hurricane benjamin: 9 months

Ben acquired the nickname "Hurricane Benjamin" this month, due to his being a whirlwind of activity that leaves chaos and destruction in his wake. We can honestly barely keep up with the little guy, and partly because of that he has discovered and accomplished plenty in the last month. Here's what he's been up to:

• Crawling from room to room. Pretty much as soon as he learned to crawl, he realized that he could now quickly and easily get anywhere he wanted, and he started doing just that.
• Pulling toilet paper off the roll. After several days of going into the bathroom and finding a mound of toilet paper on the floor, or walking into the hall and seeing a trail of it coming out of the bathroom, we finally wisened up and started keeping the door closed at all times.
• Pulling up and standing up in the bathtub. I still don't know how he hasn't gotten hurt in there yet. It's not the most stable place to stand, obviously, but he keeps going after all the tempting things around him despite the falls that inevitably come.
• Playing with electrical cords. The only ones he really has access to are the ones under my desk, and he seems to instinctively know when I forget to close my office door.
• Playing with cat food. Let's just say that there is cat food continually strewn about our kitchen floor. Yes, he plays with it. No, I don't always clean it up. The end.
• Climbing the stairs. Oh, yes, and unfortunately he started doing this when neither Chris nor I were there with him. We discovered it by the "thunk" that followed. And I'm sad to say that I forgot that he had done it once, I failed to put the gate up, and he did it again. But I think he still loves me.
• Rolling under the gate at the top of the stairs. Granted, he didn't go all the way under, and it was quite by accident that he almost did anyways, but it still left my heart in the pit of my stomach for a few minutes. He's only done it once, so far.
• Pulling my cookbooks off the shelf. He thinks this is really fun, for some reason.
  
• Teething. After a miserable two weeks of little sleep for pretty much the whole household, he finally got two teeth to show for it. So far this is the one thing he does slowly.
• Emptying every box or basket of all of its contents. It's almost cartoonish, really, the rate at which toys and objects go flying when he's clearing them out. I don't know who or what he's trying to beat, but I'm sure he's the winner.
• Gagging. This isn't exactly an accomplishment, I realize, but it's certainly what he's been up to anytime he's given something solid to gnaw on. Cheerios, biter biscuits, zwieback toast--they all choke him up, so we decided to hold off for a little bit longer. He really just seems content to drink mom's milk and eat a little bit of baby food everyday. That will soon change, I'm sure, once he figures out the chewing thing.
• Smiling. Still a sweet, happy baby that's so much fun to have around.
• Cuddling. Everybody who holds him comments on how snuggly he is. Some people grab him just for the hugs.
• Growing. He hasn't grown into another clothing size yet, but he just looks like an older baby now. And it seemed to happen so suddenly, it took me by surprise. You can definitely tell he'll be a toddling one-year-old in a few more months, a fact that makes me very, very sad.