9 Months Old

My baby is 9 months old. I can't believe it. I love this age for so many reasons. For selfish reasons he is sleeping through the night, holding his own bottle and I stop nursing at 9 months. I love my babies, but unfortunately I do not love nursing them. I do it because I know it's the healthy thing to do. For me it is so extremely painful and uncomfortable for the first 6-8 weeks that I just tell myself over and over again that it's for the health of my baby to get through it. There is a lot of crying on both parts and bleeding involved. Months 3-6 are relatively easy and uneventful and then they start pulling off to look around every 5 seconds and biting. So...when it comes to the day that it is time to stop, I am READY and very happy :) Other reasons I love 9 months is because they start to move around and pull themselves up. I love and hate this part of it because they start getting hurt. Bumps and bruises on the tile and against the fireplace. Cael has been army crawling since he turned 7 months. If we put him on the tile with no pants on he figures out that it is cold and lifts his knees to crawl or gets on his hands and toes to bear crawl. I love the bear crawl stage. All three of my boys have done it. We have never had stairs so I worry a little. Our posts on the stairs are rounded and our gate is not tight enough to be safe if he were to stand against it. So upstairs I have just had to either put him in the jumper or shut the door to the room I am working in. It is working so far, but I still worry. He is starting to chatter da-da and ma-ma. Starting to belly laugh when you tickle thighs and neck.