9 months old!!!

Well...my son is now 9 months old so I decided it was time to finally start the blog that I've been talking about since he was born :) Parenthood is certainly a challenge but it is so much fun. I truly did not know it was possible to love a little person so much. Here are a few things that I have learned as a mom in the past 9 months:

1. Babies are humans...not robots. I sometimes (ok...a lot of times) want everything to be perfectly predictable. For every day to look exactly the same. I am a very type A person which I think is a benefit most of the time but I often have to remind myself that predictablity is not always feasible with a baby.

2. Babies are individuals and develop at their own pace. Grantham has been somewhat late in hitting a lot of milestones and I get caught up in comparing him to all of the other babies that I know. I've learned that it's not a big deal if he doesn't roll over, sit up, laugh, crawl, talk, etc. as early as I think he should...it's not a race and he'll get there eventually :)

3. There is truth to the phrase "When you have a baby, you'll understand..." I talked a big game before Grantham was born saying things like "When I have a child I'll do it this way." It didn't take long after he was born to eat those words. When I think about all the times I criticized my sister for things that she did when Cole was a baby, I am ashamed of myself. All I can say is I'm sorry Megan and now I do understand :)

4. There is such a thing as mother's intuition. A mother should always trust her instincts because 99% of the time she is right!!!

5. You can't count your success as a parent on the premise of whether or not your child is a good napper. Grantham has not been a good napper since birth. He has always been an AWESOME nighttime sleeper (which I'm very thankful for) but has never taken good naps. I gave it 8 months of trying to "fix" his naps and then just accepted that he's a short napper and that doesn't make me a bad mother.

6. Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and accept the way things are. Some things are worth making the effort to change and some are not. As a parent you must pick your battles, put things in perspective and move on.

I picked some of my favorite pictures that we've taken over the past 9 months...some of the highlights of Grantham's short life!