Fabulous Family Update – 9 Months

Holy moly Batman! My baby is 9 months old already. In three months he will be ONE. *fans herself* I still can’t believe most days that Leo came out of me back in June 2010. It has been an interesting ride so far on the mommy train. Each day brings more awesome baby discoveries and I greatly enjoy being an important part of his life. There has been a huge jump in his development recently and these new abilities never cease to amaze and amuse me. I have categorized them for easier reading but mostly to help me organize my thoughts (since baby brain does not end after pregnancy!). Enjoy.

Eats

So Leo now eats solids fairly consistently throughout the day but still nurses like a champ. He eats what we eat except if it is fast food, high in preservatives, has a lot of sugar or salt, or has a significant amount of dairy in it. He also cannot digest beef like his mama so we avoid that as well. His favourite foods are: salmon, rice, yogurt, eggs, peanut butter toast and fruit smoothies. Contrary to popular belief, he has been able to digest the majority of foods that many parents fearfully put off till after one year of age. He has had no reaction to citrus fruit (he loves oranges and lemons), peanut butter, fish, eggs and spices like curry (another favourite). He either has a stomach of steel or all this hype about preventing allergies is hogwash. He also nurses throughout the day but mostly at night. Leo typically feeds himself if what he is eating is solid enough otherwise he prefers being spoon-fed because he LOATHES sticky fingers. If he touches anything squishy, he flares out his fingers and yells at me with furrowed brows like “WTF IS THIS?! TAKE IT OFF OF ME WOMAN!” But if I am distracted he will take the spoon from me and attempt to feed himself but usually just get his chin or forehead. I’m sure this will get better with practice.  Interesting note: one day I had myself a Heineken and not 20 minutes after consuming it my milk production increased, making my let-down come real quick and I ended up leaking all over myself. Leo at the time was not interested in nursing either and I was left with full boobs and no one to appreciate them. Bah.

Sleeps

Leo now sleeps so much better now that I figured out he needs to sleep on his own bed because my movement wakes him. He also needs a lot of space because he likes to rotate in bed and if I’m in the way he gets cross. A few times I’ve even managed to put him to sleep without nursing him which was awesome. One time he fell asleep while blowing raspberries on my tummy (as part of our nightly winding down bedtime ritual) and I was able to just slide him off of me and sneak away all ninja-like. The other time I just kept rubbing his back and he passed out. This unfortunately has not worked a second time as of yet. He usually falls asleep around 8:00pm and will wake to nurse at 2:00, sometimes at 4:00, and then proceed to wake up at 6:00 to dance around the bed though some days he will sleep in till 10:00. Being mobile, he just gets up onto our bed and babbles to himself while dancing around, usually smacking our faces till we wake up. When I nurse him in the morn while in bed, he’ll blow raspberries and hug my belly while I try to rouse myself. Adam usually tries to sleep in more but Leo likes to smack his face until he gets up with us anyways. He’ll only be up for about an hour or so before he gets sleepy again and needs a couple hours to nap so we usually eat breakfast and play in the living room until then. Then I put him in his wrap and bounce him on the exercise ball to sleep. He does this cute meditative humming noise to soothe himself to sleep, something he picked up I think from when he was newborn and my mom would sing “ah ah ah ah” in a soothing rhythm to him. Now he does it to lull himself to sleep. He also uses this as a signal that he is tired. If he climbs into my lap to snuggle and starts humming, it means he’s ready for his nap. Very efficient.

Motor Skills

Leo has mastered crawling. He’s so good at it that he can zoom across the house in the blink of an eye and get into my makeup case without me noticing right away. He particularly likes my shiny purple lipstick case that he will carry around the house with him. He likes to play the ‘catch me’ game, squealing and then crawling away really fast but stopping every little while to see if I’m coming after him. Of course I indulge him and chase him saying ‘I’m gonna getcha!” and he proceeds to giggle and pant until I catch him and tickle him into bouts of uncontrollable laughter. It is quite fun. He’s also getting better at furniture crawling; being able to let go and hold with only one hand. He’s getting more adventurous at letting go of furniture and climbing up on different surfaces. He can go up stairs now but forgets he’s there and tumbles down so I have to watch him when we go to people’s houses and they have them. He can get up and off our bed so when he wakes up in the morning he goes out gallivanting around the bedroom. I’ve caught him in the spare bedroom playing with Adam’s xbox controller some days. Our house is as baby proof as it’s going to get so I’m not worried about him escaping the bedroom. Which is why we also have to keep the toilet seat down because he loves sticking his arms in there like a weirdo. He also likes to chuck things in the bathtub. He’s figured out how to throw things and loves to play with balls put is not adverse to lobbing anything else he fancies. As for his small motor skills, he can pinch like pro; usually practicing on me while nursing much to my chagrin. He can select the most obscure piece of lint in the carpet between his fingers for observation and place it daintily on his tongue which I then have to try and fish out. He likes to suck in his lips at this point and prevent me from getting in there and he does it with a lopsided grin too. Cheeky monkey.        

Social Interaction

Leo is bashful when it comes to other ladies, ducking his head and blinking his ridiculously long eyelashes at them with a flirty side grin like a pro. Watch out ladies, he’s going to be trouble! He also loves giving kisses and cuddles. He’s especially fond of other babies, always trying to lick them which I figure is his way of kissing. Any mirror in his path is also subjected to wet baby kisses and sometimes, even bubbles. He’s all about blowing bubbles now. He’s only recently really started interacting with other babies, mostly to just take their toys or take back something they took from him. He likes to pull their hair, pat their heads, poke their eyes and use them as leverage to stand up as well. He doesn’t like to be too far from me but as long as I am within his view, he likes to explore. If I leave the room for a minute and he notices, he will bitch me out while crawling after me. If he gets bored with me, he’ll go look for his Dad and usually get sidetracked by the pantry and then proceed to pull everything out with glee. I can’t leave him with his Dad for more than a couple hours on a good day though because then he gets upset and cries for me. I can’t leave him with anyone else either. He seems to have separation anxiety and gets upset unless one of us are there with him. This makes baby-free outings almost impossible but I’m okay with that. Apparently this is normal for healthy emotionally attached babies.  I know that eventually he will understand that when I leave, I will return and then he won’t be so anxious when I go out without him. 

Traveling

I’ve finally figured out a way to prop his carseat properly to be level with the ground rear-facing and he seems to be more comfortable this way. However he still hates it. As soon as we get into our car he latches himself to the back of Adams seat and tries to swipe at him, giggling. This is step one in our traveling routine. Step two is trying to fold his rigid body into the seat, as he fights to stay straight enough to prevent me from sitting him down. He then grumbles at me until I whip out his car toys and entertain him for the duration of the ride. As soon as we stop somewhere, he fights to get out, heedless of the harness holding him down. This makes going anywhere SO MUCH FUN. He loves bus rides though.

Growth

We haven’t gotten him weighed or measured for a long while so I can’t really update you on that just yet. Last we weighed him he was about 21 pounds, and that was over a month ago so who knows what he weighs now. What I CAN tell you is that he has outgrown more clothing and is now in 9-12 month clothing and 12-18, depending on the company. I don’t put sleepers on him much anymore because with the way he crawls, his knee ends up in his tummy section and the leg part is empty making him trip over it and smoking his face on things. I also find them inconvenient at night when I need to stealth change his diaper while he’s sleeping. However I will use them if we go out and I don’t want him kicking off his socks, which he does regularly. Enough about sleepers, onto hair growth! His hair has stopped growing since I trimmed his mullet and I thinned out the top mop he had going on. His hair is a soft brown now, golden in the light which is hilarious since Adam has almost jet black hair. He still has that small patch of baby fuzz on top of his bum which is real cute. I think I’ll take pictures of it to embarrass him with it later.

Playtime

Leo is pretty good at entertaining himself now, wandering into places he shouldn’t, eating things he shouldn’t be eating, and all that. He’s also notorious for shutting off Adam’s xbox because of the bright green light or my pc which has a bright blue light. He really just likes buttons and shiny things, like his Dad. Teehee! His favourite toys so far are his jumbo cars which he drives around any surface he can find –including me if I am in the way.  He’s also still quite fond of his plastic eggs, banging them one everything and carrying them around the house. He’s also fond of toys that make music because he LOVES to dance. No matter where we go, if music is playing he does his baby dance and bedazzled everyone around him. Taio Cruz came on at an Italian restaurant we went to and Leo was dancing his butt off in his highchair, charming the ladies at the next table. If it weren’t illegal to bring a baby clubbing, I would definitely hit that up. Every time I give him his cue of “hey dancing baby!”, he starts groovin’ because he’s cool like that. Other items he loves are sippy cups. He’ll sometimes drink out of them but mostly just likes to chew on the nipple. I prefer him chewing on them than me, that’s for sure!

I’m really excited for the summer because of all the outdoor fun we can have and of course there’s going to be his birthday party! I know it’ still three months from now but I’m pretty excited about cake. I’m still deciding on what I’m going to do but there is definitely going to be cake involved. Yay cake! :D