9 months

At 9 months, Brady is as cute as ever, but this month has been trying. He hasn't been sleeping well at all. He's waking up more at night and he's been fighting naps more too. I'm EXHAUSTED and he's crabby. BUT, when I look at that cute face, it's hard to be mad at him.

Some other things he's been up to this month include:

• His weight is: 16lb, 12oz -- he is now LESS than 5th percentile. SO, as usual, we have to eat hard these next two weeks and go in for another weigh check. We also had to go do blood work to check his thyroid (results coming soon). It's frustrating because he has no problem eating, I just have to make it a part time job to stuff food in his face more frequently. 
• His height is: 27 inches -- he's in the 25th percentile for height.
• He has his first ear infection. It's not a bad one though. This is his first time being "sick" in his 9 months of life. Up 'til now, no infections, no colds, nothing. Hopefully he has my great immune system and continues to rarely get sick. 
• Random note: He's never really had a diaper rash, but his arms and legs get dry and rashy pretty easily, especially in the summer. 
• Still no teeth. The doctor thinks the ear infection could be due to teething though...
• He took his first real "crawling steps" as opposed to just scooting on 11/7. He was very wobbly, kind of like Bambi, but he did it. He continues to get up on his hands and knees but hasn't adopted crawling as his main form of mobility. When he really wants to move toward something, he drops down to his belly and scoots to it. 
• He pulls himself up all the time now, on tables, chairs, people, and in his crib. I think the crib one is contributing to his lack of sleep since he doesn't seem to know how to sit back down once he's pulled himself up, so he just stands there and screams until I come get him and lay him back down. 
• He can wave "bye-bye" now. The first time he did it I was on my way out to pick Ryan up from the airport and I about cried when I saw it. We had been working on it for a few weeks and it was so cool to see him get it. When he waves, he raises and lowers his entire arm. It's very cute!
• He can also do "high-five" but he's not as consistent with this one. 
• He throws his paci out of the crib all the time now. 
• He's been drinking out of his sippy-cup more lately, but he doesn't hold it up on his own, so we have to help him. You can tell he wasn't a bottle drinker because he doesn't have that instinct to hold his cup or lift it higher to get the water out. I think he likes to drink water now. Sometimes I take him to the sink and rinse his hands and face there and whenever I put my hands up to his face he tries to sip the water out of the palm of my hand. Also, in the tub, he leans forward and tries to drink the bath water, and if the wash cloth is in there, he grabs it and sucks the water out of it. Such a funny kid. 
• He seems a lot more clingy this month. It was very important to me from the very beginning to make sure to pass him to other people so he would be comfortable going to anyone (I think it's pretty annoying when kids won't go to anyone but their parents). It worked well and unless he's really tired or crabby, he'll happily go to anyone who has attention to give him. BUT, sometimes if I come in the room now he'll start fussing for me to take him. He also seems to want me to hold him a lot more. Unless he's just woken up and just eaten, he will fuss when I put him on the floor to play. I have to sit right there with him and play in order to keep him from crying. It makes it hard to get much done when he's awake. Sometimes I can distract him with a toy and sneak away to the kitchen to make breakfast or whatever, but if he looks up and sees me in the kitchen, he'll start whining until I come back and pick him up. It's nice to be wanted, but I wish he would entertain himself a little better so I could get some things done during the day. 
• We started sleep training again last week. He was waking up 2-3 times a night, so I knew I needed to do something. I saw a great improvement within 2 nights, but it's not perfect. I have a hard time sticking to it when he wakes up before it's time to eat. I don't want him to wake the whole house up and I know if I just feed him, he'll go back to sleep for a few hours, so sometimes I just give in and go get him, which just ruins everything I've been trying to teach him. I look forward to the day when he sleeps ALL night on a regular basis...but I'm sure by the time that happens, we'll have another baby and it will be sleepless nights for me all over again.