9 months Stats

OMG!!! I have a 9 month old! That means my baby is 75% through his first year of life and as he slowly portrays less of a baby and more of a toddler every day I notice I am not sure how much I like this growing up thing!! He is moving too fast!

So lets see where we are:

He is 17lbs even, 27 inches long my little man is tiny but umm so is his mommy....lol.

Food:

He is eating solids like a champ and has began eating more of what we eat and less purees (now that I have let go of my irrational fear of choking).

His favorite foods are:

cut up Bananas, cut up blueberries, sweat peas and yogurt. He will also drink water out of a cup we have not fully begin the weaning off a bottle process and probably will not until his formula intake lessons a little more. But we do plan to be off the bottle by a year. He has already self weaned off the pacifier which was a complete surprise.

Other Milestones:

He is cruising, crawling, sitting up, saying da da and ma ma, beginning to understand No and Yay! He also understands "come here" and will respond to his whole name "Alexander", his nickname "Alex" or the occasional first and middle name "Alexander Kelson" we have been alternating since birth so in hopes that he would not get confused lol. He will also respond to common pet names we may use for example I call him "stink" a lot. He is also standing on his for about 5 seconds. He loves to play games and is just such a fun baby!!! We are still waiting for him to start clapping and waving.

Separation/Stranger Anxiety:

He has this bad. I noticed over the last week he had been waking up at 2am didn't want a bottle or anything just wanted me or dad and he would instantly go back to sleep once he saw one of us. Pedi says this is a sign of separation anxiety and he is just waking to make sure he is still with us. She said it will go away in a few weeks. He also becomes super clingy when we are out and when people talk to him that he does not know.

After reading my friend Jins blog I was also inspired to create a list of my favorite things so far. So here are the top 7 from birth to now:

1. Fisher Price Little Lamb Swing- Alex loved this thing as an infant! Since he loved it I loved it. It was often a great way to settle him down on a particularly fussy day.

2. Moby Wrap/Ergo Carrier: I used our Moby A Lot until he was about 5 months now I use the Ergo. Both are great carriers and I use them almost daily for store runs or just moments when Alex simply wants to be held and I am trying to accomplish some other task.

3. Food Processor- I didn't get a baby food maker because I was not sure how much time I could commit to it but we have a great food processor my grandmother bought us. In the early baby food days it was great for purees. Now I use it a ton simply for everyday cooking needs.

4. Shopping Cart/Highchair cover- Alex is a teething machine and puts his mouth on everything! We have a cover we keep in the car and it has proven to be a life saver for moments Alex decides he wants to eat his cover or high chair.

5. Jumperoo-Alex still loves this thing and gets in it about 3 times week.

6. Sophie the Giraffe- we have a trillion teething toys but she is Alex's favorite and I actually had to replace it after I ruined the squeaker trying to sterilize it. I initially thought this was a ridiculously over priced toy but I could not imagine taking that thing from Alex we keep the broken one in the car and the good one in the house.

7. Evenflo Symphony 65- We switch Alex out of his infant seat about a month ago and I LOVE this seat. It received great ratings for safety, ease of use, and comfort. Alex loves being about to see out the window and I love how easy it is to install. I also love that it can be used RF, FF and as a high back booster. We received a lot of recommendations to go with Britax but I chose against it because this seat and the Evenflo triumph received similar if not better ratings in some places I looked and because we needed 2 seats because I always drop Alex at daycare and Amir often picks up I was not going to carry this seat in and out of daycare.

Things I hardly used...

A wipe warmer (I felt they dried out wipes, I usually just warm it in my hand a few seconds), The Extremely large Diaper Bag I own ( I love my Petunia Pickle Bottom bag a friend got me as a baby shower gift but, its huge. I use it mostly when we are going out of town for a few days. Other times I default to a tote coach bag that triples as a purse/diaper bag/ and work bag or I use Amirs smaller "manlier" diaper bag), a bottle warmer (Alex will drink bottles room temperature so I just keep bottled water out to mix formula. When he was still doing a night feeding I kept formula and water in our room.) Bottle sterilizer (I just use the medela microwave bags or go old school and boil).