9 Month Photos / What the Baby Man is up to

Jackson has been exploring the house from his knees. He follows us out of one room and into another. His cruising speed has definitely kicked into high gear. His poor little knees are getting sores because the skin hasn't toughened up at this point. Jax will not pull himself up to a stand position if he is holding our hands. However, not pulling up on furniture yet. He enjoys throwing his toys and crawling to retrieve them only to throw them once again. Our new naptime routine is no longer a song (sad for me), because he was no longer tolerating it. Once we walk into his nursery and I turn out the light, he knows a nap is coming and starts to fuss and wiggle in my arms. So now when we sit in the rocking chair, I have replaced my beautiful lullabyes with tickling. Baby Man immediately starts giggling and laughing. Of course, if you know my son - that right hand goes right to the mouth when he laughs hard. This new naptime routine gets him smiling and happy when I lay him down. I hand him his musical seahorse and he will talk to it for alittle while and then go to sleep. Now nice!

We took Jackson for his 9 month photos today. Q Tip was doing wonderful as we arrived at the appointment on time. We were ready to wait to about 20 mins because Saturdays at Sears Portrait Studios is always busy. What we hadn't anticipated was waiting 60 mins! That's right - we waited a full hour. They were clearly under staffed and not one person came out to tell us that they were running behind. In the meantime, Jax is getting cranky and irritable. Being the Super Mom that I am :), I had planned for set backs like this and had packed his lunch with us. I was planning on giving it to him if the selection portion of our appt. ran late... not expecting to give it to him BEFORE the photos! It did settle him a bit and finally, we went in for the photos. He did really well and we got some adorable shots of him. Jackson is so flexible and we are so lucky to have a happy easy going baby. And many people don't let us forget that :)

While we were there in thw waiting area - Jackson was watching two boys playing in the kids center. One of the boys had to go with his mom to get his photos taken. The remaining boy waved as they left and said "Bye Bye" 2 or 3 times. And all of a sudden, Jackson says "Bye Bye". It was clear as day! Paul and I both looked at each other stunned and said "Did you hear that?" at the same time. Then I asked the couple to next us "Did YOU hear that?" I wanted to make I wasn't making it something it wasn't. They nodded and smiled. We told them it was the first we heard anything other than "Mama or Dada". Of course, we couldn't get him to say "Bye Bye" again :)

These photos are not the best of quality because

I borrowed them from the online ordering page shh...!