Baby days: 6-9 months

This morning I was laying on the floor watching Finn play with his toys and I kept thinking, “when did you get so big?”. It was at that point when he locked eyes with me and crawled over as quickly as he could, put his hands on my face, and stared me in the eyes and rubbed his little hands around my face. It was almost as if he was inspecting me, figuring out who I am to him. He then used my head to stand up and pulled a chunk of my hair out so I knew the moment was gone but the 15 seconds of him holding on to my face was pure bliss. As he gets older, he gets more inquisitive and understands things we are saying. Lately, he’s been understanding “NO” more and more. He definitely tests the limits but its pretty cute when we say “no” and he stops doing whatever it was that he was doing. He looks at us with a smile that pretty much says “you’re telling me no now…I’ll try again later.”  

If you would have asked me two years ago what life after marriage would look like for Z and I, I would have told you quite the opposite of what we have. I know, I have said that before, but it is the honest truth. Finn was never in my “5 year plan” and I’m still in awe that I have a 9 month old, but here we are, 9 months after Finn was born, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

When I left Finn’s 6 month appointment, I felt discouraged. My pediatrician had asked me if Finn had started babbling and of course I said yes, but as I left the doctors appointment, I realized that wasn’t really the truth. Did Finn make noise? Yes. Was he really babbling? Not really. I went home and cried to Zach because my gut told me something may be wrong with him. Why wasn’t he babbling goos and baba’s? Z, of course, told me he was fine and he was sure he would start soon. Well, he was right, and I still blame him for how LOUD Finn prefers to babble. Probably two days after that appointment Finn started babbling on. My sweet kid found his voice that day and he has not stopped since. 

Month six was fun. Finn still wasn’t into foods yet but would munch on a baby mum mum (Thanks Brandi for the tip!) here and there but couldn’t be bothered with purees or water in a sippy cup. He was still stationary and learned to finally hold himself up to the point where I didn’t feel the need to surround him with a protective cushion if he chose to throw himself backwards. Month six was great because he was not mobile at all! He would sit on the blanket with toys in front of him and I could go change laundry or grab a drink without worrying. During this month, he also enjoyed clapping and waving but to no one and nothing, so… whatever. 

Month 7 was a hoot because he finally showed interest in foods! I skipped the purees all together and just went for the hard stuff. I attempted to “introduce” foods the “correct” way but that lasted all of a few days. The only foods I was careful with were peanut butter and eggs (obviously), and  watermelon and avocado because Z is allergic. So far, we haven’t had any strange rashes or reactions with anything so hopefully we’re in the clear? I don’t know, don’t follow the way I do things. I live life on the edge. During this month, he also realized he could “move”. He couldn’t crawl or even army crawl for that matter but he could kind of worm himself around or throw himself as if he was about to crawl, but stop. This could get him around which was terrifying because we had absolutely  no sort of baby proofing done (because…life on the edge…judge me). He also realized he could pull himself up which was an absolute nightmare. I don’t know what you know about kids learning to pull themselves up, but let me give you the nitty gritty. It’s not good. They don’t know what they’re doing and they like to fall and smash their faces into everything, or let go and smash their heads on everything. For a solid two weeks I spent about 90% of my time consoling my kid who decided it was a good idea to fall face first into the INSERT OBJECT HERE. By month 8, he had it down and I no longer had to worry about every time he stood, what would come. 

Two days before his month 8 "monthday", F decided it was a good time to crawl. We started out with a very typical morning. Finn was lunging for things (where he’d pretend he was crawling but would chicken out and not actually crawl) like usual and just happened to lunge for something of interest and continued on. I couldn’t believe he just decided to crawl. He lunged for WEEKS to no avail but this one random Friday morning, he chose to continue on. He was really bad at it at first. His legs were uncoordinated with his arms so he looked like a broken frog for most of the time. Then one day he got really good.. and fast. My goodness he’s fast. He can make it down the hall, out the door, and into the driveway in 20 seconds flat. He figured out going up the stairs when his Aunt Keely watched him (thanks Keely! *insert eye roll emoji followed by a heart*) but I haven’t worked with him on going down the stairs because my mama heart cant handle how quickly he’s growing. When we were at a  wedding this past weekend, stranger danger set in, which I’m okay with because before that, I’m pretty sure he was asking to be stolen by anyone who dared to hold him. 

Currently, some of Finn’s favorite things to do are furniture walk, crawling at baby-monster speed, stick his tongue out, eat all foods, use a straw to drink smoothies, and he really likes this broken bucket handle. He is still my little nature boy and loves being outside, camping, hammocking, and eating dirt/sticks/leaves/rocks. He recently learned he can hold his bottle while drinking so that has been a fun and MESSY adventure. 

Finn gets into everything and is REALLY fast (my mom calls him Finnergy for good reason!). I know I mentioned the fast part before, but he is really fast and it’s scary to think he’s trying to walk. Every once in a while he gets brave and lets go of whatever he’s holding on to while he’s standing. Hopefully he’ll wait a while to walk, but who the heck knows. He likes to keep up with his older counterparts so it may only be a matter of time.

I really can’t believe my kid is 9 MONTHS OLD. Time. Is. Flying.  Every minute with him is a precious gift that I won’t take for granted. I think at this point I’m going to have to start making note of the cool things Finn does because these last few months were so jam packed with new things that I’m sure I missed some and made mistakes on timing. I love watching him grow and flourish by learning new things but it’s also hard knowing he’s getting so close to being one year old. I wish I could bottle these last few months of infancy up because these moments are so sweet. I want to soak up the moments and love him more while he’s little, before he’s not so little anymore. 

xo