Max loves to be carried around in his chariot (also known as our laundry basket).
Well I’m sure you have all been waiting with eager anticipation to hear what Max has been up to in the last month. Wait no more, here are the details!
Max continues to learn new things seemingly every day. He constantly amazes us with his ability to observe and then imitate. Max can sit across from Mom and throw the ball back and forth. Really! This is a repeatable process and not just some fluke one-time event! He even
throws overhand. (For those dying to know, at this point he is throwing with is right hand.) At school there is a toy where you put a ball in the top and it rolls zig-zag through some “tunnels” before coming out the bottom hole. Max saw this once and knew when the ball disappeared exactly where it would reappear (you could easily tell because he moved his whole head to look at where the ball would come out). He was playing with this toy with a 1-year-old who didn’t seem to be catching on.
Max is still a little ticklish and is prone to fits of the giggles when being changed. It is very cute. And of course as you all know from his pictures (which don’t always do him justice), he is still the cutest little thing. Yes, he still has blondish hair, but it does seem to be getting a little darker.
Max is making progress on the crawling front, though he still can only go backwards – which is a little frustrating for him since it basically means he gets further away from his objective 
However, he is close enough that we have actually bought a gate for the top of our stairs (although Dad hasn’t installed it yet). Max can turn 360-degrees in the sitting position and he can get from a sitting position to a crawling position. He also still enjoys standing. Sometimes he even does the splits from the standing position to get to a sitting position. He is obviously way more flexible than anyone reading this
Max loves mylar balloons! We generally get him one a week and he loves to look at it and sometimes pull on the string to watch it bounce up and down. He has also much more aware of things overhead. Just as he is always on the lookout for his shadow, he also can spot a ceiling fan a mile away. Yes, his eyesight does seem to be much better than his mother’s – luckily!
Mom did her first school activity and made apple cake for the center’s caregivers one Wed. Max’s school has a parent’s group that decided it would be nice for folks to sign up to bring breakfast for the center once a week. Most folks bring donuts or bagels, but we made them eat
apple cake instead It seemed to go over well since there were a number of requests for the recipe. Next week I will read to Max’s class at storytime.
Speaking of food, Max is eating meat! He has had turkey and chicken and will move onto beef this weekend. Okay, so before you start envisioning him sitting at the table gnawing on a turkey leg, just let me say that he is only eating the strained versions of these foods. When we first gave him the turkey/vegetable mix we actually thought it smelled a little like turkey. But it turns out it that every combo he has had so far (turkey/sweet potato, turkey/vegetable,
chicken/vegetable) pretty much smell and taste the same, so it isn’t really clear he knows he is trying different meats Nevertheless it is progress.
Besides the “meat” (which he has for dinner), Max eats a fruit/cereal mix for breakfast and straight vegetables for lunch. Yes, all of these are the baby versions. Max also has a couple of bottles of formula and some breastmilk throughout the day. We have started giving him more bottles so we can better track how much he is eating. We are also using formula to ensure he is getting extra vitamins and iron, so we have started the weaning process. Of course after buying
a bunch of formula over the weekend and seeing their prices we might rethink this whole weaning thing 
Max also has started eating Cheerios. He doesn’t really eat them so much as try to pick them up. Of course Max is no dummy; the first time we put them on his tray he just looked at them, knowing that since we put them within his reach they must not be interesting But now he is very interested in trying to pick them up. He looks at them very intently and tries to pick them of with his index finger and thumb. Sometimes he even successful! Of course then he isn’t exactly sure what to do and generally just shakes his hand until it falls off – needless to say they stick to his hands via a saliva bond Max is very good at picking up larger objects (he generally palms them).
We eat dinner together as a family! So not really, but we at least all sit at the table together. Max plays with his Cheerios and water while we really eat. He has his real dinner about 1/2 hour or so before ours. Nevertheless, it is nice to all sit down together Max still just plays with his sippy cup and doesn’t really drink the water.
Unfortunately he still likes to have breastmilk about two times a night when he is supposed to be sleeping. Hopefully he outgrows this soon so we can actually get a whole night sleep at some point We are a little reluctant to not feed him until we know we have a doctor’s visit where they say his weight is fine.
Max continues to babble more and more each day. He went through a phase either this week when “Dad” was his favorite thing to say, especially when John comes home from work. Of course he still mostly cries “Mom” when he is upset. At the moment Max is all into saying
“Ba”. Sometimes it actually means he wants a bottle
Well I think that is about all. Next month we will actually have some stats from his 9-mo doctor’s appointment!
