9.5 months

Our little baby is growing! His real age is somewhat near what his gestational age was, which is to say he's been alive out of the womb for as long as he was in it. Crazy, partially because being pregnant felt like an eternity, but having a baby on the outside makes time fly—they change so fast and every new stage brings new adventures.

I really feel like he's starting to make huge developments in the past few weeks—days even. It seemed like he wasn't doing much other than put on weight for a few months. Now he's learning! And learning so much that listing it all here would make for a rather long post. So get ready for a long post! But first, pictures.

Notice ridiculously cute baby sweater

About Shepherd:

• Is finally starting to be mobile. This is exciting to me because I feel like he has been frustrated by his lack of control/mobility for a while. Now he's scooting/army crawling a bit, though he doesn't seem to want to hold himself up on his hands.  But he really is pretty adept at getting around and he whines the whole time. He gets frustrated quickly and gives up until we pick him up and carry him to his intended destination. He is also really into walking assisted these days, taking steps and propelling his motion by himself while we hold him up by his hands. He seems to be gaining a sense of motion and direction and all that.
• Really likes to stand up holding on to the couch but hasn't figured out that he can pull himself up yet.
• As of 1/26/2013, is cutting his first tooth on the bottom!
• His sleeping is passable (he puts in 3-4 hour blocks on most nights) but there aren't any significant changes to speak of there, besides the occasional refusal to sleep for long periods of time or go back to sleep using his normal means. The past couple of weeks he's been going through one of his poor sleep phases (possibly due to teething and having a cold), which means he's waking up crying every 60-90 minutes, when usually he doesn't wake up crying or that often. We're really thinking about sleep training still but struggling to determine what and how to implement any decisive action on that front. 
• Occasionally talks a lot, and it's fun to hear him babble. Sometimes he talks when he cries which is funny and sad all at once, and sometimes his lower lip quivers when he cries as if he's cold, when he's clearly not, which is probably unintentional, but terribly terribly cute.
• Loves to grab everything and anything. We have to be careful about where we hold/carry him now. The other day he grabbed a hot pan on the stove! (No serious injury ensued.) It is also very hard to use my laptop (Work? Not happening.) if he's close by and not deeply asleep (as my missing S key can attet). He never nurses quietly anymore; he always grabs my face and hair when he's nursing, which is a bit obnoxious, and sticks his hands in my mouth, nose, etc. He thinks it's a funny game when he grabs my face hard enough for me to turn my head or hits my face. I'm not sure how to teach him that this is not a fun game but rather obnoxious, but I like it when he laughs too (and he doesn't laugh terribly often), so I'm torn.
• Loves baths. We just have to take him in there and turn the water on to get a big grin out of him. 
• Smiles so easily. It is fun to hand him toys and have him smile this curious, eager sort of smile when he sees them, or to get him to smile just by making eye contact with him.
• Still doesn't eat a lot of solids and continues to nurse all the time. He has recently started developing a picky streak, refusing food we offer (green beans, for one). Before he would just accept it without any apparent response. A few months ago, we even gave him a lemon, which he accepted and sucked on with no response. But recently, sucking on a lemon caused the classic reaction you might expect. I wish we had a picture of it!
• Loves loves loves to drink water from our water bottles. He doesn't drink water from receptacles designed for babies: bottles or sippy cups or what have you. He likes our adult water bottles best. He never really learned how to take a pacifier or bottle well, though.
• Doesn't laugh super often, but we can get him in hysterics when he's tired especially. He also seems to laugh rather reliably when we tell him no.
• Is more and more interactive and into mimicking: plays patty cake and is starting to wave bye-bye, though inconsistently. Usually he will ham it up for other people, but not as reliably as he used to, possibly due to some stranger anxiety and clinginess.
• Is doing new things with toys. He's starting to learn how to hit other objects with objects he's holding, and seems to understand functionality more, like with his little glockenspiel/xylophone toy.
• Is really into picking up (or trying to pick up) tiny things, like crumbs, little bits of paper, and mainly garbage that he finds on the floor. I guess we need to vacuum more often.
• Is sort of okay on his own for longer periods of time. He is not okay when he notices you walk out of the room, and he still wants to be held and carried much of the time. Sometimes he'll cry for us to pick him up and crawl to us at the same time.
• Continues to fall along the 15th percentile for height and weight (he's now about 18 pounds), and the somewhere in between the 50th and 60th for head size.