9 Months Old

Curtis turned 9 months old last weekend.

This is the view of him I see most often: that cute little tushy crawling away from me.

If not that, he’s hanging on my legs.

But he sure is cute.

Curtis gave up his army crawl for the real thing at the end of May. Even before that, he was pulling up on things.

He has 2 bottom teeth. His top gums are pretty swollen today, so those top chompers might make their debut soon.

Father’s Day weekend, right in the middle of Grant’s graduation ceremonies (when I needed to be able to hand him off to other people), Curtis decided to start an extremely clingy to Mommy phase. He wouldn’t even let Grandma hold him! My easy-going little baby is not so easy to hand off anymore. He fusses for me with Grant, and he screams for me with other people.

Curtis is one smart cookie, and he really has an eye for trouble. As soon as he was mobile, he developed an eye for paper and electrical cords. We had a stack of old magazines on the bottom shelf of the fold-top desk that he went to whenever he got the chance. When I would find him there and say something like, “Curtis, what are you doing?” with an accusing tone, he would just laugh and quickly pull down as many magazines as he could before I could get to him. Sometimes, he even shakes his head before he does something naughty.

I’ve gotten to the point where I just always keep certain rooms closed because they might not be baby safe. For example, I have to keep the girls’ bathroom closed because he’s so obsessed with the bath that he pulls up to it and tries to climb in. I’ve caught him several times as he almost tipped into the empty tub head-first. He knows which rooms are “limited access” for him, and whenever he sees one of those doors open, he gets there in a flash!

He just had a well baby check up. He weighs 17lbs. He’s about 27.5 inches long. They didn’t tell me his head measurement, but he was so wiggly, I doubt it was accurate anyway. His height is in the 25th percentile, and his weight is just below the 25th percentile, which I think is pretty high for one of my babies at this age. It seems like the girls were always hanging below the 5th percentile for weight, but I’d have to check my records.

He loves to eat solid foods. The only problem we’ve had with feeding him solids is not knowing when to stop. He’s a little bird when you spoon feed him, and if you don’t do it fast enough, he might even screech at you. These days, he’s eating about 7-8 ounces of baby food at each meal. He’s a hungry boy!

His sleep is going well. A few weeks ago, I finally stopped sleepy nursing him when Grant and I go to bed late at night. I was so afraid if I took away that feeding, he’d be up in the night, demanding to be nursed like he did when I first tried to take away night feedings. But he actually transitioned fine. I realized I missed it a little because it was the only time I got to be with him when it was totally quiet—no noisy girls in the next room playing instead of going to sleep. I just got to sit and hold him in his dark, quiet room. That was our time. But that’s okay. Parenting is always such a funny tug-of-war between not being able to wait until your kids can do the next thing and longing for them to stop growing up so fast.

He usually sleeps through the night. Sometimes he wakes around 5 or 5:30, and instead of nursing him, I just give him a little snuggle and put him back in bed to let him know it isn’t time to get up yet. He wakes at 6 on the dot to nurse. Some days, he’ll go back to sleep until a little after 7, but those days are growing fewer.

Grant came and started throwing pillows at Curtis. Curtis attacked the pillows.

Love that smirk.

Curtis likes to attack me, too.

I love the look on his face. It’s like he’s saying, “See that, Daddy? She’s mine.”

(He has a lot to learn )

He’s so much fun!