Nine Months Old. And We’re All Still Alive.
Today Bean is nine months old. He has officially lived longer than any houseplant I have ever owned. Which means I can’t make any promises on what happens from here on out. These are uncharted waters for me. But I think I’ll just stick with what we’ve been doing because we’ve kept him alive this long, so that’s something.
Nine month old Bean is pretty much awesome. Like eight month old Bean. And seven month old Bean. And six… You get the idea. But in all seriousness, nine months is pretty similar to eight months in our house. He is still clapping and yelling and babbling and calling us all kinds of names (my favorite right now is “gaw gaw gaw gaw”…). But there has been the edition of two new party tricks that, though small, have rocked our little worlds.
Bean is crawling now. And can I just say – whoa. He’s not too quick yet, so keeping up with him isn’t a big problem right now. But looking up from what you’re doing and seeing Bean in a different place than where you left him is just CRAZY! For nine whole months, he has been like a set of keys or my cell phone. I put him somewhere and I was pretty certain when I came back he’d still be there. But now, I put him somewhere and within minutes he had gotten across the room. Its just the weirdest sight.
And that level of independence has made Bean so frustrated! Now he knows that the world is out there for the taking and crawling doesn’t satisfy him (even though he’s only been doing it for two days). What he really wants to do is walk. He crawls over to the closest something to pull up on and then he spends about 15 minutes trying to get himself upright and stable.
Usually, about the time he gets settled and is standing and balanced and happy, he drops his binky. It is so funny to watch. You see him look down at the binky on the ground and you can just hear him thinking, “Aw, crap.” So, he squats, sits, picks up the binky and puts it in his mouth, and then starts the process of stand up all over again. Its pretty entertaining to watch, really.
In the past week, he has started actually moving his legs when he stands. So, if I’m holding his hands, he can walk a little bit around the room. He doesn’t quiet understand what’s happening and you can tell that it is a natural reflex in his legs because he just stares down at them with his mouth hanging open the whole time he’s walking. Its pretty funny.
Another thing about nine months is that his teeth seem to be coming in much quicker now. He has had his bottom two teeth since he was about four months old and he cut his top two teeth when he was six months old. And in the past week or so, he has started cutting the two top teeth on either side of the two in the center and I am thinking he’s also working on a third one on the top left. We use Hyland’s Teething Tablets with him pretty regularly. He takes three at a time and we usually give them to him when he is particularly fussy. I can’t tell if they actually help or if they just distract him for a while. Whatever it is, they do help. We also use Tylenol religiously when he’s at the peak of teething (like he has been for the past three days). It really makes a huge difference in him. You can just see his little body relax about 10 minutes after we give him a dose. We use Orajel only when we’ve run out of things to try and nothing else is working. I forget who it was, but someone left me a comment about Orajel a while back saying that we shouldn’t use it because it can burn the gums a little before it numbs them. I tried it on myself and that was actually true! No wonder Bean cried so much when we first put it on his gums! So, I try not to use it too often anymore. But sometimes, there’s just nothing else that works and its worth those few seconds of stinging for a few minutes of numbness.
We have also started using Gerber’s Bitter Teething Biscuits. I had mixed feelings about these, too. A friend of mine (Hi Ann!) and I were talking about them and our concern was that they crumbled up and could really be a choking hazard. But Bean has been doing so great with eating lately and hasn’t had any problems taking bigger chunks of food down, so I’ve been more comfortable letting him naw on those bitter biscuits. Turns out he loves them!! I have to break them in two though because he ALWAYS gets excited and throws the first part down on the ground in the first ten minutes. I was wasting whole cookies because he’d throw them and that’d be the end. Now, I break them in two so that if he throws them, I still have another half to give him.
The only other thing to report is that in the past month, Bean Man has grown so much! He is now wearing nine month clothes consistently and they fit him great! He had to get all new jammies because his feet were poking through all his six month footies, so we went shopping last weekend and bought him the cutest nine month jammies. When I brought them home, Chris looked at them and said, “He can’t fit into those yet!” They looked so BIG! But when I put them on Bean, he fit into them perfectly! Growing like a weed, that kid.
All in all, nine months old has been fantastic. And it flew by! I feel like I was just writing the eight month post yesterday! I can’t wait to see what ten months brings us!!!
25 Comments
Laci
We also use the teething tablets a lot for our 5 1/2 month old (who by the way has YET to cut a tooth, but he’s sure been working on them!) Anyway, did you know Hylands has a teething gel too? We use that occasionally when he’s really chewing. I’m not sure that it actually works better, but I feel like I’m doing more by putting something RIGHT ON his gums….
Dana
He is such a doll! Love all the pictures! I remember those days when they officially move into the next size – bittersweet!
And both my babies lived on the teething tablets. And I love feeling proactive, like I am doing something. They were never fans of the Orajel because they did not seem to enjoy the numbness at all! Both of mine liked the teething things that you could put in the freezer. The cold made them so much happier than anything else.
And those teething biscuits are fun and messy! Mine would end up with a paste all over themselves, the excersaucer, the highchair, etc.
LOVE the updates on the growing Bean!
Sarah H.
I feel like you just wrote the 8 month post too!! We’ll blame it on February being a short month. LOVE his new PJ’s 🙂
Nancy
I love your description of him working on the standing and on walking. Hilarious.
Margaret
You know what’s amazing? How much Beanie looks like a BOY when he’s standing. Also, he looks so much like Chris! I know you probably get that all the time, but I love this age because you start to really get a sense of what kind of kid these babies are going to be. So fun!
Sarah@crazylovegamblestyle
You are KILLING me with his cuteness, stop it already. No wait…MORE!!
Nate's Mom
Ah! I got a shout out! How fun! While we’re not thrilled with our new pediatrician (and will start shopping around…again!), the one thing he told me at Nate’s 9 month visit was the big chunks of teething biscuit that break off in Nate’s mouth are GOOD. He said if Nate starts coughing or gagging, watch him, but leave him be, so he can learn how to get food up, and I’m only supposed to intervene if he stops breathing, turns blue, or falls over waiving his arms like he’s bringing in a really fast plane. So, Nate’s beloved teething biscuits are back in his life. I don’t know why, but he’s very studious about them. He gnaws on one end, stares at it, turns it around, gnaws on the other end, and repeats. Over and over and over again. Then he gets excited and hurls the biscuit. It cracks me up.
Bean is pulling to standing. On things. Oh my! Nate started crawling forward two days ago and it is OVER. Kibble. Water dish. Fireplace. He wants them all…. Nate says hi to his pal Bean!
Kendra
Bean is so cute! I love his big eyes. It has to be so much fun watching him grow up.
Katherine
I just love love love his eyes, what a sweetie!
Michelle
He is just about the cutest thing ever! What a smart mom you are to document all of bean’s milestones… I wish I had done that with my daughter!
Jessica
I thought you were really giving your baby bitter-flavored biscuits! blech! ‘Biter Biscuits’ sounds much more pleasant. 😀
high fives to the new crawler.
Mindee@ourfrontdoor
What’s interesting about early teethers is that they are also the first ones to lose their baby teeth. Really. My oldest started getting teeth at 6 mos and was the first in kindergarten for them to fall out. The other two got them later and then lost them later too.
Lori @ I Can Grow People
Dude, we had zZERO luck with the teething tablets. Porter grew 8 teeth between 4.5 and 7 months, I think and now he is holding steady with just 8. And he is eating actual food–like bits of my breakfast. It’s nuts. It is amazing how fast they grow!
Casey
YEAH for 9 months!!
Megan
He is SO cute!! We’re teething here too. It pretty much sucks…no other way to describe it. Q-Tip is 16 months and just has her top two, bottom two, one on the upper left and her upper right is coming in now. One tip you may or may not know…we put the Orajel in the fridge so it is cold when we put it on her. We don’t use it very often either but figured that might feel good to her. I didn’t know about the stinging thing and she has never cried so maybe the fridge helps with that.
http://reddirtandcrazy.blogspot.com/
Jessica
I must like so stupid sitting here laughing at my computer, but you honestly make me chuckle with your funny remarks and stories. Thanks for brightening my day!
Meghan
Bean’s teeth amaze me–Colin is almost 10 months and just had his first tooth poke through less than a month ago, and Emmett didn’t have any teeth until almost 1! Colin came perilously close to losing “the boob” because he was biting me with that one damn tooth. Talk about a pain I wish I’d never known…..fortunately he seems to have realized that biting = no boob and he’s stopped.
deepa
i love that second picture! how has this kid not been handed a modeling career? seriously!
Sarah
Hello, new reader here 🙂 I love your blog, I’m going to have to catch up through the archives soon! My boyfriend and I are long-distance for university so your story is somewhat inspiring for me!
I thought I’d leave my first comment on this post because that monkey print outfit Bean is wearing made me go ‘Squeee!’ and then my heart melted just a little bit. So cute.
Emily
What an adorable and special family you have! I happened on to your blog one day, and now I can’t get enough! What a neat life you have…as well as the way you approach it. It’s very inspiring for me, as I’m sure all of your readers! Bean is precious… I wish you well in the big move back to sunshine land. Also: your photos are fantastic.
Ella
I love the photo of Beanie standing up wearing his monkey pjs – so cute. He looks so proud of himself in that pic!
Cindy
He will be walking before you know it!! The pictures are too cute!
Laura
i love how Beanie has gotten a bit of baby pudge in all the right places… look at that belly! and i would like nothing more than to give those adorable, chubby little cheeks a good ol’ pinch! i can’t believe nine months has gone by already… you are truly a lucky lady, Miss Kate!
Jenn
You can tell you are a new mom when you pick the teething biscuits up and throw them away. If they drop it at home, I usually just give it right back! But then, last time we bought those Gerber biting stick biscuits, you had to use a sandblaster to get the goop off of the high chair. Now we just give them frozen waffles to teethe on.
Katie
Its not the new mom in me, its the rabid beast dogs in my house that hang around under the high chair! If Molly wasn’t so quick, it’d be different story! 🙂