Johnny at 9 Months

Johnny,

Exactly 9 months ago you were making your presence very well known as we tried waiting for Dr. Norton to come deliver you. You, of course, had plans of your own and decided to be delivered by the nurses instead. I like what you are doing at this moment (napping) a bit more than what you were doing 9 months ago (shoving yourself out of my body and into this world with no warning and no help). I love this moment and that moment though, very much, and I am so proud of you!

We went to the doctor today for your 9 month checkup. Your height is 27.25" which puts you in the 12th percentile on the regular growth chart and 65th on the Ds chart. Your weight is 16 pounds 13.5 ounces (10th percentile and 55th percentile) which means you lost a bit of weight since the beginning of the month. I figured as much since you fought off that tummy bug with the rest of us around Daddy's birthday. Dr. Bel was very pleased with your growth along the chart and your proportions. She had no concerns about your growth or development. This was the first pediatrician check up that we have had to say "no" to several milestones. They asked about saying "mama" or "dada" (yes!), crawling (no), pulling up (no), trying to grasp with three fingers (sometimes), and waving bye (no). I thought it would make me very sad, but I actually found it sort of liberating. Now that you are "running behind", we can just focus on what you can do, what you are working on doing, and our own personal goals for you. I think that deciding privately with our OT on what comes next feels better than worrying about what a book or piece of paper says you should be doing. Dr. Bel does want us to work on introducing more table foods and finger foods to you, more for a variety of foods entering your tastebuds. You were a happy little guy at the end of the checkup because you didn't need any shots!

We introduced formula into your diet and you are handling it well, I don't think you care about what you drink half as much as mommy does. You just want something room temperature to cold that fills up your belly. You drink 4 ounces of breastmilk mixed with 2 ounces of formula for 4 feedings a day. You can hold your own bottle, but often get lazy and will rest it against Mommy as you guzzle it down. You usually eat two meals a day and I will probably go ahead and start feeding you breakfast too. We have introduced puffs and yogurt melts into your diet to give you something to do while we eat dinner. You will try to grab them and put them in your mouth so you have the concept down! We are working on the sign "more" while I feed you solids. I will sign more, ask if you want more, take your hands to sign more, then give you more while signing it again. You seem to understand the concept and have gotten closer and closer to signing it when prompted. There is nothing like training sign language with food! You still could care less about peas and love sweet potatoes, spinach, and apples. There are no sign of teeth yet, but you are chewing and drooling a bit more, so we will see if you have any by next month.

You began sitting up on your own right around the 4th of July. You sort of just got it overnight. We had been working and working with you, holding you up and trying to get you to do it. Suddenly it all clicked and those muscles had gained enough strength to do it on their own. The next weekend we discovered you could go from laying on your tummy to sitting up. At first we thought it was a fluke when you were sitting up in your crib, but you have done it for us a few times since then. We are now working on getting you up into a crawling position. You need to get a lot more strength in your arms for that and you aren't really motivated to crawl right now, you prefer to roll around and pivot on your tummy to get where you want to be! You love to play with the toys on your play mat and anything that has texture to put in your mouth. You also love the sun toy that plays music and we use that a lot to motivate you while working on your OT. Just yesterday I was holding a stuffed puppy while making a barking sound and you giggled and laughed. I am glad to see you are developing your sister's fondness for puppies! I am working on reading to you more and I think you like it if the colors and pictures are bold and bright!

I cannot think of a better sleeper than you. You still sleep 12+ hours at night and will take two naps during the day. Your morning nap varies depending on what we are out and about doing, but I can always count on your afternoon nap to be a few hours. It is funny to catch you asleep in your bucket seat because you will often be clutching the monkey toy that hangs from the bar or clutching the bar itself. It isn't surprising that you will clutch the bar, you often put both arms out to brace yourself as we "rock" the bucket seat along walking to and fro. You like to sleep with a blankie, but will still kick it off if we try to cover you up. This is ok by me because you look very cute in the footie jammies we have for you to keep your little toes and legs warm against the cool fan. You seem to sleep on your side more often than not which helps a lot with you not snoring as much. You haven't taken a lot of naps on Mommy's chest recently, we should really rectify that before you are too big and don't want to do that anymore!

We love your big, gummy smile and your constant vocalization both of testing out what sounds you can make and desperately trying to communicate with us. I love to hear you call out "mama mama" when you want me and your occasional squeals of a happy "dada". You are so happy, so easy going, and so loving. I am happy to be your Mommy and so happy we got to spend another wonderful month together.

Love you!
Mommy (and Daddy)