9 months

Charlie is 9 months old! His personality continues to develop and show itself - reflecting that he's the same smiley guy he's been since day one. A joy every day.

He's getting closer to mobility. He did finally roll from his back to his front, after I found the perfect incentive - the tv remote control. He still doesn't roll either way with any enthusiasm or ease - he's not one of those babies who are rolling around all over the place. He doesn't stay in the same spot when you put him down, but his movement is from rocking back and forth and inching. When he's sitting, he falls forward now, since he's always stretching out so far to try to reach some interesting object (usually the dog or Zach's cars). He'll get up on one knee with the other crossed under him, close to the crawling stance, but that's about it.

This boy wants to stand. If you sit on the floor with him, he'll instantly reach for your hands so he can pull himself up. He stands in front of his "learning playground" for quite a while before he seems to get tired. Every once in a while he'll move his feet, but mostly he stands there and bounces. And speaking of bouncing, you should see this guy in the jumperoo!! I have video of that... someday I'll get it on the blog. He particularly loves it when we jump with him - he gets really loud and squeals as he jumps up and down.

Charlie's first tooth poked through on 1/4 in the typical spot - front and center on the bottom. And now the one right next to it has made an appearance too. Neither are particularly visible yet, but you sure can feel those sharp edges. He didn't have too tough of a time cutting them, fortunately for all of us. Now he just needs to grow some hair!

We finally stopped swaddling him when he's sleeping. He must do lots of kicking and wiggling, because now every morning when we get him out of his crib, his left foot is tucked inside the right leg of his pajamas. Since his pjs fit him pretty well, his calf ends up wedged across the crotch of the sleeper, which you would think wouldn't be comfortable. But every morning - same thing!

We've discovered Charlie is Zach's exact opposite is when it comes to drinking. We actually had to ration Zach's liquid intake until about a year ago - if you put a bottle/sippy cup/cup in front of him, he'd pick it up and would not put it down again until it was empty. And then he'd be too full to eat any actual food. We got a lot of funny looks from people when they'd hear us telling Zach he could not have any more milk. What kind of parents don't want their kids to drink a lot of milk??? Anyway... the same is not true of Charlie.

For a couple of months now, I've had to try to feed Charlie in the quietest, darkest places possible (which is not easy when Zach is around), even during the day, because he was so incredibly distractable. Once he had enough to take the edge off, anything was more interesting than nursing. Now he's almost weaned, and unfortunately the same is true of the bottle. I consider it a success if I can get him to drink 6 oz of formula. And that takes a while, since he drinks a little, pops his head up to see what's going on in the world, drinks a little more, head back up and swiveling, etc etc. It's a process, to say the least.

Basically, Charlie would prefer to eat his meals, not drink them. This goes against the advice of pediatricians, who say that the primary nutrition should still be breast milk/formula at this age. Charlie is currently eating solids at each meal, and he rarely is telling us he's had enough when we've run out of food. He loves food - there hasn't been anything he wouldn't eat, and eat happily. We go in for his well-baby check later this week - it'll be interesting to see what he weighs now!