9.5 months and growing up so fast

Ronan is now 9.5 months and an active, persistent, curious little boy. I really think that when babies hit 8 months, their personalities just explode. It seemed like he was learning new things everyday when he was a tiny thing, but now that he's a few months shy of a year old, it's astonishing what he figures out on a daily basis! For example:

1) Monkey see, monkey do has been the motto for our family lately. Ronan watched Daddy pull up the edge of his rug one day, and now every time Ronan sees his rug, he pulls up the edges to look underneath. Ronan watched Mommy retrieve a filthy object from under the stove one day, and now he reaches his tiny hands under the stove to find filthy objects. Ronan watched us throw trash away, and now he wants to... well, let's face it, Ronan just wants to play with the trash can.

2) Open, open, open! He's learned how to open the kitchen cabinets, pull out the pots and pans, and slam the cabinets closed. He does this over and over again. Loves the loud 'bang' of the cabinet doors.

3) Mr. On the Move. As Lisa says in her lovely Irish accent, Ronan has become an expert at scrambling to get something, seizing it, and then sitting up to have a proper look at it. We love watching him do this! When he was 5-6 months old and still wobbly when he sat, I never thought he'd master this level of agility. Now he's a pro at the sit-scramble-grab-sit-examine-chew-scramble routine. The somewhat sad thing (for us!) about all this is he no longer wants to cuddle that much. When we pick him up he wants to play with the lightswitches or yank on our hair or noses. Better yet, he wants to be put down so he can crawl around on his own!

4) Taking a stand. He pulled up to standing for the first time today! Lisa walked into his room after his first two naps to find him standing up holding onto the crib railing, bouncing and grinning. In his sleepsack, which is even funnier, because it's a big long flannel nightgown that makes him look like Swee'Pea or Maggie from the Simpsons.
He's also been trying to scale his highchair, the stereo, the wall....

5) Pick me up already! It melts our hearts to see him reach his little arms out to be picked up. But as mentioned above, once he's up he wants to get back down again. *Sigh* Still, we love it and can't resist scooping him up each and every time. :-) We know before long he'll be racing around like a crazy energizer bunny, and being held in our arms will not rank very high on his wish list.

6) Books are awesome. Tasty too. Ronan has a great time reading with us now. He turns the pages over and over, slaps and pounds the cover, touches the funny pictures ET-style. He stopped eating his books for the most part (we think) and now likes "reading" and hearing the sing-song stories.

7) Chatty Ronie. He knows 5 words now! They are ma, ma, ma, ma, and ma.

Here are some bath shots from yesterday.