9 Months!

Today, August 4th 2014, Simon turns 9 moths old.  He is now fully crawling and likes to pull himself up.  He is a very happy guy, always smiling and babbling.  He loves music and even likes to sing. Whenever he gets upset, we sing him a song (the itsy bitsy spider or mial Jas sobie swa kapele) and that makes him happy right away. Once, when Aria banged her leg and started to cry, it was Simon, who with a look of concern on his face started to "sing" a song for Aria.  It was very sweet. He is very interested in "things".  He finds all toys fascinating and he especially loves anything that is silver or chrome and shiny.  Electronics are also very exciting. Unlike his sister when she was little, he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth! We have to be very careful about leaving things lying around.
We started Simon on solids right at 6 months and he seemed to take to them right away, but then he slowly started to become picky about what we give him. He likes all fruit and that is pretty much it. He also likes sour cream.  Not a big fan of veggies or grains.  We will keep working on it, but deep down inside I'm just a bit worried that he might be just like his daddy... a very picky eater.  It is genetic, after all. We'll see. He still nurses a lot and is a whopping 21 lbs right.  Very heavy.  He might be a big guy when he grows up.
Summer vacation has started and we have taken a couple camping trips (both with our friends Jeremy, Tisha, and their two girls Lena and Jeannie).  One to the river and one to the beach.  Simon is not a fan of sand. Whenever he touches it he makes this disgusted face and starts to cry... Beats having him eat the sand :) We also took our annual Eichenauer family trip to the coast. I will write on that in a separate post.
There is a reason why I wanted to write up a little something at the 9 month mark.  When Simon was a few weeks old, he had pretty bad colic.  It was gas in the stomach due to my milk gushing out too fast and him swallowing too much air.  Also, I think it had to do partly with my dairy consumption.  I swear once I cut it out, he started to feel better.  Anyways, he would cry for hours in the evening and there was nothing we could do to pacify him.  We eventually tried the hairdryer technique and that worked for a short while.  So, after a particular bad night I was talking to one of the mamas at Aria's school.  Her name is Sahra Perretz-Rosales,the mama of two beautiful girls Vivian (4yrs old) and Dahlia (9 month old at the time). I was complaining about how Simon has bad gas and just cries and cries for hours and how I can't sleep and all I do is rock him on the bouncy ball.  Sahra listened with a sympathetic ear and concern.  She then said, "I know it seems hard now, but believe me, time will fly by so fast and before you know it, you will have a bumbling 9 month old with a big smile on his face and a ferocious appetite".  And boy was she right! Time certainly did fly by sooo fast and Simon's tummy problems vanished and he does have a ferocious appetite and he is such a happy bubbly boy.  Thank you Sahra for your words of encouragement! When things got tough in the beginning I would always think back to our conversation and try and remember that things do get better :)
So, here are some pictures of the last 6 months. More posts to come.