9 Months and Living in Belgium

Baby Joe enjoying the scenery on
the train from Brussels to Bruges

Little Joe is coming up on 9 months old and is officially an ex-pat American living in Belgium.  He did fairly well on our overnight flight here last weekend, aside from fussiness prior to taking off.  After that and about an hour of play time he went to sleep and was out for most of the rest of the flight.

Our first week has been a period of adjustment for him and he has been trying to get over jet lag as much as we have.  Initially he hadn't been sleeping much at night but after a week it looks like we've got him on a pretty good schedule and he's back to sleeping overnight.

We've been driving a lot with him checking out the local towns and cities and he has generally been quite good.  Just like in the States he gets cranky after 8pm but it's not something we can't accommodate with some good planning on our part.

On the development side he has been getting very good at picking up and playing with toys and other random objects and has been able to show us when he wants something by either grunting or reaching out for it.  He also has been doing a lot more of the baby talk with babbling with us and will recognize when we are imitating him and smile; sometimes he even will make the sound back to us again.

He smiles a lot more often these days and will laugh when we tickle him or surprise him.  He also enjoys it when I lift or drop him suddenly and can get into nice laughing or giggling fits.

He has 6 total teeth in now with 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom with what looks like another 2 getting ready to start coming through.  He still hasn't really crawled yet but can move himself across the floor by rolling or low-crawling his way to something if he wants it.  He can also stand on his own if we put him near something that he can use to hold himself up.