Timothy's Ninth Month

Well, first of all, we still seem to be dealing with the Wonder Week(S!) from last post, as I mentioned, it's very tiresome that the fussiness lasts so long. Either that, or I'm just mistakenly chalking all this clinginess up to the leap rather than just accepting that the leap might be over and this is just our new normal... eek.

Celebrating cousin Edison's birthday!

I used to be able to just leave him in the living area (which I can see from the kitchen) while I cooked breakfast, but now he comes up to the baby gate and just fusses/wails until I either come back and hang out with him, or let him out into the kitchen area. It's frustrating because he doesn't actually interact with me all that much when I'm in the living area and sitting on the floor with him, but as soon as I try to leave suddenly my close proximity is VITAL. It's made accomplishing things even more difficult than usual.

Adding to my difficulty in accomplishing tasks is that his naps are shrinking. We are officially down to only 2 naps per day, and I'm lucky if both naps reach 1.5 hours, when they used to be 2-3 hours each! Often, his morning nap is only 1 measly hour. That means, our morning routine goes: wake, nurse, protest being stuck in the play area without me while I cook breakfast, eat breakfast, walk, nap. And I spend almost all of nap time cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast and the fantastic mess he makes while eating! 

At least he's been sleeping well at night! Just the past week he's starting sleeping through the night again, so we'll see if my supply can hang in there and deal with it this time. I'm really enjoying getting a full night's sleep, and I'm hoping now that Timothy is eating more maybe my supply will be able to diminish a little without causing problems.

Speaking of eating, he's eating so much that we've discovered I really have to cook for 3 people now. He can eat things like, a half of a chicken breast, a whole pear, 2 eggs, 2 salmon cakes... gone are the days when he ate little bits off my plate, now he gets his own plate! He's also discovered it's fun to drop food on the floor, so that's not cool. He's really packing away the food in spite of throwing a lot on the floor, though! We're worried about our grocery budget.

Teeth numbers 5 and 6 have also made their appearance! In typical Timothy fashion, they're mismatched... he got the top left incisor and bottom right incisor. So now he has the two middle on the top plus the one to the left, and the two middle on the bottom plus the one to the right. It's messing with my OCD! Haha. 

Timothy made it through his first hurricane, Florence didn't hit us as badly as it had been predicted, but we did get some wind, lots of rain, and lost power for a couple hours. He didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary even though the power went out during his nap, which meant that he lost his fan and the A/C. 

He's definitely figured out crawling, and is quite fast at it now. The tummy scooting has pretty much completely disappeared, unless he's trying to crawl under something that is too short, and he has to scoot to fit. He loves climbing over, under, though and up on anything he can. Including all the way up the stairs a few times! He also likes pulling up to standing. He struggled a little bit for a few days wanting help to get back down, which was cute, because he would just reach out one hand and hold our hand to get back down! Now he can sit or drop back to his hands and knees by himself.

We survived his first cold! Matt and Timothy both got sick at the same time, Timothy took a little bit longer to get over the congestion, but he was pretty much his usual self during the whole thing, there was just a couple of nights where he woke up and fussed about his stuffy nose. We tried the cold, wet sock treatment for him and it helped a lot with his congestion!

At his 9-month check-up, he weighed 18.4 pounds and was 27.5 inches tall. He hadn't gained a lot since his last well-check, but that's normal when babies start becoming more mobile, so our pediatrician was still very happy with his growth.

He really enjoys splashing and "swimming" around in the bath tub. It's really fun to watch him swishing all around in the 3-4" of water we give him in our garden tub. He likes playing with his rubber ducky and wash cloth too. We definitely have a water-loving kiddo!

Occasionally he will tolerate being stuck in the living room area while I cook if there is music playing, and he will stand and bounce! It's so cute, so I bounce around as well to encourage the dancing. In the grocery store, he heard a song he liked the rhythm of and started bouncing in his seat in the shopping cart! 

He has gotten even more attached to Matt lately, when he's playing with me in the living room and Matt comes downstairs, he immediately abandons me to crawl at top speed to get him. Matt can't come downstairs and get a snack anymore without Timothy being heartbroken when he goes back upstairs to get back to work. I can also ask him, "where's Daddy?" and he looks for wherever he expects him to be. If we're in the nursery, he looks at the door, and if we're downstairs, he expects Matt to come from upstairs. This has been amusing this week because once Timothy was in the living area at the baby gate, while I was in the kitchen when Matt got home. Matt was still in the foyer, so Timothy couldn't see him around the corner from the living room, and when I said, "Timothy, Daddy's home!" he left the gate and crawled away from us to the stairs to find Daddy. It was really funny. It's really sweet to see how much he loves his daddy!

It's been a fun month with lots of progress, for which I guess we must thank leap 6! I'm really amazed at how many new skills he's developed this month, so quickly! Despite his temperamental moods this month, it has been a really fun month of watching Timothy grow and develop. We are so thankful for our sweet little guy.