IJG is 9 months old!

4.6.10

Shortly after turning 8 months old IJG was able to sit up from a laying down position. That freaked me out because normally I would not sit him in the middle of the kitchen, on hard tile, but now he can crawl anywhere and sit up on his own. He also began proper crawling a couple weeks ago, but seems to prefer army crawling and has been back to doing it almost exclusively to get around. His current obsession is to pull up to standing by holding onto anything he can reach. In his room he pulls up with the window sill, bookshelf, side table, gate across his door, and outside and inside of the crib. He also likes to stand up and look into the tub in the bathroom. He is beginning to take a few steps once he stands up.

He is babbling about the same as last month. This month he found his tongue. He spent a couple weeks with it always hanging out of his mouth. Recently he learned to blow bubbles and spit everywhere. He is enjoying that. He has started laughing when he finds things funny (not just when we tickle him or are laughing ourselves). He now laughs for random things he gets a kick out of. Sometimes while on walks, while I'm wearing him, he will just start laughing for no apparent reason.

IJG seems to have quite a temper. He can go from zero to inconsolable screaming fit in 5 seconds if we take something away from him, wipe his face, or keep him from doing something he wants to do. His teacher at school has told me that if another baby takes the toy he's playing with, he will go after them and take it back.

He is also starting to act shy around strangers. Even when I take him to school in the morning and his teacher speaks to him, he will put his head against my chest and suck his thumb.

IJG is still breastfeeding five times a day and eating solids three times a day. He is still eating pureed or mashed foods. I tried finger foods and chunkier foods and he doesn’t seem to be ready. New foods this month include egg, broccoli, soybeans, garbanzo beans, blackberries, kiwi, cinnamon, and cumin. IJG might have developed an egg allergy. After having egg a few times, he threw up the last two times he has had it.

He hasn’t had much interest in drinking water from the sippy cup so I’m now trying it with milk so he can get used to it and start using it instead of a bottle at school.

His eating and sleeping schedule is about the same as last month, although his morning nap is getting shorter and I’m looking forward to getting rid of it completely. He often only sleeps for 30 minutes in the morning. I’m still struggling with keeping him up in the evening late enough so that he will sleep past 5:30 am. He gets very tired and cranky by 7:30 pm but he needs to stay up later if he is going to sleep till 6:30 am as I’d like. He often sleeps 8:00 pm – 5:30 am. He sleeps through the night consistently unless he is sick. He used to talk to himself and stay calm for a bit in the morning. Now it seems like he wakes and screams. He also stands in his crib which isn’t safe because he falls.

IJG has been sick twice this month. The first time he had a fever for several days and once he seemed better, he developed an ear infection for a few days. The last time he had a mild cold which also turned into an ear infection that bothered him for about a day. He also had his first "bloody" injury this month. After learning to stand by holding the gate across his doorway, he fell and cut the inside of his mouth open from his tooth.

This month's chair pic was not easy to take. IJG is constantly on the move...


the TONGUE

3.12.10

standing

4.4.10