9 Months

Oliver is 9 months!

He has officially been in the world longer than he was in the womb.  It's bittersweet seeing him grow up so fast.  I know, I know... it only goes faster.  I got it.  

-At 9 months (and five days) he weighs 17lbs and is 26" long.  This is the 25th percentile which he's stayed in since he was tiny so he was proclaimed a 'smaller boy' today at the doctor.

-He is in a combo of cloth diapers and disposable diapers.  Mainly because I am not so committed to cloth that I really want to carry around stinky poop until I'm home.  When he nursed exclusively it was not a problem even in the middle of summer, but now - nothankyou.  If I'm totally honest, if I know he's going to poop soon, we use disposable.  The sprayer is amazing, but his poop is a mix of well, I won't go there, but it's not pretty since he still nurses 90% of the time with a little solids mixed in during the day.  Anyway... I'm back to bG AOIs because they're easier to spray.  For disposables, we're using Huggies Pure and Natural and honestly, I like them better than Earth's Best and 7th Generation.  They are so much softer inside and they have the wet indicator line.  He's in a size 3, but I think he could do a 2.  At night we use Huggies Overnites and they do the trick for the most part.  We've been using disposables at night for a while because cloth seemed to leak pretty much every night.  I'm happy with our diapering routine for now.

-... and speaking of... see this face?  See his hands?  No?  Yeah.  He found his penis.  He found it a couple months ago (a few now maybe?), but it's only been recent that he realized it was a fun thing to hold.  Usually he will play with his toys but if they happen to float away and I don't catch them in time, penis seems fair game.

-We went to Maryland in October for Henry's 1st birthday party - so much fun!!  Oliver had a blast playing with Henry!  They hadn't seen each other since July so it was fun to get together again.

-He wears 3-6m and 6-12m in Gymboree and 6m and 9m in Carters clothes.  I'm mostly buying 9m sizes for him to wear now and 12m sizes for later in the winter.  I hope that doesn't bite me like summer clothes did.  I bought 6-12m size things for late summer and he's just now able to fit in them.  Nice.  I wish clothing companies would size their product by weight instead of age.  Some put the weight specs on the tags but most don't and it's incredibly annoying.  He has one 12-18m long sleeve t-shirt that is big on him, but not so big that he can't wear it with the sleeves rolled up.  

-Wheels are still super fun to play with and spin - maybe this will be the month he learns that wheels roll and not just spin!

-Since he never took to a bottle, I'm determined to get the sippy cup down.  We've tried six different kinds and of those, three seem to be acceptable.  He plays with it and gets water out occasionally, not not often enough to know how to do it yet.  We're hopeful he'll learn soon!

-He loves his toys.  Toys. Toys. Remote Controls. Toys.  Phones. Toys. Toys. Toys.  And he's into everything.  Seriously, this kid is like a rabbit on crack.  He's everywhere.  We recently rearranged a few rooms and that made space for a playroom and boy am I glad we did that when we did.  The child is always on the go and the playroom has created a nice, safe place for him.  We still have to get some furniture for storage in there, but it's a great space for now.  This is our downstairs set up in the living room.

-He says 'mama,' 'dada,' and 'bye-bye' really well, but doesn't make any associations with them yet.  He also waves, but again, doesn't really associate 'bye bye' with the waving.  His 9m appointment was fun today.  We saw a new doctor and it was also the developmental appointment so we talked a lot about what he was doing, skills, words, etc... Dr. P also commented on his smile :)

-He nurses 4-5x/day and eats solids 1x/day at dinner and we'll probably keep it that way as long as possible.  He eats just about everything now and so far doesn't dislike anything.  He didn't care for yogurt at first try, but I realized it's because it was so cold so I let it sit on the counter a few minutes and he eats it fine.  If we go out to eat we give him solids so every now and then he gets more than just solids once/day, but that's usually just on weekends.

-He just got his 5th tooth and so far I haven't been bitten.  He's tested pressure but nothing that really hurt.  That said, it was enough pressure that I jumped - but not enough that I yelped.  I learned early on that the key to no biting was to watch for him to be done nursing.  Gone are the days where he could just hang out and coo, smiling and playing with my hair or fingers.  Now, while it's still enjoyable, it's more about protecting the nipples.   That's all I have to say about that.

-Did I mention he's like a rabbit on crack?  He's everywhere.  He's crawling and pulling up and tasting debris and dragging clothes out of drawers and throwing laundry out of baskets and pulling cat tails and if you're not careful he will try to eat your face.  Don't think I'm kidding.  

-He takes a morning nap that's anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and then sleeps two and a half to three hours in the afternoons.  It's bliss!  And it allows me to get some good work done!  He is pretty good about independent play and loves finding things so I plant toys in random places and watch him delight in discovering wheels under a pillow or a light up key in a box.  The time change was not fun for us.  I'd anticipated the early wake up on the first morning of the new time, but it was almost a week before we got the schedule down.  He's normally up around 6:30 AM and usually goes to bed before 8 PM.  He gets a bath every night, I think it helps him settle and it's good routine in that he knows it's almost bedtime.  He goes to sleep pretty easily. 

-He is so much fun right now!  Crack rabbit jokes aside - I love that he's such an explorer.  We took him to the park so he could swing and he seemed to like it.  We have three parks within walking distance and I'm excited to take him there as he gets bigger.  He is such a good baby and is turning into a really fun little boy.