Since Nicholas was gypped out of a 9 month birthday, we will just consider today his birthday. This morning was his 9 month check-up at Greenvale. He is 28 3/4 inches long and 19 lbs, which puts him in the 75th and 50th percentiles. I was surprised by this, but Dr. Whitaker says this slow down in growth is completely normal. We are so very thankful that Nicholas has not been sick a day in his life, not even so much as diaper rash. I'm not going to completely contribute his good health to nursing, but I definitely think it is a huge benefit that I am still able to nurse. Besides the nutritional benefits, Gabe and I estimated that we have saved at least $1300 from not having to buy formula (we actually still have the formula that was given to us by the hospital).
Growth: Even though his growth seems to have slowed a bit, Nicholas already easily fits into 12 month clothes. He is wearing size 4 diapers and probably will remain that size for awhile. His hair is also getting longer and thicker.
Nutrition: This past month, we have introduced lunch and water at lunch and dinner. He is still trying to grasp the concept of the sippy cup, so we took out the filter from the cups to make the water flow a little better. He seems to like water. He still enjoys just about all food we give him except for one recently that had some meat in it. We also occasionally give Nicholas some Cheerios and Gerber yogurt melts. At first he would cough after swallowing it, but I think he's getting used to the texture. With 4 teeth up top and two on the bottom, he could definitely crunch some food.
Developments: Nicholas is now standing really well while playing with his Leap Frog play table, even going a few seconds without holding on to anything. When sitting in his crib he tries to pull himself up. The most recent development is his ability to go from sitting to the crawling position without taking a nose dive. Granted there were a few head bonks, but he's getting better and better at this by the day. Nicholas is much more talkative this month compared to last month. His vocabulary includes "ah", "ba", "ma", "na" and "da" (although we haven't really heard "da-da").
Cute Quirks: Nicholas constantly flicks his wrist with his hand in a fist. If he would just open up his hand, he could wave bye-bye like we've been teaching him. One that makes us laugh is when he is laying in his crib (either protesting to go to sleep or when he just wakes up) he will lift his legs in the air and then slam them down on the mattress. It's so loud that we can hear him in the living room without the monitor on. The cutest quirks are when he scrunches up his nose or sticks out his lower jaw like a bulldog when he's happy.
Nicholas has also started to react when certain things don't go his way - like if we take a toy away that he's not done playing with, etc. Granted he is mainly a laid back baby, but he does have his irritated moments.
So the saying "9 months on, 9 months off" as far as getting the baby weight off didn't apply to me. Of course I haven't exactly done much to get those last 10 pounds off. Apparently my desire to fit back into my old clothes wasn't enough incentive to exercise, so several weeks ago I decided to sign up for the Azalea Trail Run in Mobile. Granted this is just a 5k run, but at least this got me started and motivated to get back on the treadmill (on a regular basis).
Happy 9 Months Little Man!
