Nine Months!

Dex is 9 Months old these days!! Before we forget - here are some of our favorite things about him at this stage:

- Dex wants to walk SO bad. He can crawl like a pro, and can pretty easily pull himself up to standing at any couch, chair, or coffee table. He cruises around and transfers from place to place, and tries to coax anyone nearby to hold his hands and walk him around the room.

- Dex thinks he can talk. In fact, we can never seem to get him to be quiet. I'm not sure what he thinks he's saying all the time - but he puts a lot of volume behind it, so it must be important.

- Dex loves vegetables, crackers, pancakes, and anything else that the Ellii sneak him while his mom isn't looking.

- Dex is afraid of odd things: the Christmas train at Grandma's house, shiny balloons, his 7 month old cousin Mia, to name a few. And yet he loves watching his dad kill zombies on the XBox. Go figure.

- Dex has a little bit of stranger anxiety these days. It lasts about 5 seconds, and then he's back to his sociable self - trying to get everyone to smile at him.

- This week we've started to see Dex waving Bye-Bye to people. So fun to watch him mimic other people's movements. He has also been learning to push toy cars back and forth, and loves it when someone will push and pull a toy car with him.

- This month was the first time Dex has been legitimately sick. He got the flu, and was hot and mucus-filled, and extremely cranky. We couldn't help but laugh when he put his binky in his mouth, and upon discovering that it was upside down, he just spit it out and flung his arms down to pout. Such a baby.