Mobile Max :: Nine months old!

Max is on the move, plain and simple. As one would expect, he's crawling faster than ever and getting into everything--everything! Doors! opens them, closes them. Boxes, tears into them, plays with them and then leaves them for something shiny and metallic.

Just about anything gets his attention. He'll examine it for a bit, shake it, taste it, hit the ground with it and then find something else--I love watching him do this.

He's spent the last three weeks standing on his own with minimal help. He'll support himself on the side of his playpen or toy box and then let go for a bit. It's getting longer. He's at the point where he took his first steps on Monday (5/26) night while Amy and I were watching him in the living room.

Max is dealing pretty well with the teething process. He's learning to chew now and mostly gums soft food. He seems to like everything we give him, so far. Ice cream and apple wheel soft crackers seem to be his favorites. You can see his first new choppers in the picture on the right. He's not crying, he's yelling at something. It's the only picture that I have where you can see his new little chopping tools. I don't think the formula fills him as well as it used to. Either that or he's developing taste buds based on the stuff we're giving him.

Behavior
He's intense. As I mentioned before, he seems to want to get into everything. If you put something in the way of what he wants, he seems to do everything in his power to move it, drop it, and grunts while he's doing this, it's cool to watch.

Loud noises startle and scare him to the point of tears. Earlier this afternoon I had to run a small motorized blower while he was watching from the garage. He started crying as soon as I started it. I reached out my hand to his while I held the motor and he stopped crying. He also seems to express some separation anxiety when Amy or I leave the room but he gets over it in about a minute.

Speech.
His words so far are;

• "muh-muh"
• "dahhh..." (very quietly--it seems to be his thinking noise)

He also produces a complex sounding group of sounds--mostly baby babble but he does seem to be able to mimic certain repetitive syllables with "duh-duh" in a word with two syllables. He also produces a really funny lip-tumbling noise and likes to yell for no apparent reason other than to express his place in life.

He's developing so quickly. I still remember the minute where he opened his little brown eyes for the first time and Amy said to him, "Happy birthday baby...". Seems like last night.