DJ at 9 months

So here we are, 3/4  of the way through DJ's first year. Holy cow! Let's check out what's going on with him!

• DJ's army crawl is downright efficient. I have to use the baby gate, put stuff in front of the bookshelf, and detach any and all cords from the wall. Plus, no matter how well I sweep/mop, he always finds the one speck of whatever left on the floor, and that always goes straight to his mouth. Mmm!
• He can get himself from sitting to his tummy with ease now. The "with ease" part is a relief to both of us!
• We have been having fabulous weather. And we finally cleaned out the pool. DJ's verdict: pools are awesome! You get a lot more space than the tub, mom and dad get in with you, the toys are bigger, you stay in for a really long time, and you get to shower after. He likes it so much that he forgets the hat I make him wear, and he hates that thing!
• DJ absolutely loves peekaboo. We play it after bath time to keep him from being really mad that he's not in the tub anymore. We also play by daddy and baby hiding behind the corner and jumping out at mom. So the other day, he crawled into my closet, shut the door, and kept peeking around the corner at me until I saw him, which he took as his cue to hide again. So cute and so funny.
• This kid has no sense of stranger danger. He loves everyone, smiles at anyone who looks at him, and will "talk" your ear off in a heartbeat. He didn't even squawk at the nurse today who drew his blood by pricking his toe - he just showed her his hammer.
• Speaking of the hammer, that is his favorite during the day hours. He loves his giraffe when it's time to sleep. The giraffe is great for cuddling, but the hammer is useful when fixing everything, because everything needs to be fixed, or hammed upon.
• He loves to ride facing forward in his stroller. This is a new thing for him. He puts both hands up on the sides of the stroller and looks out over his kingdom while we stroll. This has made sitting in the shopping cart difficult as he now wants to face the other way. Poor kid!
• He is best friends with every single girl in the Sunday school class Deg and I teach. They just pass him around the room and he just loves all 10 of them. He's a bit of a distraction, and I think the one and only boy in the class wishes the girls would let him have some DJ time! Those boys need to stick together to survive, after all!
• After way too long of him getting up every few hours at night and me feeding him every single time, I became way too exhausted to keep up with that. I felt so bad making him cry it out, but that was where I was. And... it wasn't even bad. So now he's sleeping through the night, maybe waking once after 8 or so hours, and I can handle life again, and he's a lot happier, too. Happy baby, happy mama, happy LIFE!