from 0 to 9...

Oliver is 9 months old today. He's getting so big and learning so much. It's amazing at how much he's changed in so little time. He's still my little man, though.

Here's an update on how he's developing, according to the book...
blue are things he can do, red are things he isn't doing yet

According to the book, by now he...
should be able to:

stand holding onto someone or something
pull up to standing from sitting
object if you try to take a toy away (or the remote!!)
say "mama" or "dada" indiscriminately
play peekaboo
exchange back and forth gestures with you

will probably be able to:

get into a sitting position from stomach
play patty-cake (clap hands) or wave bye bye
pick up a tiny object with any part of thumb and finger
walk holding onto furniture
udnerstand "no" (but not always obey it)

May possibly be able to:

stand alone momentarily
say "dada" or "mama" discriminately
point at something to get needs met

May even be able to:

indicate wants in ways other than crying
roll a ball back to you
drink from a cup
pick up a tiny object neatly with thumb and finger
stand alone well
use immature jargoning (gibberish that sounds like made up language)
say one word other than "mama" or "dada"
respond to a one step command with gestures
walk well

It says nothing about crawling in this section, but he's still not crawling. He's still scooching/army crawling/lunging. He gets around though. He's definately more interested in cruising than crawling. He's gotten a lot more chatty too. He'll sit there and babble out a whole sentence then look at you expectantly. He expecially likes "having conversation" when he's in the car. I guess because he can't see us, but as long as we're talking to him then he knows we're there. He's started to get a little bit of the dreaded "stranger anxiety". He's not as quick with the smile and groups of more than 2 people make him cranky.

We went to get his pictures taken yesterday at Olan Mills. Oliver wasn't particularly happy about it but we did pretty well. After we were finished (about 20 minutes or so...5 different backgrounds...and it was HOT!!) she said she was going to crop the pictures and make them all pretty before she showed them to us. A few minutes later she came out and said that something was wrong with the camera and none of the pictures were usable!!!! Apparently they had been doing some training and left the camera on some weird setting that messed up the lighting. It really sucks because now we have to go back and do it all over again. There was one picture that was sooooo adorable! He was sitting on a little rocking horse type thing and he had one hand up in the air like "yeeeeehawwwww!" So anyway, to compensate us (we didn't ask...in fact we would have been fine to come back) they said they would give us a 10X13 dream print. That's in addition to the zillion pictures we are already getting and the post card thingys too! Anyway we go back today at 3.

He's come a long way...