9 Months

I’m so sad that I haven’t been better about doing the monthly updates. I haven’t written about Ethan since 6 months! He has changed so much since then. And, I really wanted to do a little collage with his pictures from one through nine months but Photoshop isn’t working on my computer and if I spend time trying to figure out why then I’ll never post this.

Ethan at nine months:

• Weighed 21 lbs. and was 28.5 in. at his 9 month check-up, which is around the 60th percentile for both.
• Army crawls all over the place. He gets up on all fours and rocks and will crawl just a bit but always resorts to getting on his tummy and doing the army crawl ALL OVER the house. This is exactly what Luke did too.
• Pulls up on EVERYTHING. He’s getting more and more brave and sometimes is barely holding on and will stand for a while. He still doesn’t know how to gracefully get back down most of the time and just kind of falls to his tummy. I guess that is one reason to be thankful we have carpet in most of the house.
• Loves to eat. He feeds himself small chunks of pretty much anything. Fruit, vegetables, chicken, etc. So far he likes everything. But his favorite seems to be pancakes. He even ate almost all of Luke’s grilled cheese sandwich recently. He’s getting less interested in bottles because I guess he is getting full on food. At his nine month check-up the doctor said we need to try to transition him to taking formula from a sippy cup. We have been trying but he is not going for it.
• He is finally on a pretty consistent schedule. Sleeps from 7:30 until 6:30 or 7 and naps around 9:30 and around 1:30. We definitely have off days though. He amazes me how flexible he is. I just can’t stay home all the time to make sure he gets good naps since I have Luke to entertain too, so he often misses one of his naps and he is usually happy and will take a catnap in the car.
• Laughs at Luke all the time.
• Isn’t saying any words yet. I looked back at the blog and I had written that Luke said two words during his ninth month—”up” and “uh-oh.” I asked the doctor and he said saying words at nine months is super advanced and it is not unusual for kids to not even say a word by 12 months. So, I am trying not to compare them. I always knew the area Luke was advanced in was his verbal skills and Ethan may or may not be the same and that is fine. :) Although I kind of think he can say “hey” and wave but I’m not sure yet that is what he is actually saying. We’ll see. Oh also—he loves to click with his mouth and likes to mimic you when you make clicking sounds.
• We moved him to his big boy car seat (Luke’s old Britax) a few weeks ago and he seems to really like it. I think it is funny that we waited until almost 9 months to move him because I found the receipt when we were cleaning out stuff and we moved Luke when he was 5 months old.
• He just had his first real illness in 9 months. At his 9 month check-up the doctor commented on how healthy he had been and had only been in for well checks. Well, five days later we were back in the office and he was diagnosed with croup. He is doing better and seems to have had a mild case.

That’s what I can think of right now. He is such a happy and sweet little guy. We love him so much and I am trying to really soak up the time with him at night when I rock him and give him his bottle because before I know it he’ll be big and I won’t be able to rock him anymore.

First day in the big boy car seat

7 months old—I absolutely love this picture of him!

7 months 8 months 9 months