the other half of the time he would get up once in the 3-5am range. Lovely! Then, last week, he out of the blue reverted to his old routine: lots of wake-ups. But it is different- he wants to snuggle. That is very un-Caiden like (hmmm... teething??). We are still struggling with this, although last night was better so hopefully we'll be back to normal soon. Other than that, it takes him longer to fall asleep at bedtime than it used to. He has lots of fun standing, sitting down, standing... you get the idea. He also has fun "binkie tossing". We can hear it through the monitor, one binkie after the other crashing on the floor.

Water: Bath time is hit or miss. Sometimes he is okay with it, other times he spends the entire time trying to climb out. No matter his mood though, he is no longer okay with water over the head. I used to be able to dump a bunch of water over his head to get the shampoo out. I don't know what changed, but water touching his head in the bath now causes him to immediately rush to the edge, stand up, and try to grab on to me. And when we put him in a baby pool in our yard over vacation, he screamed bloody murder. This past Monday with Nanna Nan though, he seemed to be warming up to the idea of water at the Concord Country Club.

First bloody nose

On Monday morning I was in the kitchen doing some dishes and getting things ready for the day. Caiden was at my feet, playing with toys and crawling around. He tripped over my foot and took a digger into the hardwood floor. It was a hard enough fall to give the poor little guy a bloody nose. He rebounded pretty quickly and was smiley by the time Nanna Nan came to pick him up. He would not, however, let me anywhere near his nose to wipe it.

v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n

This past week we took a "staycation". It was great, great. We got a lot done around the house and had lots of fun with Caiden.

We goofed around the house

We went to a BBQ with friends

We went shopping at the outlets

Caiden did his best to thwart our baby-proofing efforts

And Caiden had a visit from his Grandparents!

It was such a nice week and we're sad it's ending!! Back to the grind tomorrow.

First Haircut

Caiden's hair was getting shaggy and started to cover his eyes and ears. It was time for a haircut! We headed to a kids haircut place to clean him up a little. I thought that at less than 9 months he might be too young, but the hairdressers told us they get much younger babies all the time. Caiden did very well- he sat relatively still and didn't shed a single tear. We were shocked, and the hairdresser was impressed.  Since he did so well we took him next door to Toys R Us afterwards. However I think Dan and I enjoyed the trip better than Caiden did. We got some great ideas for his playroom... I see a workbench in his future!

Looking sharp!

Checking out the toys

We think he looks very cute with his snazzy new 'do. And... no more bedhead in the morning!!