Austin's 9 Month Check Up

This picture cracks me up. Last week, Austin was eating and trying to take his bib off at the same time. As you can tell by the look on his face....he was struggling. He kept pulling, grunting, and trying everything he could to get that stupid thing off. Well, he did, eventually. Just so that I could put it right back on :) He's just too funny!

Austin had his 9 month check up on Friday. Everything checked out just fine. We got the go ahead to start giving Austin just about anything on the table except for the small list of allergy foods. We took full advantage of this, and he tried pasta, waffle, slicked turkey, cooked chicken, cheese. Some of this, he's tried in the past, but he actually seemed to enjoy some of it this time around. He's having a bit of trouble dealing with the different textures, but he's enjoying eating the same things that we are. It's a bit of a struggle, but we will get there in time!

At this check-up, Austin weighed 22 lbs, 2 oz (75 percentile), he was 29 1/8 in. long (75 percentile), and his head was 18 1/2 in. (90 percentile). His height and weight dropped off from his last appointment, but the doctor said he's still a good size and proportion. He had to get pricked in the finger for an iron test to see if he is anemic, which we found out today, he's not. Developmentally, the doctor said he's doing great. Austin is slowly starting to pick up his own food, but is having difficulty with some of the slimier things like melon and pasta. He's been working on picking up Cheerios on his own for some time now, and is finally starting to master that when he isn't throwing them on the floor (Jackson and Allie are loving this). He's primarily crawling on all fours now, he's pulling himself up to stand, walking around the coffee table, starting to point at things, babbling a ton, and doing many other fun new things.

He's recently started to really enjoy books. The only one he hasn't enjoyed recently was one that his Aunt K read to him which involved a loud snorting sound which scared him a bit (it was talking about a Rhino and how it snorts and snuffs)...he actually started to cry for a split second, and then stopped. He's starting to point at things in the books though, and is starting to feel for things also (he's got a book called That's not my Puppy, it has shaggy ears, a fluffy tail), and he loves that sort of thing now.

One of the cutest things I think he did this weekend was on Sunday. Jared had to go upstairs to grab something, and he left Austin in the living room (I was in the kitchen). While Jared was upstairs, Austin went over to the stairs and sat there and waited for Jared to come back. It was too precious!

After his appointment, we went to the zoo for a quick stroll. This was probably about the first time so far that Austin has actually looked at some of the animals. He loved this fish shown above. I think the fish knew it too, because he kept coming back for more! He got scared at a sheep though, which said "BAA" really loud. Austin jumped, I jumped, and he cried. I had to laugh though, because it was too cute. He was clenching onto my arm like the sheep was going to hurt him. It made both of us smile.

Saturday was the first Photo Walk in Fort Wayne. Jared was dying to go, and so I tagged along. Basically, we just walked around downtown and took pictures of buildings, flowers, people....whatever we could find. It was more for networking than anything. These people were so into it, which was awesome to see. It was cool to see how many photography junkies there were out there...and that was only a small handful of them I'm sure! While we did that, Austin spent the day with his Grandma and Grandpa. He was really great for them, and they seemed to have a lot of fun playing with him.

On Sunday, it was the end of the Three Rivers Festival. In addition to that, there was another Fort Wayne Tincaps game that started at 6. We went to the game, hoping that we would be able to watch the game, and then the fireworks. Well.....low and behold, the gold old Indiana weather struck. When we got to the game, it was on a rain delay, followed about an hour later by them postponing the game completely. We knew Austin wasn't going to make it for that long with nothing to look at, so we left. When we left the house to go to the game, the storm didn't look that big...but apparently it was because it rained forever! Here's a picture of Jared trying to entertain Austin for a bit. He was interested for about 10 minutes, and then done! Needless to say, we had another crazy, busy, exhausting weekend.....again! And I would trade it for the world!