Alexander at nine months

At nine months, Alexander is...

• Ginormous! He had his well-child check today and was 19 lbs. 12 oz! So he's basically huge, though still only at the 50th percentile. At 27.9 inches, he's on the short side of things right now, but I'm sure that he's saving up his girth for future upwards growth spurts.
• Teething like a maniac. He's had his two bottom teeth for a while and has added his eye teeth on top. They broke through the first week of July (one while we were up in Alberta and the other once we'd gotten back to Utah). His two front teeth have been giving him plenty of grief but have yet to make their appearance, so he's a little vampire baby. A whiny, drooly, chewing-on-everything vampire baby.

I also had fangs when I was nine months old

• Eating like there's no tomorrow. This probably explains how well he's putting on weight. He is always in the mood for nursing and also enjoys table food. Last night he had strawberries, potatoes, and scrambled eggs. The night before that he enjoyed green beans and rice. Nothing really slows him down: avocado, peaches, Cheerios, yogurt, cheese, peas. He likes it all. The only thing he's seemed unsure about liking is humus. He kind of grimaced at the first bite and didn't seem entirely thrilled by the taste/texture/something, but he was also fully committed to finishing every bite I offered him. He loves to crawl under the table to scavenge for scraps so we have to be on the ball about at least making sure no one has left behind anything he could possibly choke on sweeping.
• Crawling everywhere. Carpet, tile, grass, cement. No texture throws this kid off his stride. His favourite thing is crawling over people when they're sitting or lying on the floor. 
• Pulling up on things. From furniture to walls, this boy can use anything to get into a standing position. Standing is his favourite. Well, standing and bouncing is his favourite. So if you're holding him in your lap and he stands up, beware. He will start jumping.
• Fully aware of object permanence and has thus become rather opinionated. He wants Momma to hold him. If Momma can't hold him, Rachel, Grandma, Grandpa, or Daddy are the only acceptable alternatives. Everyone else is unacceptable. When he wants me he will crawl around looking for me.
• Sleep averse. And it makes me so sad because he was such an angel baby for so long! I need him to start sleeping again because the thought of him never sleeping again makes me want to weep. The doctor said to go ahead and see if we can get him attached to a teddy bear or blanket or something (because the risk of suffocation is lower than the risk of parental insanity at this point (which makes me wonder why Zoë's doctor never seemed to care (or offer any advice at all) when I'd bring up her sleep aversion)). 
• Getting into games like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake. He also enjoys "ride a little pony" and "this is the way the baby rides" and things like that. 
• Waving and (occasionally) saying "Hi!" He started waving while we were up in Canada. This is also when he said "Hi!" for the first time. We were at the store, and I was prompting him to wave. "Say hi!" I instructed. So he waved his arm in the air and said, "Hhhhhhhhhi!" shocking us all. He's said it a couple of times since then. In all honesty, he's just parroting, but it's still ridiculously adorable. 
• Saying "Momma!" pretty consistently. Sometimes this means he wants me. Sometimes, like at the dinner table last night, it clearly did not mean me. I had gotten his little plate of food ready for him so it could cool off during the prayer and he got impatient and yelled, "MOMMA!" which clearly meant, "FOOD! STAT!" in his instance. He's playing around with other sounds as well. He's particularly fond of saying "ffffffff" for whatever reason, but "guh-guh-guh," and "buh-buh-buh" are also pretty common sounds for him.
• Making funny sounds with his mouth. He loves clicking his tongue and blowing raspberries and smacking his lips. He also loves growling. Sometimes when everybody is laughing he will growl along with us. I guess he hasn't figured out how to sympathy laugh yet.
• Into cords and things. He loves the vacuum (he'll chase it around, rather than running away crying), he loves pulling out my breast pump and playing with all the tubes and cords, he loves getting into the piano headphones. We're constantly chasing him around, taking cords away from him.
• Smiling for the camera. He's a real ham sometimes. But not lately because he's been so grumpy from teething/not sleeping, so here are a few pictures I took of him yesterday, with him sort of smiling.

Here he is showing off his little fangs again:

He's holding the Orajel because he likes to chew on the tube. Sometimes he'll bring it to me and put it in my hand, as if asking me to give his gums some relief. (The water bottle in the background is there because discarded water bottles are his favourite toy (he would have loved living in Jordan with us (or Egypt, too, for that matter, where we also only ever drank bottled water))).

And here he is sitting on my lap for a picture (he refused to just sit there and let me take a picture of him and instead kept crawling over to me):

He's a pretty sweet baby. Let's just all pray he starts sleeping again!