3 Little Sunflowers: 9 Months!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

9 Months!

Can you believe this little monkey is 9 MONTHS OLD?!

Connor's 9-month checkup isn't until next week, so I don't have any stats yet. My arms tell me that he's heavy though. :) He's wearing some 9 month sized clothing, but mostly 12-18 month sizes.

He just started pulling himself to his feet. He cruised along the couch a little bit today too!

Connor's hair is thick and getting long. I actually had to trim it just a tiny bit in front and along the sides because it was driving me nuts. Today, to celebrate growing up, we tried some hair gel and a punk rock look.

I've decided Connor is handsome enough to pull off any style.

Months ago I documented our daily routine. Today we are still on a good routine, but it sure looks different. Connor is very predicable. He always wakes up at 6:30am. Sometimes he shocks us and sleeps until 7:00, but normally I hear his happy coos at the same time each day. He does wake up happy, which is wonderful. He nurses and hangs out in bed with us for a bit. His favorite bed activity is finding my back scratcher and beating me with it, climbing on top of Harvey, or pulling the chain hanging from the ceiling fan to turn the light on. Good morning! :)

Connor plays in the living room and I fix us breakfast. These days, his favorite breakfast is oatmeal. I make it with a bit of vanilla and cinnamon added and he loves it. Usually topped with mashed banana. We always watch Sesame Street because Connor loves Elmo.

Most days, we can count on Connor to take a nap from 9:30 to 10:30-11:00. For lunch, he eats plain whole milk yogurt with some healthy additions of fruit or veggies. He loves to eat finger foods and does great gumming pieces of bread, avocado, banana, soft cheese, etc. He wants to try everything and anything we'll let him. The only thing that has not gone over well is eggs. He really loved pickles and limes.

He sucked and gnawed on this dill pickle for a long time.

He continues to adore the cats and rabbit. He spends the long afternoon playing and most days we go run an errand or go for a walk....anything to get out of the house! On a really great day, Connor will nap from 1 or 2pm until about 4pm.

We usually eat dinner early, around 5 or 5:30, so we can eat together as a family and still get Connor to bed on time. We've had a few nights where we put Connor to bed only to have him scream and cry and flip out. He hardly ever does this, so it was really disturbing. Turned out, the poor guy was still hungry. So I try to feed him a filling dinner and he always surprises me with how much he can eat! Tonight he had brown rice and lentils with a side of squash and carrots. It gave him a lot of energy to play in the bathtub for awhile! :) An hour later, he is in his pajamas and nurses and drifted off to sleep with no fuss. Whew!

By the time Connor is in bed, I'm exhausted. It's a lot of work playing all day and working chores and cooking in between naps. :) We have a lot of fun though. I love that it is so easy to make Connor smile and laugh. He laughs when I chase him, but only if I crawl on the floor right behind him. He crawls so fast!

Something I think is pretty cool is Connor's bath time routine. I take him into his room and get him undressed. Then I walk down his hall into the bathroom and get the bath going. He crawls after me and comes right on over to the bathtub. It's kinda nice to give my arms a break from carrying him and it's sure cute to see how eager he is to get into that bath...I should get a video of his naked behind "running" down the hall as fast as he can. :)

Here are some photos we took to celebrate Connor's 9 months. I have a friend who lost a baby a little over a year ago. She now has another baby and she talked once about how thankful she is that she took pictures of her with her first child. Most were just OF the child however, not of both of them together. Now, with her current child, she is sure to take many pictures of herself with her baby. She says these will be so precious to you one day. So, even though a lot of us new mommies are still carrying baby weight, have stretch marks, bags under our eyes, and hair that is messy from our babies grabbing fingers...I say my friend is right and we should have pictures of ourselves WITH our babies. Hugging, kissing, playing, cherishing the moments.