Almost 9 months

Well, our boy is almost 9 months old. He now crawls almost effortlessly (and very quick!) and says Mama, sometimes to Amy, sometimes to Me, sometimes to a toy, but when he is upset he cries the word Mama out quite a bit. There must be something to it.

E can also stand up and lean against the couch and other objects. He loves playing with his plastic hangers, and, of course, animal train.

He attended a train show with us a few weekends ago and enjoyed watching the layouts they had set up. Many of the exhibitors tried selling us some large scale trains saying that our boy "needed them." I let them know I was already conditioning him and hope he can help me work on my layout once I get started again.

We've, well, I, have been buying Thomas stuff as it goes on sale or clearance, and I, I mean, he, has quite the collection. I kind of went overboard on the engines, and need more train cars and buildings for him to play with, so I'll work on that over the next 2 years. The Thomas set is meant for 3 year olds (and dads of any age!) We are purchasing the Thomas Take Along sets. They are sold at Target, Wal-Mart, and other retail outlets and so far have not had any lead recalls.

Today E left a cryptic message for his grandma. He found the phone and was playing with it intently, as he always does. I dialed up my mom for him and put E on the phone to either talk to her or leave a message, in his own little way of course. Well, when he got the recording he played a few notes on his musical toy and then let out a cough. Thinking his message was over I hung up the phone wondering when I would be receiving a call back from her. It took only 20 minutes until she called back, and was disappointed that the connection was bad so she missed his musical talent and only heard a faint, crackling, cough of a child. She figured it was him though.