10 months

 

Good grief, where does the time go? I can't believe my baby boy is almost a year old! Just a couple more months to go.
First, I neglected to mention that Peter got his first two teeth at 8 months. Although it has been two months, he has not gotten any more teeth, so he's just got two on the bottom. He's had a couple instances with rough nights where it seemed like he was teething (like this week when he was awake twice in the night for a total of 4 hours!), but still, no teeth.
Peter is now a pro at clapping and frequently does it whenever he wants to elicit a smile from us, or from strangers. He has started learning to wave finally, but doesn't always remember to raise his arm. Mostly, he just opens and closes his hand.
He still hasn't addressed Chris or me as Dada and Mama, but I suppose that will come eventually. However, if he wakes up crying in his crib, he will often cry, "mamamama". Whether or not that's to get me to come get him, I'm not sure. He does sometimes mimic sounds, but no words yet.

 

For some reason, Peter is very excited in this picture. He likes to flap his arms quickly and squint his eyes when he's very excited. He's nothing if not enthusiastic.

 

Well, he's STILL not crawling, but he does manage to get around, nonetheless. He will turn and back up and roll. But for some reason he can't figure out how to crawl forward.

 

Peter was sick with a high fever recently. It worried me to see him so listless and to see him sleep so much! It's scary when it's your first kid to get sick for the first time. Anyway, right before I took him to the doctor, his fever finally broke. Still not sure what he had, because he had no other symptoms. I got sick a week later with a low grade fever and a persistent sore throat, but I'm not sure if we had the same thing.
The picture above is Peter on the second day, and feeling a little bit better but not totally well.

 

This is the day that Peter started pulling himself up to standing. We decided we needed to drop his crib down. He was enjoying peeking out at us through the bars. He has also recently started to sit up (finally!) on his own. So, another good reason to drop the crib.

 

Peter's habit of crawling backwards often results in his backing up underneath things. He frequently gets stuck under his dresser or chairs. Kinda funny, when he's still in good humor and not yet frustrated by his immobility.

 

I just love his smile in this picture. He's a happy boy at mealtimes. I believe this particular mealtime was grilled cheese with pureed veggies on the side. He still does not have interest in veggies in the finger food form. Hopefully with time he'll get the hang of it.

 

Peter backed up under a chair again.

 

...and again.

In other news, I got to go visit my parents this past month. It was a very short visit, but a good one. I decided not to bring Peter because of the whole pumping thing. And Chris didn't have very much time off to take care of Peter, so it was just over the weekend. It was very, very strange to be without my son for two whole days! I missed my guys, but I must say, I did get some good rest! No waking baby at 5:00 in the morning!

Chris recently started a rotation with Health and Human Services for 6 months. He has been working with the Office of Personnel Management for some time now, and has been enjoying the work and doing very well there. Hopefully he will enjoy his time with HHS. It is a little harder because they have a later schedule, so Chris gets home a little later. And Chris won't be able to work from home on Wednesdays as he has done with OPM. Oh well, it'll only be for six months.

9 months take two

Unfortunately, my first blog post on Peter reaching 9 months was mysteriously deleted, as if it never existed. So, I'll try it again.


Peter is still as chubby as ever, as you can see. He's not crawling, and therefore, not burning off any of the extra calories that he's consuming. :) Oh well. I think his chub suits him. He is starting to eat finger foods, although unless I feed them to him, he usually just plays with them, for some reason. Occasionally a piece of food will make it to his mouth, but only on rare occasions. I find this ironic, because he puts every things else in his mouth with which he comes into contact. Oh well. His favorite food at the moment is pasta with red sauce.


Peter exhibiting his joy of putting everything in his mouth. As this is our DVD remote, this particular joy didn't last very long.

Peter's 9 month appointment went pretty well. Only one shot, so that was great! He is in the 75th percentile across the board again. He weighs in at a whopping 22 lbs. At this point, we have given up his infant carrier because he's just SO heavy! And since he's now crawling or walking, we get to carry him around everywhere we go.

Peter's motor skills (aside from his good pincer grasp) is a little slow. He doesn't seem interested in becoming mobile in the slightest. He doesn't roll around, although I suspect this is because all his attention is focused on being upset about being on his back and belly. He rolls onto his side all the time, and even sleeps on his side lately, but that's about all the mobility he's got. If we put him on his belly and put a toy in front of him, he crawls backwards, which of course is very frustrating for him. If we just put him on the floor without any toys, he'll crawl in a circle. But, never forward. So, he continues to protest being on his belly. Being on his back is about equally repugnant to him. And since I'm a softie, I usually pick him up before he gets too frustrated. So, I suppose I'm to blame for his lack of mobility.

Peter has recently started to figure out clapping. He doesn't really make noise, but he brings his hands together in a repetive fashion. He particularly likes to clap when I am congratulating him on eating his vegetables. In fact, lately it seems if I don't congratulate him enough, he'll start to clap to get me going. Funny boy!

He has started to get over his stranger anxiety. I think we're raising a bit of a ham, because he is starting to give people big smiles again whenever we go out.

Sleeping is going much better, at long last! I was beginning to get worried that Peter would always be a short napper, but I guess that's not the case. He usually sleeps for about 2-3 hours a day, and usually wakes up only once a night (and sometimes not at all!). I am trying to wean him off his night bottle, because you only have to look at him to realize that he probably doesn't need the extra milk. I've been giving him smaller and smaller bottles, and I've got him down to 2 ounces at this point. But, he seems to like to play when he gets up. After I put him back down in his crib, he'll happily talk to himself for another half hour before falling asleep. Oh well.


Peter's fat little feet, with my long finger toes. I used to hate feet until I had Peter. His feet are just cute to me for some reason. I love how his toes don't even come over the pad of his feet--his feet are just so thick! Not sure how he's gonna walk on those things! :)


New haircut. This boy has inherited his father's hair. He has coarse hair that grows REALLY fast. This is his third haircut so far, and he's only 9 months. If I don't keep it short, it fluffs up in all directions, especially when his hair is newly washed and dried.


Peter with his new bunny. A gift from Chris's Aunt Margy. He loves it!

Lost pictures

I recently found some old pictures of Peter on our camera's internal memory. I think these may be from when Andrea was staying with us, because Peter looks a little jaundiced. Anyway, it's crazy to think that he was ever that little! I don't think he even looks the same anymore. I do miss some things about that stage. I just loved holding him all the time. Now he's not as snuggly. But he's definitely more interactive, which is very fun. It's so neat to see how much he's grown and developed since then.

Attempts at Photography

I wanted to take some pictures of Peter that I could display on our wall. Peter usually loves to smile at the camera, but I had a hard time getting him to focus. Later I realized that it had been a little too long since he'd last eaten, poor baby! Anyway, these are what I was able to get. The light was never quite what I was looking for, but some turned out cute anyway.

More Peter

Zonked out Peter. We wish he would do this more often. He is still struggling with his naps. His separation/stranger anxiety is making his naps difficult. He usually naps for 30 minutes at a time two or three times a day. He is sleeping fairly well through the night and usually only waking up once to eat. I worry that he's a little sleep deprived with his poor sleeping habits... I've been reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. In it, Dr. Weissbluth says that some kids are naturally short nappers. I wonder if that's true for Peter. My main concern is that it will affect his health and development adversely. Hopefully not, but it's easy to worry.


The habit of sucking in the lower lip. Kinda funny.


Momma was able to elicit a smile from Peter as he sucks on his lip. Cute, fat, fat, fat boy!

8 months

Jabbering Baby

Still no words yet. Unless you coun't the "dada"s that frequently slip out. But he's working on it. Somehow I managed to capture him jabbering in this video.