9 months

Damon is 9 months old!! Time flies. He’s a total sweetie pie. Very happy and easy going, and still a good sleeper (thank god). I think he is becoming the victim of second-baby-syndrome (i.e. we’re not keeping up with the photographs and blog posts like we did for Riley), and we’ve gotten lazy and are mostly using our phones to take pictures… the upside is more cute spontaneous shots… the downside is the quality is pretty crappy in comparison.

Anyway. Damon has just started crawling! It’s a whole new world. He’s not too quick yet, but he’s already getting into things he shouldn’t (like pulling on wires and trying to grab things off tables over his head) so we need to think about baby-proofing a bit more. Like Riley, he much prefers walking holding our hands to crawling. He’s actually pretty quick! In the evening after dinner we go walking in the neighborhood. There’s a cute video of Damon walking holding my hand on one side and Riley’s hand on the other side.

He’s getting super chatty, but no definitive words yet. We’re letting him eat just about everything now… like his sister he’s a big pasta fan. We’ve started feeding him bits of whatever we’re eating in hopes that he won’t end up picky like Riley. So far he likes pretty much everything we put in front of him. Every weekend for the last year or so we’ve gone out for sushi at a restaurant down the street from our house (walking distance). Riley loves it because she can order edamame, plain tofu, rice and milk (same thing every time). For a brief period we could take Damon and he would fall asleep on the way there and stay asleep while we ate, but that doesn’t work anymore. We thought about giving up the tradition, but instead decided we’d just be the first ones there (we’re talking 5:30) and feed Damon at the restaurant. It was a little hectic the first few times, but now it’s actually pretty smooth. Like his sister, Damon eats tofu and rice, and chews on the edamame shells (and eats whatever else we remember to bring for him). It’s kind of a fancy restaurant, and we do make a bit of a mess, but they seem to like us anyway… I guess that’s the bonus of being a regular!

With day light savings it’s really light outside after dinner (especially since we’re usually done with dinner by 6:30 latest… that’s what happens when you have 2 kids!) so we’ve been hanging out in the yard more. Damon LOVES to be outside. He pretty much wants to be outside all the time, and actually will cry sometimes when you try to bring him back in.

[Hanging out in the front yard]

His doting big sister still likes to give him lots of big, tight hugs all the time, which is very sweet, except it turns out babies don’t really like big, tight hugs. This is hard for Riley to understand (since there’s not much she likes more than a big, tight hug), but she’s getting better.

As always, Damon loves to swing. Yolly, his babysitter, takes him to the park everyday and sometimes sends me pictures to my phone. She’s amazing, we are very very lucky.

[Damon and his buddy Max in the swing together]

I think I’ve mentioned previously that Damon loves the water, and it’s still true. On the weekends when it’s warm enough we take him to the pool and he has a blast. He doesn’t mind going under water and loves to splash around, it’s pretty cute.

Just some random pictures to end on:

[Damon and his buddy Maddox playing with princesses and a pink cellphone]

[Both kids passed out asleep in the car (it’s a beautiful thing)]