Fun with Bear

We had lots of fun on Halloween night! My two best friends from the moms club came over with their daughters and we ate dinner and took the kids around the neighborhood in their costumes. Normally, this would be called trick-or-treating, but since none of them can actually say "trick or treat" and none of them can really eat candy, we just took them around to show them off. My neighborhood had lots of kids in costumes running around and it was a really fun night. Unfortunately, my camera battery died, but one of my friends took pics of all three of the kids, so I'll have to post those after she sends them to me. I did get some pictures of him and his friend Kaitlyn taking a bath together that night, though!



Bear has been "talking" more and more. He now says something that sounds an awful lot like "momma", and he tends to say it when I leave the room or when he wants to be picked up by me. Maybe I'm just kidding myself, but it really seems like he's saying it in reference to me. He's been saying "guh" for a while and he sometimes says "buh" and is starting to make a "cuh" sound deep in his throat. Something really interesting happened last night during his bath! He has a toy walrus that we just about always play with during bath time and last night was no exception. I have been holding it up to him and making what I *think* is a walrus sound ever since we received the toy quite a few months ago. Well, last night, he made the sound right after I did! I thought it was a fluke, so I did it twice more and so did he! I had Max get out the video camera and we got some great video of me making walrus noises, but of course, Bear clammed up.

Another fun step Bear seems to have taken involves food. He has been spitting baby food out at me! I don't like this, but I'm not sure how to stop it. I've said a very stern "no" to him and he'll sometimes cry, but he still does it again. The foods that he spits are foods that he's liked up to this point, so I'm not sure what's happening. Max thought that maybe he would do better with thicker foods, so he went out and bought some stage 3 baby food, which can be started at 9 months anyhow. We'll try them today at lunch time and see how that goes. Hopefully better! The good news is, he doesn't seem to be spitting out any of the non-baby food that I give him. For example, last night I made some macaroni with broccoli in it and mushed it up for him. He seemed to love that! We have lots of leftovers, so we'll have to try that again. He also has tried mashed potatoes, pasta salad, bread from a baguette and macaroni and cheese and hasn't spit out any of those. Maybe he's just ready to move on and is trying to tell me.

I also wanted to share some of the 9 month pictures that I took of Bear. He's getting less and less cooperative at these picture taking sessions, but I think it's funny to have some of him trying to wiggle out of the chair or looking out the window instead of at me, so I'm willing to keep doing it!

This is my favorite "nice" one:


Here's an example of how he kept looking out the window:


This is my favorite silly one. Look at those teeth!