The "best" is HERE!!: 9 months

Baby boy, you are growing up WAY too fast. You have officially turned from my sweet content little boy into a squirmy, on the go baby. You are still as sweet and smiley as can be, but your little hands and feet are constantly moving and you just want to be on the go. You started crawling just a few days ago so it is time to baby proof! You are still pretty slow and deliberate in your crawl, but you are a very curious little man and I'm sure in no time you will be tearing up our house. You are already VERY grabby and if you are sitting on my lap and anything is in reach you will have it in your little fingers before I have a chance to stop you. You are getting more temperamental and definitely know what you like and don't like.

LIKES: Running water - you LOVE bath time!!! I put you in the tub and your little hands and feet go CRAZY - you get soooo excited when I turn on the water and you can hardly control yourself.

Yesterday I turned on the kitchen faucet while holding you and your little hands and feet went crazy and then when I turned it off they stopped. I kept turning it on and off to see them go from crazy to relaxed and you just kept going with it. It was pretty funny. You do the same thing with lights - most often it is when I go to take you upstairs - you will arch your back way back to see if the light is on or off - if I turn it on for you, your whole face lights up with a big smile and your little happy hands and feet go crazy.

KIX - you get so excited every morning when I put you in your high chair and you see me take the box of Kix out of the pantry. Your little happy hands go nuts and you shriek with excitement. You try to shovel as many of them in your mouth as you can.

SWINGS: You LOVE the park and could sit in a swing all day if I let you. You love the outdoors and the wind in your hair.

PARADES: You were lucky enough to see 2 of them this month - the 4th of July and the Lion's Daze parade in Sussex. Your little hands were going crazy at all the loud noises and you loved to just sit and watch it all.

FIREWORKS: You also managed to stay up for fireworks twice this month, too. I thought you would fall asleep for sure, but I think you knew there was something fun coming and you didn't want to miss out. I'm not sure how well you could hear with your big earmuffs on, but you were definitely intrigued by them.

YOUR PIGGIES: When you can't find a toy, you are quite content just finding your piggies and playing with them:)

BEN: You love the neighbor boy, Ben and he gets SOOO excited to see you, too. Ben likes to send you text messages with shots of him at Brewer's games - he did when we was in Denver watching the Brewer play at Coors Field and again the other day when he was at Miller Park. Tonight you were so very crabby and they came over to watch the Home Run Derby with us. We set you on the ground to play with Ben and you were happy as can be!

DISLIKES: Your changing table - this used to be your favorite place in the world - now you cry everytime I lay you on it. You want to be on the go and so you try as hard as you can to roll or flip off it. You get VERY angry when you are tired or hungry and I have to change your diaper. You HATE it when I change your clothes, too.

Your carseat - you always put up a fuss when I try to strap you in now though once you are in there for awhile you are generally fine. You get so hot in it on warm days and you just want to be out of it so you can see and move around.

You are starting to get a little more timid around new people - you still love the attention, but you are a little tougher to get a smile out of with just a glance. You now require someone to make a funny face or a funny sound before you give a big toothy smile.

You are still nursing 4 times a day and eating 3 pretty good meals a day. I'm not sure if you are going through a growth spurt or what but lately when we put you in your high chair you SCREAM until we give you food.

Once you are fed, you are happy as can be.

You are still taking 2-3 naps a day depending on how long they are.

You have 2 bottom teeth, but I have a feeling there are more on the way very soon.

You are finally sleeping through the night pretty regularly!!!! I think it has been at least a few weeks since I've gotten up in the middle of the night to feed you!

You are good at taking naps in your stroller which is nice because we do it alot...

at the air show...

at mommy's Tuesday morning bible study...

at mommy's Tuesday morning bible study again...

at sissy's tball game....

and at the festival.

As for the spitting up.....well, spit happens....

sometimes on the floor of the dressing room. Oops.

And our big news for this month......

You are crawling!!!! You have been trying hard all month to figure it out, rocking on all fours, putting your weight on your feet, your knees, each hand and finally last Friday you figured it out. We put a remote control in front of you and off you went.

Success!!!

We've toyed with many nicknames for you over the past nine months and the one that finally seems to have stuck is Bubs or Bubbers - Daddy started calling you it first and now he has Makenna and I following suit.

Daddy: Your daddy is nuts about you, buddy. You have started to favor your left hand and he's thrilled. He already has you pitching in the majors. You are all smiles for your daddy every morning when you wake up and it melts his heart. He won't leave your room until you give him a big smile and you usually oblige pretty quickly.

Everyone says you look like your daddy, which is obviously quite funny given you have none of his genes but it always makes us smile anyway.

Mommy: I've had such a good month with you, Bubbers. Your sister had full day camp for two of the weeks of this month and so I had a few days with just me and you and I LOVED it. I spoiled you rotten and it felt soooo good to be able to do that! And for the first month EVER I have more pictures of you with me than I do of you with daddy:)

Makenna a/k/a Sissy: Alexander Brooks, you LOVE your sissy - noone else can get you to laugh as hard or smile as big as your sissy can. She adores you and always tries to take such good care of you. She is our official Kix picker upper in the house and she takes such pride in cleaning up after you decide to throw them all over the floor every time you eat. Now that you are mobile it will be interesting to see how she reacts to you playing with her toys.

Last week she took one look at you in the morning and insisted that your hair looked silly so she decided to "fix" it. She got her hands all wet and proceeded to give you a pretty cool looking side faux hawk.