Morrison turned 9 months old 2 weeks and 1 day ago. So this post isn’t that late, right?
We finally had his next well check that same week, so here are his official 9 month numbers:
- Height: 29.2″ (82%)
- Weight: 20 lbs. 3 oz. (59%)
- Head: 47 cm (94%)
- BMI: 17 kg/m2 (46%)
So although I keep thinking we have this huge baby, judging by his percentiles, we really don’t. Only 59% for weight, which seems so low to me. Ah well. The doctor said everything looked good, so I won’t question things.
He pulls himself up to stand on everything with ease, which leads me to believe walking will start happening sooner than later. He’s been standing for a while now, though, so who knows whether he’ll really walk soon or not. He crawls at the speed of light and has been known to totally destroy something in a matter of seconds when I turn my back. Nothing major, mind you, usually just knocking over a pile of magazines or pulling up half the letter and number mats the kids play on. And since I refuse to babyproof everything, he just hears “No,” “Morrison, stop that,” and “get down” a lot. He’ll learn. Surprisingly, he has already begun to obey those simple orders of where and where not to grab stuff.
Fortunately he loves to sit and play with his toys for good chunks of time, whether in his playpen or just out and about. And books! Oh, how he loves to “read” books, and Cookie Monster has become his particular favorite. We have this one Cookie Monster book that he grabs off the bookshelf in the girls’ room almost every time he goes in there. I finally pulled the basket of baby board books we have out of the corner of their room so it’s more accessible for him to dig through. He’ll put each of his toys in his mouth, apparently seeing which ones induce the best amount of slobber. You’ll often hear him chattering and “singing” to everything, too. Quite entertaining to watch that little head play and decide what to do next.
He is a fantastic eater. I just finished off his last round of premade and blended up oatmeal the other day, and I think from now on I won’t even need to make any baby food at all. He pretty much eats everything the girls do, except honey. For example, for lunch today he and Lana both had macaroni and cheese and pineapple. And last week when I took the girls to swim lessons one evening, Ryan said he ate an entire hot dog, a pickle, and a whole piece of string cheese for dinner. In tiny pieces, of course. He still gets 4 bottles of formula daily, and each one is 8 oz. (he usually drinks the whole thing) – 1 when he wakes up in the morning, 1 mid-morning, 1 mid-afternoon after his nap, and 1 at bedtime.
His naps are still solid. Almost every day he takes a morning nap, although he has been forgoing that on the walk to school for the past couple days. However, his afternoon nap is still usually reliable, lasting 2-3 hours. Evening naps have been gone for a while now.
And dear universe, please don’t curse me for saying this, but I think he finally figured out how to sleep through the night!! Wait, that needs more exclamation points. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He slept through the entire night without waking even once for a quick pacifier plug the night before his 9 month birthday, and that was the first time he had slept the whole night in his life. And thankfully, since then, he has slept through I think almost every night. His cries for a pacifier are becoming fewer and farther between, which is great. When he does do it, all he needs is his pacifier and he literally falls over and goes right back to sleep, but that’s still a time that I have to wake up and do something out of bed. So when I don’t have to do that, I’m much happier. That whole lack of sleep thing, woof.
So there you have it. This little guy is quickly becoming one of the kids, as much as I’d love him to stay a baby forever. It’s almost hard for me to remember his very early infant days, which sounds ridiculous since they were so relatively recent. I think that being busier with my editing work, driving across the country within his first month, and feeling like life just went right back to normal after his birth kind of took away that magical “new baby” feeling, which seems unfair to him. But I’m trying to make up for that now, and he is a fun one to play along with, that’s for sure. You’ll never see more smiles and silly faces than on Morrison John Rau.
The posterity stats – clothes are almost all size 12 months, daytime diapers are size 3, overnight diapers are size 4. He has 8 teeth – 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom. Perfect for eating hot dogs. Here is Lana’s 9 month post for a comparison as well. And, as always, the trifecta of Goonies – Della, Lana, Morrison. I still see no resemblance among them whatsoever.
