Nine months

I truly can't believe it's been nine whole months since Luke was born. Yet it seems like he's always been here.

I know, I know. I write that every month.

This little baby has totally melted our hearts lately. He is really a little boy with his own unique personality, which seemed to come out so much in the last couple months. 

He is so incredibly sweet, just nuzzles into you, smiles constantly, and talks all the time. He adores - ADORES - his big sister. He also has a thing for her sippy cup. 

He's been pulling up for a while now, and cruises once in a while. 

And just a couple weeks ago, he started crawling. He'd been army-crawling for a while, but now he actually crawls, which means he can get around pretty fast. 

I absolutely love, love, love watching him crawl. To think that this little baby has a mind of his own and he is deciding where to go... I just can't get enough of it. So far, he mostly heads from toy to toy and spends a lot of time at the front door. And, of course, he never misses an opportunity to follow around Clara.

He has six teeth, and is working on a seventh. And this kid - at least right now - is a great teether. Thank God! We barely know he's getting a tooth sometimes, until it suddenly appears.

He loves feeding himself food - his favorites are blueberries, bananas, peaches, squash and carrots - and while he still lets me feed him pureed food, he definitely prefers to be in control. The only problem is after I cut whatever he's eating into tiny pieces, he just shoves a fistful into his mouth.

He surprised us in church a little while back by waving to the people behind us and saying, "hi!" They were pretty surprised too. I remember that's where Clara first waved and said "hi" as well, practically in the same pew!

Speaking of church, he does really well during Mass. He really is super content as long as he is in my arms. I know that won't always be the case, but I'm loving it right now. He just looks around and takes it all in. Until he decides he's hungry and then he tries to yank my shirt down until I quickly get up and avoid an embarrassing situation!

He says "dada" all the time, although I'm not sure whether he's actually directing it towards Dada just yet or if it's my imagination. He also says "cat" once in a while, or rather "dat". I can interpret it only because he's repeating after me and playing with our cat at the time.

He loves to play, and unlike Clara who is a champ at playing by herself, I am noticing he prefers Clara to be playing with (or near) him. I've noticed lately he seems much less interested in playing with his toys if she's napping. He's unsettled unless she's there. I told you he adores her.