9 Months Old Today!

Today Carter is officially 9 months old. I can't believe how fast he's changing. I just posted some pictures and videos of him on Flickr. In the short time since I took those photos, he already seems stronger and more coordinated. Mike and I have been watching Carter's second pair of bottom teeth make their way out, but it wasn't until the other day we realized he simultaneously had his second set of top teeth breaking though as well. Working on 8 teeth total now! We can't really say that Carter officially crawls yet. He can certainly hold himself on all fours with no problem, and he routinely goes from laying down to sitting to all fours, and then starts the cycle all over again. He has been caught doing a couple crawls to reach something he wants but in general it's still not his preferred mode of travel. While he's not anywhere near walking independently, he will pull himself up to standing at the coffee table and walk along the edge. He also likes to walk along the couch and in his crib. To him, pretty much any walking/standing opportunity is never considered a moment wasted.

Moving on to a garden update...my efforts to repel the deer seem to be working. They have not sampled any more vegetable plants, though I have seen them in the woods behind our house during my morning investigations. If anyone is curious, I've been using Liquid Fence and I also surrounded the perimeter with netting. The plants that escaped consumption are doing well and my hanging tomato plants have been flowering for a week now. Yummy tomatoes coming soon! The watermelon/weed patch is doing okay. We don't put as much effort in our garden maintenance there. It's more of a "natural" garden. Ha! Since we didn't cover the exposed soil with mulch, there are all sorts of things growing there. About a hundred maple seeds sprouted so there is a miniature forest of maple trees growing. Also there are at least 9-10 squash plant growing there. We didn't intentionally plant any there so they must have survived our compost pile and sprouted on their own. Ironically, they are doing better than the squash we planted in our main garden.