Edward has suddenly launched himself through quite a few developmental milestones this past month, which has been fun and busy and rather dizzying. 12 months and the end of little-babyhood seems to be looming on the horizon, and he seems like more of a small child each day.

Things I’m enjoying at 9 months:
1. Crawling! Well, sort of. He drags himself around quite speedily with his arms – legs are not involved too much in the process – picking up great swathes of dirt and cat hair on his clothes. He is a great incentive to keep the floor clean. Being able to move to things that interest him keeps him much more occupied on his own, allowing his supervising parent to move freely in a slightly bigger orbit around him than before.
2. All the other new things he can do now – sitting himself up, grinning with his shiny new teeth, imitating bird noises, dancing, pulling himself up to standing, chatting away with long strings of “mamamamamama” and “dadadadada”, which we think are very occasionally applied to the correct people.
3. He has started joking with us – he blows raspberries, or pokes at my stomach, then grins eagerly up at us, waiting for us to laugh in response.
4. Playing games with him and making him laugh, and the sheer number of things that make him laugh uproariously – chasing games, making “high fives!”, tickling his feet, and any number of ridiculous noises.
5. The clever things he can do with his hands – using a castanet, bouncing a ball (and then dragging himself after it), and picking up leaves with index finger and thumb and examining them closely.

Things I’m not enjoying at 9 months:
1. Unpredictable sleeping patterns – some days have long naps, some days have short naps. Some nights he wakes once, other nights he spends half an hour crying before I can settle him, or he wakes every ten minutes for a while after I put him down. What I wouldn’t give to know what was coming up each day.
2. His recent unhappiness at being left with his nanny and cousin two days a week – I have rearranged my work schedule so that I can spend time with all of them on their days together, and then gradually reduce that time, hopefully gently adjusting him to the situation.
3. The two colds he has had recently. The first one was the worst – he slept appallingly – and although he has had a chesty cough with the second, he has dealt with it better and mostly maintained semi-decent sleep. I think it has contributed to his days of crying with his nanny though.