9 months old...and crawling

Sam is nine months old today! He surprised us this week by learning how to crawl, practically overnight. Literally, I put him to bed on Saturday and Sunday I awoke to him doing laps around his crib. Amazing! So anyway, he has been working on perfecting that skill. He is kind of slow and he has to concentrate really hard to get all his limbs to cooperate, but he can really cruise now, especially if Tillie is anywhere in eyeshot. He loves her!!! Just this week it has done awesome things for his independence, I can leave him play on his own more and he doesn't seem as stressed when I get up and walk away from him.
His language skills are also developing rapidly, I hear him say "hey there" on occasion, especially if someone says it to him first. He is pretty consistent when signing 'more', but understands when I sign: 'more', 'all done' and 'water'. The other day he even pointed out a balloon to me in a restaurant followed by lots and lots of excited squealing and babbling. I teared up, the cashier at Chick-fil-A thought I was nuts.
Sam loves his food and is eating just about anything these days. Cody and I made him up a bunch of meals in the freezer, because he has started to turn his nose up at jarred food. He is okay with fruits, but I think everything else tastes strange to him and it does if you have ever tasted mass produced chicken in a jar you would understand. He is really getting good with his cup, he can drink it with some help both with a sippy lid and without one.
Sleep has its peaks and valleys. We have been struggling the last few weeks with lots of wakefullness at strange hours, but I am convinced it is teeth. And, no he has none yet, thankfully because I am continuing to nurse him. We are down to about 4-5 nurses at day. It is getting to be that time to think about weaning...sniff, sniff. I have a wedding in June, I am going to cut him off then...I think...maybe...oh I dunno. Very proud of himself...look Ma! One hand!
The hard wood floors create a sort of crawling conundrum...it's like a treadmill...he keeps trying to move but he stays in the same place.
Very upsetting.
Also, new favorite game is standing and hanging on to anything. He is quite good with it.