Today, I have a 9 month old.

[play video above :o)]
People weren't kidding when they said that they [kids] grow up quickly.

Someone asked me yesterday at the grocery store how old Slade was. I responded my usual "He'll be 9 months on the 11th." I didn't even realize that yesterday was the 10th. She probably thought I was weird.

So this morning when I woke up and turned on my phone and realized that today, Slade was 9 months old- I was shocked. Then a friend messaged me "He's almost a year old! It's nuts!" I know, I know. Stop. It's already depressing enough. In the same respect it's happy though, because I've survived [yes, survived.] 9 months of being a parent. There's been rough times when i've wanted to give up [like last night] and times when I just couldn't squeeze him hard enough. It's the hardest and most rewarding job on the planet, and guys- IT IS A JOB. There's no parent handbook, syllabus, manual, or instructions. There's advice coming from friends, family, doctors-- and sometimes even strangers. Sometimes you just don't know which way is up, and you wing it.

Right now we are really struggling with bedtime.
I never in a million years planned on nursing slade until he was in kindergarten [HA.HA.] but seriously, I planned on 3, maybe 6 months. Now we hit the 9 month mark and other moms are like patting me on the back, giving me high fives- and practically handing me a 6 foot trophy saying "You are AWESOME!" and I just roll my eyes...no really, there's no need to be proud of me. If I had it my way he'd be done. And we've tried...EVERYTHING.

Once he started getting teeth our awesome bedtime routine and the almost sleeping through the night was out the back door. He started sleeping with us, and now we're back to square one where he's 3 weeks old again and waking up every hour to eat. Fun times for me. He now has 7 teeth. Four on top, 3 on the bottom. They came in like literally days after his first two, and haven't stopped since.

We've debated ways on getting him in his crib, or even just in his room. Now that he crawls and pulls up it's pretty impossible to let him sleep in his big boy bed like he wants to because as I learned on Monday morning, even though you surround him with a wall, and millions of pillows he WILL fall off the end of the bed, even if there are two pillows there.

This past month has really been a trying time, especially because now he's on the move and I literally have ZERO down time. No showers, no cleaning, no laundry, no naps, no break.ever.ever.ever. but like Dane would say "That's what being a mom is." Thanks Dane. Very comforting.

With that said, i'm really blessed to have a healthy, HAPPY, baby. I mean, what 9 month old do you know that will go shopping for 6 hours with three women and not make one peep?