It is impressive how quickly Gabriel is changing now. It is not so much that he looks different (with a notable exception, see below), rather, it is the way he behaves. Most obvious is of course the way he moves.
While he was still "swimming" (pulling himself by his arms and sliding over the smooth hardwood floors) at the time of the last post,...
...he has started standard crawling some two weeks ago.
Not quite a month ago, he has started to pull himself up wherever there is a handhold.
Very quickly, we had to decide which shelves Gabriel can clean out, and which ones we would try and defend. Fortunately, Gabriel is beginning to listen to us saying "no", though in some cases, knowing what he can't do merely means that he is now just looking over his shoulder to check whether Michelle or I are looking before he grabs what he shouldn't.
For a while, standing up has been a one-way street for Gabriel. While he could get up, he didn't know how to get down again. That was convenient at times, when we had to quickly leave the room - just put him on his feet somewhere, and you will find him at the exact same spot two minutes later.
Since a few days, he is getting much better at getting down, though he usually needs to hold someone's hand for help and reassurance (video cut and split because the whole thing was taking way too long):
Probably the only thing able to keep up with Gabriel's changes is the weather. While I was greedily soaking up sunlight at the time of the last post,...
...and Gabriel had to be wrapped warmly every time we left the house,...
...we soon were able to leave the warm bag for Gabriel at home.
When we made that stroll that lead us to the public library of Westmount (one of the richer neighborhoods of Montreal) with the adjacent glass house three weeks ago, we still had to go inside in order to be able to sit down comfortably.
Two days ago, it was almost summer.
Something else that keeps changing is Gabriel's hair, which takes on a large variety of colors and styles depending on the lighting and the time of the day.
Gabriel now rarely drinks from the bottle. It is just too difficult to justify why Michelle should spend time pumping after which I spend time feeding Gabriel instead of Michelle directly breastfeeding him. Especially since Gabriel still knows how to drink from a bottle in case Michelle is taking a class in the evening.
Gabriel is, again, eating lots of solid food. Just before he turned 9 months, he came down with an intestinal bug, that brought violent vomiting, unholy diarrhea and fever. While we knew that it would probably pass, it wasn't an easy time to be parent. The first day, Gabriel kept making the sign for "eating" right after vomiting, but the second day, when he was limp like a old salad leaf, and a few days after, he hardly ate anything. Not surprisingly, he lost quite a bit of weight - from 9.5 kg at 8 1/2 months, he went to 9.1 kg at 9 months (he still grew to 75 cm). He has caught up again, and at 9 1/2 months, he has passed 9.5 kg.
Gabriel is not only eating baby puree. Michelle has been feeding him larger bits. For now they pass his digestive system more or less intact, but Gabriel will surely adapt soon. Here is an example of him eating banana and grapes, which turned out to be a good way to relax the tired baby.
Gabriel is even using his teeth. While he is not yet able to actually eat a carrot, he likes scraping off bits.
Another change that happened recently was that I had to lower Gabriel's mattress, so that he wouldn't fall out of the bed when he was standing up. Gabriel tried to help me, or maybe he just wanted the screwdriver, at any rate, he wasn't particularly successful, and was a bit annoyed.
This is just one example of his new, broader range of slightly more easily interpretable expressions. I like the third one a lot, though as a parent, it feels a bit discomforting.
On the last picture, Gabriel shows his tired face, which we now get to see earlier in the evening. Gabriel is going to bed at 8:30 pm, and wakes up at 6 am. Ideally, he sleeps twice an hour during the day, otherwise, he gets quite irritable. Fortunately, even when he hasn't slept much, he is able to entertain himself quite well, which leaves us time to get some work done. For example, writing a blog post.
