9 months old... can you believe it?!

We met Ethan's new doctor at Kaiser today, and it was such a relief-- she's fun, sweet, smart, and seems to have a pretty healthy sense of humor. We had a great visit, and she confirmed what we already know, of course: Ethan is doing perfectly well, developmentally speaking, and (in her professional opinion) he is soooo cute! (I thought that was hilarious; aren't they supposed to say that about all babies?) He is mid-range in his weight, above average in height, and (ahem) scored a 95 on his head circumference! That is, his head is bigger around than 95% of kids his age in the USA. Well, at least there's another 5% who have bigger braincases than he does, right? Uh, right??

Anyway- the Doctor gave me some projects to work on over the next couple of months. Apparently, as he is now 9 months old (as of Tuesday), he should be waving hello and goodbye at people. She was also a bit taken aback that he isn't saying "mama" or "dada" yet. She also thought that he should also be more adept at picking up things between thumb and forefinger. Oh, and he needs to get going with the whole sippy-cup deal, because they want babies off the bottle by that time. No pressure!! As you can see, I will have my hands full running the baby through the mill in order to make sure he stays perfectly in tune with the mid-range of babies around the country/world... or maybe not. ;)

Below is a recent picture of my darling boy, enjoying the much-too-brief rain this weekend with his daddy. Aren't they gorgeous?