Dedicated to my to-be-9-month-old son: Peter

We went for the 9 months check up yesterday. I have to admit that i was a little nervous that his growth in the past three months had been slowed down since Peter was sent to daycare when he was so young(~5 months). Sometimes when i had a bad day at work, I even asked myself whether it is worthwhile to keep on working while sending my baby to someone else. It is fun to see him grow and i can understand that every baby has his own problem in the process of making progress, however, there were some days that i had complicated feelings and wondered around about what to do. Anyway, beyond my expectation, Peter turns out to be fine--both length and weight stay above 93%! He has such a pleasant personality that even the doctor described him as a "happy big boy" upon 15 minutes of observing and communicating with him. Before i had time to respond to "is he begin to say mama, dada and stuff?" question, Peter began to coo"mama mama...", which made all of us laugh, and the pediatrician kept praising him as a good "talker"...
Upon the age of nine months, Peter is able to
* sit very well and crawl to any object he likes to;
* stand and walk around fast with one hand holding on to something;
* speak vaguely "baba" "dada" "yaya" "chichi" "jiejie" and clearly "mama";
* easily change his body position from lying down to sit up then to stand up, and vice versa
* really listen to music, body bouncing up and down along with the rythum of the music;
* hold his bottle for a minute or two;
* eat solid food except for cheese, nuts; able to pick up finger food one by one rapidly and put in his mouth accurately;
* sleep through the nights (8pm-5am at best);
Most importantly, he has shown us his amazing personality as being a very happy and independent boy. Despite the ongoing separation anxiety phase, he can sit and play by himself with little demanded attention for up to 30 minutes.
We hope he will soon accomplish:
* understand simple instructions from others and communicate to a certain extent with family and peers;
* go through the separation anxiety stage and establish trust upon care givers;
* fall sleep by himself at naps too;
* play by himself more often;
Most of all, I hope Peter can understand that dressing and undressing are the necessary parts of daily life and will not get frustrated about them every day.

Above all of these, I want to record that i feel so lucky and happy that I have such a beautiful baby son, despite all the tough time we all the family have been through. I love you, Peter and we all love you so, so much!