Tucker is 9 months!

Our little boy is 9 months! How did this happen? This has definitely been the fastest 9 months of my life. I think I've said this about the last couple of months, but I think 9 months might be my favorite age so far.  I think that just means that every age is the best and it just keeps getting better and better.  Here are his stats:


Weight: 22 lbs. 6 oz.  (75%)


Length: 29.5 inches (83%)

Head Circumference: 46.5 cm (80%)

• Eating: Tucker is still exclusively breast-fed but is also loving solid foods.  He typically nurses/bottles 5 times during the day (morning, mid-morning, lunch, mid-afternoon, before bed) and eats 3 meals.  He loves, loves, loves yogurt! I've also been making his baby food and freezing it in cubes.  His favorites are: squash, sweet potatoes, broccoli, green beans, carrots, bananas, pears, apples, peaches, and cauliflower.  I've tried chicken and he's not a huge fan of it (I think it's the texture).  He also loves finger foods like cottage cheese, shredded cheese, cheerios and I just tried scrambled eggs which he also seemed to like. As displayed by his plump cheeks and hefty weight, he is definitely a well-fed baby!

• Sleeping: He typically goes to sleep right around 7.  By that time, he's tired and happy to go to sleep.  He's really easy to put down, which I'm super thankful for.  We usually give him a bath, read books, he nurses and then we zip him in his sleep sack, give him his nuk and he falls asleep on his own.  He is an early riser though.  We all get up pretty early around here, but Tucker likes to get up really early like 3 or 4 a.m.  Sometimes he'll go back down without being fed and sleep till 5:30 but lately I've just been feeding him so we can all get some sleep.  Once he eats then, he'll usually go back down until 7:30 (or earlier on weekdays when I wake him to go). I guess it makes sense, by 4 a.m., he's already been out for 9 hours.  We've tried keeping him up a little later and it doesn't seem to make a difference, he's still up super early.  Oh well, it's just how it is and I'm sure eventually he'll stretch it out a little later.  

• Playing: This is probably the best thing about this age. He loves to play. He received tons of fun toys that make noise or play music for Christmas and he absolutely loves playing with them and dancing to the music.  He loves to play with toys and turn them around upside down (I think he's inspecting them to see how they work- future engineer? Probably. :))  Toys are great, but probably his favorite things are non-toys like the remote control for the TV, my glasses, my phone, the computer, coasters, bowls, spoons, etc.  He loves music and we have some fun CDs that we love to jam to in the car and home. He dances and waits for you to dance with him.  He also loves to "read" books. He flips through them super fast and loves to look at the pictures.  It's amazing to me that he already has his favorite books and prefers reading particular books.

• Development:  Tucker is almost crawling.  He gets up on all fours and can move backwards.  He almost goes forward and when he does it looks more like the "worm" (the dance move) then crawling.  He loves standing up next to the couch but isn't quite able to pull himself up yet on his own but is getting really close. He is doing tons of mimicking.  He mimics noises we make like blowing raspberries or clicking our tongues or bababa and dadada.   He is also waving and loves to shake his head back and forth and encourages you to do the same with you.  It blows my mind how quickly he is learning new things every single day.  

Our future basketball star:

9 months also marked Tucker's first time getting sick. :(  He's had a couple of colds, but this was definitely more.  We spent New Year's weekend in Door County with Jared's family and Tucker had a cough that got increasingly worse with lots of congestion.  When we got back home, he was really fussy, not wanting to eat much and eventually ended up throwing up the night before I was supposed to go back to work.  It also turned out that I had strep (again-2nd time in the last month!).  So we both spent that first day home sick together.  It ended up being coincidental that his 9 month check up was the next day, so Grandma Lauri stayed with Tucker that day so we could go back to work and when we took him into the doctor after school, she determined he had an ear infection. And since he'd been exposed to strep from he, she put him on an antibiotic to hopefully kill anything he might have.  Since he's been on it, he's definitely happier, eating much more again, and seems to be on the mend.  It's stressful having a sick baby- you feel so bad because you don't know what they need.