Roman turned 9 months old this week and rung in his big birthday with yet another cold. I am not kidding, the poor guy has basically been sick since Thanksgiving. I sincerely hope this is the end of it! We had his 9 month checkup on Tuesday and he weighed in at 21 pounds 15 ounces (73rd percentile) and is 29 inches long (76th percentile). I suspect that he is actually taller than that, but he was wiggling a lot and they had a hard time measuring him. I thought he weighed a lot more (we were at Urgent Care last weekend and they said he was almost 23 pounds), but I can’t question a naked baby on a digital scale!
At 9 months he is really getting to be fun. He is constantly racing after his sister – I’ve never seen a baby crawl that fast! He is pulling up on everything and starting to cruise a bit, although he prefers to just crawl around and climb on Harper. He makes lots of noises but the only recognizable one is “dada.” He’s a great eater and eats mostly finger foods now, with a special preference for pesto noodles and Cheerios.
The good news is that he seems to have turned the corner in sleep habits. He is not the good sleeper that his sister was, which I think is partially our fault for travelling so much with him. I’m actually glad that we’re home now for a while – our next trip isn’t until the end of May when we leave for Europe. We’ve been home from Maine for almost two weeks and I’ve been concentrating on his sleep schedule. He is taking two solid naps a day, falls asleep on his own, and is in his crib from 7pm to about 7am. He still wakes up at least once most nights, but he’s better about falling back asleep after a small bottle. Occasionally we get lucky and he sleeps through the night. He has become really attached to his “mimi” (little lamb blanket) just like Harper, which thrills me because now he has a favorite comfort toy that he associates with sleep.
The only downside to having a 9 month old and a 2 year old in the Spring is that playing outside has new challenges. Since he isn’t walking yet, he crawls around the patio or the playground and is constantly eating leaves and dirt. I gave up on keeping him clean, and now I just try to keep him from eating anything dangerous! I’m very excited for him to start walking this summer – it will make our outside adventures much easier!
Harper continues to be more and more fun. Last weekend Portman took her to Toys R Us and invested in an inflatable pool. She spent all afternoon on Saturday in her bathing suit, despite the water being really cold!
