The Journey Continues: Nine Months

Another month has flown by and now Jesse is three-quarters of a year old! Today's the day, and for once I am on top of things--I got a picture of him on his blanket and did a little photo shoot with him on a walk today...I just might even finish this post before the day's over, too.

New things at 9 months:

Jesse has gotten to be a really fast crawler.
He definitely understands "no", and at this point, he is obedient much of the time. There are several things we don't want him to get into that aren't baby-proofed, so whenever he goes near these areas we'll say "no" and he almost always turns and looks at us, and then turns away from it. Of course, he often tries to go back, but each time we say "no" and after several times he gets the idea and moves elsewhere.
Still giving us lots of kisses (and huge grins when he does it), but now he is into kissing lots of things, like his stuffed animals and even inanimate objects like books and beds.
Just started waving bye-bye. The other morning I told him to wave bye-bye to James (and of course I waved to show him what I meant) and he just did it like he had been doing it all along.
He is finally down to just two naps a day. He takes his morning nap around 9:00 and it lasts anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours, but I would say an hour or so is most common. He usually starts his afternoon nap sometime between 1 and 2, and it is about the same length, maybe slightly longer on average. He goes to bed between 6 and 7, but probably closer to 7 most nights, and wakes up around 6 most mornings.
He now has 3 teeth coming in on top, which would explain why he has been waking up a little at night recently and having trouble getting back to sleep.
Three days ago I would have said that his interest in solids is still minimal, but these past 3 days he has been noticeably more interested. I'm not sure if it's coincidence or not, but this sudden increase in interest coincided with my decision to begin offering him small amounts of solids three times a day. Previously I was offering solids once a day, maybe twice, but I decided that maybe more persistence on my part and more frequent exposure might help him get better used to them. So the past three days he has eaten 3 small servings of solids a day (1-2 tablespoons each time), which may sounds like nothing, but the fact that he very obviously wants more than just a couple bites is encouraging. He usually eats yogurt and some fruit in the morning, cereal (oats, millet and brown rice) with a veggie for dinner, and something random for lunch (avocado or another veggie with cereal). Some new foods lately have been plum, butternut squash, summer squash and applesauce. He really doesn't seem to be a picky eater (green beans are the only thing he hasn't wanted much to do with), but he just doesn't like large quantities. We've also been giving him baby puffs, which he has gotten pretty good at getting into his mouth, and also mum mums (kinda like crackers), which he seems to really enjoy.

Here is Jesse's monthly blanket picture. I forgot to do one at 8 months, but I guess the move was a good excuse.

And here are some pictures of my impromptu 9-month photo shoot. A friend and I took our kids to Promontory Point, a nearby park on a piece of land that juts out into Lake Michigan and has some awesome views of downtown. Jesse's a big boy in a big city!

He loves all the space to roam around wherever he wants. I just have to make sure he doesn't eat too many leaves or too much grass.