Nine months!

Well, as of this writing, he's not technically 9 months, but our 4th of July should prove to be pretty busy, and he certainly isn't getting any younger.

He's days away from taking his first, uh, crawl. Even now, he barely stays in one place long enough for Heidi and I to take a breath. He scoots on his butt, and lunges forward to grab at toys/hair/the cat/whatever he sees. Then he'll flop forward onto his tummy/face/head, hopefully avoiding injury in the process. Last but not least he'll roll around until he tucks his legs under his body and pushes himself up to a sitting position. And then the process begins all over again.

Unless of course it's 2 AM. Which is when Colin decides to wake up and perform his new trick of sitting up, but then can't figure out how to put himself back down to sleep. So instead he puts out an APB, or rather, begins sobbing until one of us stumble in to find him, sitting rather alertly and upset in the dark.

Also, he's getting ever-so-close to putting together sounds into words. He still hasn't said the magic "da-da" or "ma-ma" that will prove to the world whom he loves more. But instead Heidi swears he's managed to warble out both the words "Iowa" and "Aruba". Gotta keep that kid away from the atlas.

Anyway, happy Fourth to everyone! Stay safe! Celebrate your country's freedom by blowing up a small part of it.